MY RECOLLECTIONS OF WILLIAM 11-1879-1903 225 



ments. During the first years of my stay he was erect 

 ing the thirty-two historical groups on the Avenue of Vic 

 tory in the Thiergarten, near my house. My walks took 

 me frequently by them, and they interested me, not merely 

 by their execution, but by their historical purpose, com 

 memorating as they do the services of his predecessors, 

 and of the strongest men who made their reigns signifi 

 cant during nearly a thousand years. He was always 

 ready to discuss these works at length, whether from the 

 artistic, historical, or educational point of view. Not only 

 to me, but to my wife he insisted on their value as a means 

 of arousing intelligent patriotism in children and youth. 

 He dwelt with pride on the large number of gifted sculp 

 tors in his realm, and his comments on their work were 

 worth listening to. He himself has artistic gifts which in 

 his earlier days were shown by at least one specimen 

 of his work as a painter in the Berlin Annual Exhibition ; 

 and in the window of a silversmith s shop on the Linden 

 I once saw a prize cup for a yacht contest showing much 

 skill in invention and beauty in form, while near it hung 

 the pencil drawing for it in his own hand. 



His knowledge of music and love for it have been re 

 ferred to elsewhere in these chapters. Noteworthy was 

 it that his feeling was not at all for music of a thin, showy 

 sort; he seemed to be touched by none of the prevailing 

 fashions, but to cherish a profound love for the really 

 great things in music. This was often shown, as, for ex 

 ample, at the concert at Potsdam to which he invited Presi 

 dent and Mrs. Harrison, and in his comments upon the 

 pieces then executed. But the most striking evidence of 

 it was the music in the Eoyal Chapel. It has been given 

 me to hear more than once the best music of the Sistine, 

 Pauline, and Lateran choirs at Kome, of the three great 

 choirs at St. Petersburg, of the chorus at Bayreuth, and 

 of other well-known assemblages under high musical di 

 rection; but the cathedral choir at Berlin, in its best ef 

 forts, surpassed any of these, and the music, both instru 

 mental and choral, which reverberates under the dome 



II. 15 



