sorely tried army, enduring hardships | ceive handsome salaries; splendid emoluwith the courage of an adolescent; we ments rain down on the worthy; the day have seen the crown-prince sharing com- for small economies is over; the fathermon perils with the common soldier: we land has to be "represented," and the have seen all the available princes of the country of the milliards must show itself blood fighting, marching, watching, endur- great in all directions. ing, conquering, and dying side by side with the peasant; rained upon, snowed upon, hailed upon, stormed at by shot and shell, travelled - stained, blood-stained, mud - bespattered, war - betattered, not mere "men with muskets" but soldiers to the backbone, one and all, prince, peer, and peasant, willing to die for the fatherland.

It is little understood or realized in England that pomp and circumstance illustrate at Berlin the glories of the new empire after a brilliant fashion. There is, indeed, not one court, but many; not only the emperor and the prince imperial, but all the other princes of the house of Hohenzollern keep up official state, whereof the exponents are gorgeous uniforms, True valour, not rash daring, patient resplendent liveries, showy equipages, and endurance, not foolhardy escapades, brilliant entertainments. We may think steadfastness of heart and stability of how dull by comparison our deserted mind, inspired these men who stood up quasi-republican capital appears in the to fight for their belief, to die for what eyes that prize pomp and pageantry, and they thought the justice of their cause. how strange the utter absence of all offiNot the light Greek fire of inflammable cial glitter and grandeur to those accusenthusiasm, such as caught the boule- tomed to the presence of a court. We vards one day in July, and set all Paris take our German friends to the Horse like straw blazing; but the deep volcanic Guards (all we have of magnificence to fire of conviction, long smouldering, dark- show), and point out the imposing appearly hidden, portentous, unquenchable, un-ance of our household troops. "Have less, indeed, by crimson seas yet to flow. you ever seen our gardes du corps?" is It is supremely characteristic of the gen- the only comment; "splendid giants, ius of the two nations, that whilst the mounted on huge chargers, wearing a French were hysterically shrieking "A classic silver helmet, crested with eagles' Berlin! falling upon each other's necks, wings, a dazzling silver cuirass, and justeand vowing to celebrate their emperor's au-corps of 'white samite, mystic, wonderbirthday in the palaces of Prussia, the ful?" You perhaps say no. "Ah then, Geman polished his arms, sang his indeed!" replies your Prussian friend, as Watch on the Rhine," said no word one who makes allowances for your ignoof Paris, and before many months were rant worship. The modern German is over crowned his gallant old king em- likely to become a thorn in the flesh of peror in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. humanity at large, not because he is vicThis is the history of the German army; torious, but because he is forever blowing all honour to it and to those who led it on the blast of his victories on the trumpet of to victory. fame. The braying of that brazen instruIn civil life, it was in old days the ment is, of necessity, not so sweet in his pride of the Prussian official that he neighbours' ears as in his own; yet should lived narrowly; that only by a close econ- you venture to remonstrate, he will fix a omy was he able to make those two pro- quarrel upon you, and you will have abverbial ends meet which is such a desir- jectly to ask him to continue his melodious able result in domestic economy. Parsi- strain. It is not enough that his country mony was his pride; his private econo- has become one of the great powers of mies went to enrich the coffers of the Europe, he wants you to say that it is the State, and his patriotism was of the type greatest. Success is so sweet to him, of which Virgil says, "The noblest mo- power so new, triumph so intoxicating, tive was the public good." For him a and the old radical dream of a united dinner of Spartan broth, and the mens fatherland realized, he himself hardly conscia recti therewith, was better than knows how, in Bismarcko-Imperialism is all the fleshpots of the fatherland unsea- such a bewildering experience, that he soned by the antique virtues. The Fa- stands on the highway, pistol in hand, and bricius type is, alas! extinct, gold-scorners exacts your admiration or your life. It is impossible, and the austerity of Cincin- not enough that you have at an earlier natus a thing of the past. Imperialism stage of the journey already paid your obliges, and ostentation is now the order tribute of admiration; you must pay it of the day. Representative officials re- again. You are to go on admiring; your VOL. XIII. 627

LIVING AGE.

awe and your respect are to become vo- | future ages colossal, momentous, immorcal; if you are not loudly, consistently, tal. He, the greatest, comes home to the persistently with the fatherland, you are smallest, to men's business and bosoms in against it. It is by sufferance that your humble vehicle rolls along the emperor's highway; get out and grovel, then all shall be well with you; resist, and you shall be torn out of your coach, and the great jackboots will kick you ignominiously into space, and the big man will go his swaggering way with a grim smile behind his tawny moustache, as one who exterminates the lively pertinacious pulex irritans, otherwise sublimely big and indifferent.

The crumpled roseleaf on Germany's bed of glory is, that she cannot get every other nation to admire her as much as she admires herself; and in her present egotistical attitude would fain extract what she covets, if not otherwise, then à force d'armes.

It is this uneasy tone, this monopoly of adulation, this exacting, suspicious restlessness, that tells tales of the fever of ambition pulsing through every vein of the new system. Fever has a false strength that looks to the sound man much like health; let him look again, and in the glare of the patient's eye he will see evidences of the distempered blood, and will be careful to soothe rather than to irritate. When we speak of the one crumpled roseleaf in Prussia's bed, we speak hyperbolically. Hers is no rosestrewn couch; on the contrary, it is, as those who know her best, best know, an uneasy bed; a bed that will have to be made again and again, lucky if at last it become a place of rest. To leave metaphor- her extent of frontier is immense; she will yet need all that is best in her

a special manner; the likeness of him hangs in the humblest hut; but for him Hans and Michel had not laid down their lives in French mire and clay; but for him food were not so dear, nor widows so many, nor wives so few; but for him, taxes had not been so rigorous, nor money so scarce. Yet, he is the idol of the populace-of that populace which, erewhile, stoned, lampooned, caricatured, and reviled him; of that populace that was nothing more than mud-seas at his feet, on the vast field of the fatherland.

Now he reigns supreme; the contempt he once showed for them is become the enemy's portion; the people are grown his willing instruments; he has known how to read the signs of the times, to seize the chances of the moment, to wield and to weld; to mould the old order of things into a new order; to root out the republican rabies; to crush down the radical spirit; to grasp the national mind; to hold the nation's heart; to venture, to succeed, to dare; and to do. The national vanity, the popular pride, have been flattered by his miraculous successes; surely a grateful people will foster their hero. Their good old emperor is well enough, but even he had not been but for Bismarck. He, gallant old gentleman, has scruples, hesitations, tendernesses of conscience, regrets; is not much other than any private man-him we do not specially care to go out and greet. As for princes, clothed in soft raiment, dwelling in kings' palaces, their name is legion; but this man, der Einzige, the only one, unique ; his like not again to be seen this side of best men. At any moment Bavaria may eternity; a prophet, and more than a break away. Hanover harbours resent- prophet-him we will worship, before ment; Scandinavia hates her for her ruth-him we will fall down. A gigantic mass less want of faith; it is known that the of all that makes manhood, he carries a coming czar is intensely anti-Prussian, and that the long lists of German names filling distinguished positions in army and State are offensive, beyond any present possibility of expression, to a very large party in Russia. Alsace and Lorraine have, as Elsass and Lothringen, to be kept under, and increasing vigilance must inspire fear where no love is.

When we speak of the German of the present day, we have all of us, unconsciously, the grand modern prototype in our minds -the man of blood and iron; the Hammer-man; the Thunderer; the Baresark; the Bismarck- the great typical heroic figure, that will go down to

high look with him; fire and reality, as well as blood and iron, are in that great figure and big brain. He speaks, and it is as though the king of beasts sent his leonine roar before him through the forests of which he is lord. That orator, erst so eloquent, seems now but froth and fribble; the attempted epigram of the penultimate patriot dwindles into mere spite; prudence becomes pedantry; warning, the mumblings of blind senile leaders of the blind; threat, the mere futile squeak of peevish incompetence. The little sneers have struck too low, they fall unheeded at his feet; he will not stoop to notice them; let them lie: but from his height, god

If there was one point upon which Kate Travers was more specially sensitive than another it was on the respect she thought she deserved. Naturally of a sunny disposition and easy temper, loving pleasure, and luxury, and beauty with a certain amount of graceful indolence, which in prosperous times entirely masked the

against the day of need, she never dreamed any one would suspect her of the fleshy weaknesses to which others were liable; she knew the childlike purity of her own life, and suspected that the long winter of such chilling circumstances as hers had been, might have had a hardening influence on her nature; but she shrank from a disrespectful word as from a blow, and had her knowledge of men been equal to her knowledge of books, she would no doubt have resisted the temptation to play with the grave surprised admiration evinced by Galbraith lest it might lead to unpleasant results.

like, dæmonic, he will pour forth his lava- | self "and the good-looking young vagastream of scathing eloquence, which, by bond connected with the press." mere attraction of gravitation, reaches its destination in the infinite flats beneath him. This stinging tongue, this arrogant intellect, this ruthless will, this keen daring, and restless ambition, what are they but the outcome of the age? In him you see the typical German; the guerre-man, the war-man; the gar-man- the whole man; nay, rather a demigod unfathoma-strong will and untiring energy stored up ble, terrible. There is, in all modern history, no figure like this figure, no mind like this mind, unless it be the brief apparition of a Mirabeau on a background of unaccomplished destiny. A man for men to fear; for women to love; for, beside that primeval titanic force, there dwells another man in him in strange and striking contrast with the Briareus of the tribune a gentle, genial, human-hearted man; witty, winning; loving the soft sound of women's voices, the beauty of bright eyes, the prattle of children, the yellowing woods, the setting sun. A Triton, indeed, but not amongst minnows. "No great general," says Froude, "ever arose out of a nation of cowards, no great statesman out of a nation of fools." That the mute Moltkes and bashful Bismarcks of the fatherland are many, we may be sure; but history is careful only of the type. Looking at such a man as this, surrounded by such men as these, we, who are but spectators of the drama, are almost tempted, since finite man cannot go on infinitely, to re-echo the prayer of Paracelsus, and cry: "Make no more giants, God, but elevate the race at once!"

From Temple Bar.

HER DEAREST FOE.

CHAPTER XX.

It would not be easy to disentangle and define the mixed feelings which brought the bright colour to Kate Travers's cheek, and made her heart beat indignantly as she perused the foregoing effusion. She scarcely herself knew why Mr. Ford's pretensions were so peculiarly offensive, nor did she take the trouble of inquiring, but had that devoted friend been within reach he would have received a crushing rejoinder. The passage about Sir Hugh Galbraith annoyed and yet amused her. She had now grown tolerably familiar with his modes of thought and expression, and she could well picture the quiet profound scorn with which he had spoken of her

Now she could not draw back without a display of stiffness and a change of tone which might lead to awkward explanations, and as her enemy progressed towards complete recovery, she told herself that it did not matter, he would soon be gone, and not remember much about the adventure until she reopened the will-case and defeated him. Then, indeed, their present acquaintance might lead to his accepting some portion of the property he had so long considered his inheritance, for after the friendly intercourse they had held, she never could contemplate robbing him of everything.

These thoughts flitted through her brain in and out of her daily routine of answering inquiries and matching colours, finding patterns and making out bills. It had been a busy and a profitable day, but although the lengthening evenings tempted many to keep their shops open later, the shutters of the Berlin Bazaar were always up at seven. The sweet repose of the after-hours was too precious to be curtailed even for the chance of a trifle more profit. On this particular evening - the one following her first perusal of Ford's letter Mrs. Temple was considerably bored by a summons from Dr. Slade to speak to him in the best sitting-room, as tea was being laid in the shop-parlour.

"Well, Mrs. Temple, I suspect you will soon lose your tenant, and I dare say you will not regret him," cried the doctor, who looked rather displeased as he stood by the

"A tale of woe!" exclaimed that young who, in her present state of spirits, was lady; "and in the kitchen? What took | irrepressible.