AS AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY- 1897-1903 139 



on German characteristics, and one of his remarks sur 

 prised me : it was that the besetting sin of the Germans is 

 envy (Neid) ; in which remark one may see a curious trib 

 ute to the tenacity of the race, since Tacitus justified a 

 similar opinion. He seemed rather melancholy ; but he had 

 a way of saying pungent things very effectively, and one 

 of these attributed to him became widely known. He was 

 publicly advocating a hotly contested canal bill, when an 

 opponent said, &quot;You will find a solid rock in the way of 

 this measure &quot;; to which the chancellor rejoined, &quot;We will 

 then do with the rock as Moses did: we will smite it and 

 get water for our canal. 



As to the next visit of importance, I was especially glad 

 to find at the Foreign Office the newly appointed minister, 

 Baron (now Count) von Billow. During the first part of 

 my former stay, as minister, I had done business at the 

 Foreign Office with his father, and found him in every re 

 spect a most congenial representative of the German 

 Government. It now appeared that father and son were 

 amazingly like each other, not only in personal manner, 

 but in their mode of dealing with public affairs. With the 

 multitude of trying questions which pressed upon me as 

 ambassador during nearly six years, it hardly seems pos 

 sible that I should be still alive were it not for the genial, 

 hearty intercourse, at the Foreign Office and elsewhere, 

 with Count von Billow. Sundry German papers, indeed, 

 attacked him as yielding to much to me, and sundry 

 American papers attacked me for yielding too much to 

 him ; but both of us exerted ourselves to do the best pos 

 sible, each for his own country, and at the same time to 

 preserve peace and increase good feeling. 



Interesting was it to me, from my first to my last days 

 in Berlin, to watch him in the discharge of his great duties, 

 especially in his dealings with hostile forces in Parliament. 

 No contrast could be more marked than that between his 

 manner and that of his great predecessor, the iron chan 

 cellor. To begin with, no personalities could be more un 

 like. In the place of an old man, big, rumbling, heavy, 



