238 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE -XIX 



with leaders in every field of worthy activity. It was 

 interesting from time to time to look over the official lists 

 of his guests at breakfast, or luncheon, or dinner, or sup 

 per, or at military exercises, or at the theater; for they 

 usually embraced men noted in civil, ecclesiastical, or 

 military affairs, in literature, science, art, commerce, or 

 industry from every nation. One class was conspicuous 

 by its absence at all such gatherings, large or small; 

 namely, the merely rich. Kich men there were, but they 

 were always men who had done something of marked 

 value to their country or to mankind ; for the mere l fatty 

 tumors of the financial world he evidently cared nothing. 



A special characteristic in the German ruler is inde 

 pendence of thought. This quality should not be con 

 founded, as it often is, with mere offhand decision based 

 upon prejudices or whimsies. One example, which I 

 have given elsewhere, may be here referred to as showing 

 that his rapid judgments are based upon clear insight: 

 his own insight, and not that of others. On my giving him 

 news of the destruction of the Maine at Havana, he at once 

 asked me whether the explosion was from the outside; 

 and from first to last, against the opinions of his admirals 

 and captains, insisted that it must have been so. 



He is certainly, in the opinion of all who know him, im 

 pulsiveindeed, a very large proportion of his acts which 

 strike the attention of the world seem the result of im 

 pulse; but, as a rule, it will be found that beneath these 

 impulses is a calm judgment. Even when this seems not 

 to be the case, they are likely to appeal all the more 

 strongly to humanity at large. Typical was his impulsive 

 proposal to make up to the Regent of Bavaria the art 

 appropriation denied by sundry unpatriotic bigots. Its 

 immediate result was a temporary triumph for the com 

 mon enemy, but it certainly drew to the Emperor the 

 hearts of an immense number of people, not only inside, 

 but outside his empire ; and, in the long run, it will doubt 

 less be found to have wrought powerfully for right rea 

 son. As an example of an utterance of his which to many 



