230 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XIX 



ously absent, as a rule, from our American cities. While 

 his capital preserves its self-governing powers, it is clear 

 that he purposes to have his full say as to everything 

 within his jurisdiction. There were various examples 

 of this, and one of them especially interested me: the 

 renovation of the Thiergarten. This great park, virtually 

 a gift of the Hohenzollern monarchs, which once lay upon 

 the borders of the city, but is now in the very heart of 

 it, had gradually fallen far short of what it should have 

 been. Even during my earlier stays in Berlin it was un 

 derstood that some of his predecessors, and especially his 

 father, had desired to change its copse-like and swampy 

 character and give it more of the features of a stately 

 park, but that popular opposition to any such change had 

 always shown itself too bitter and uncompromising. This 

 seemed a great pity, for while there were some fine trees, 

 a great majority of them were so crowded together that 

 there was no chance of broad, free growth either for trees 

 or for shrubbery. There was nothing of that exquisitely 

 beautiful play, upon expanses of green turf, of light and 

 shade through wide-expanded boughs and broad masses 

 of foliage, which gives such delight in any of the finer 

 English or American parks. Down to about half a dozen 

 years since it had apparently been thought best not to in 

 terfere, and even when attention was called to the dark, 

 swampy characteristics of much of the Thiergarten, the 

 answer was that it was best to humor the Berliners ; but 

 about the beginning of my recent stay the young Em 

 peror intervened with decision and force, his work was 

 thorough, and as my windows looked out over one corner 

 of this field of his operations, their progress interested 

 me, and they were alluded to from time to time in our 

 conversations. Interesting was it to note that his energy 

 was all-sufficient; the Berliners seemed to regard his ac 

 tivity as Arabs regard a sand-storm, as predestined and 

 irresistible, and the universal verdict now justifies his 

 course, both on sanitary and artistic grounds. 



The same thing may be said, on the whole, of the in- 



