AS AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY 1897-1903 137 



It had been brought to light and published by the present 

 Emperor, and after the performance some one of the party 

 remarked, in a jocose way, &quot;You should express our 

 thanks to his Majesty, when you meet him, for the pleasure 

 which this music has given us. I thought nothing more 

 of the subject until, just at the close of the conversation 

 above referred to, it came into my mind ; and on my men 

 tioning it the Emperor showed at once a special interest, 

 discussing the music from various points of view ; and on 

 my telling him that we were all surprised that it was not 

 amateurish, but really profound in its harmonies and 

 beautiful in its melodies, he dwelt upon the musical debt 

 of Frederick the Great to Bach and the special influence of 

 Bach upon him. This conversation recurred to me later, 

 when the Emperor, in erecting the statue to Frederick the 

 Great on the Avenue of Victory, placed on one side of it 

 the bust of Marshal Schwerin, and on the other that of 

 Johann Sebastian Bach, thus honoring the two men whom 

 he considered most important during Frederick s reign. 



After presenting my embassy secretaries and attaches, 

 military and naval, I was conducted with them into the 

 presence of the Empress, who won all our hearts by her 

 kindly, unaffected greeting. On my recalling her entrance 

 into Berlin as a bride, in her great glass coach, seventeen 

 years before, on one of the coldest days I ever knew, she 

 gave amusing details of her stately progress down the Lin 

 den on that occasion ; and in response to my congratula 

 tions upon her six fine boys and her really charming little 

 daughter, it was pleasant to see how 



&quot; One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,&quot; 



her eyes lighting up with pride and joy, and her conversa 

 tion gladly turning to the children. 



It may be added here that the present Empress seems 

 to have broken the unfortunate spell which for about half 

 a century hung over the queens and empresses of the 

 house of Hohenzollern. I remember well that, among the 



