It is possible that the Emperor had a presentiment of some kind that his life was now in danger, and that the presentiment may have attuned his thoughts to meditation on Christ’s life and teaching; for it is a fact, well worthy of remark, that in the fear of death man’s one and only relief and consolation is the knowledge that there was, and is, a mediator for him with his Creator.  The address at his sons’ confirmation was delivered on October 17th, and on Sunday morning, November 8th all the world, it is hardly too much to say, was astonished and pained to learn, by a publication in the Official Gazette, that the Emperor the day before had had to submit to a serious operation on his throat.  The announcement spoke of a polypus, or fungoid growth, which had had to be removed; but all over the world the conclusion was come to that the mortal affliction of the father had fallen on the son and that the Emperor was a doomed man.  Most providentially and happily it was nothing of the sort.  On the 9th the Emperor was out of bed and signing official papers, on the 15th he was allowed to talk in whispers, and on the 17th it was declared by the physicians that all danger was over and that no more bulletins would be issued.  On December 14th the Emperor received a congratulatory visit from the President of the Reichstag, who reported to Parliament his impression that “the Emperor had completely recovered his old vigour (great applause) and that his voice was again clear and strong.”

The Emperor had passed through what one may suppose to have been the darkest hour of his life.  He was naturally in high spirits, and a few days after went to Hannover, where he made a martial speech in which he toasted the German Legion for having “by its unforgettable heroism, in conjunction with Bluecher and his Prussians, saved the English army from destruction at Waterloo,” a view, of course, which to an Englishman has all the charm of novelty.

One or two further memorable incidents of 1903 may be recorded.  Theodore Mommsen, the now aged historian of Rome, the greatest scholar of his time, died in November.  He was in his day a Liberal parliamentarian of no mean ability; but for such men there is no career in Germany.  However, as it turned out, the German people’s loss proved to be all the world’s gain.  A son of the historian now represents a district of Berlin in the Reichstag.  Two years before the historian’s death an exchange of telegrams in Latin took place between him and the Emperor.  The occasion was the Emperor’s laying the foundation-stone of a museum on the plateau where the old Roman castle, known as the Saalburg, stands.  The Emperor telegraphed: 

“Theodoro Mommseno, antiquitatum romanarum investigatori incomparabili, praetorii Saalburgensis fundamenta jaciens salutem dicit et gratias agit Guilelmus Germanorum Imperator.”

To which the historian, with a modesty equal to his courtesy, replied:  “Germanorum principi, tam majestate quam humanitate, gratias agit antiquarius Lietzelburgensis.”