In public, whether mounted or on foot, he preserves the somewhat stern air he evidently thinks appropriate to his high station, but more frequently than formerly the features relax into a pleasant smile.  The colour of the face is healthy, tending to rosiness, and the general impression given is that of a clever man, conscious, yet not overconscious, of his dignity.  The shortness of the left arm, a defect from birth, is hardly noticeable.

The extirpation of a polypus from the Emperor’s throat in 1903, which must have been one of the severest trials of his life when the history of his father’s mortal illness is remembered, might lead one to suppose that his vocal organs would always suffer from the effects of the operation.  It has fortunately turned out otherwise.  His voice was originally strong by nature, and remains so.  It never seems tired, even when, as it often does, it pleases him to read aloud for his own pleasure or that of a circle of friends.  It frequently occurs that he will pick up a book, one of his ancient favourites, Horace or Homer perhaps, Mr. Stewart Houston Chamberlain’s “Foundations of the Nineteenth Century”—­a work he greatly admires—­or a modern publication he has read of in the papers, and read aloud from it for an hour or an hour and a half at a time.  Nor is his reading aloud confined to classical or German books.  He is equally disposed to choose works in English or French or Italian, and when he reads these he is fond of doing so with a particularly clear and distinct enunciation, partly as practice for himself, and partly that his hearers may understand with certainty.  This is not all, for there invariably follows a discussion upon what has been read, and in it the Emperor takes a constant and often emphatic part.  It has been remarked that at the close of the longest sitting of this character his voice is as strong and sonorous as at the beginning.

He is still the early riser and hard worker he has always been; still devotes the greater part of his time to the duties that fall to him as War Lord; still races about the Empire by train or motor-car, reviewing troops, laying foundation-stones, unveiling statues, dedicating churches, attending manoeuvres, encouraging yachting at Kiel by his presence during the yachting week, or hurrying off to meet the monarch of a foreign country.  He still enjoys his annual trip along the shores of Norway or breaks away from the cares of State to pass a few weeks at his Corfu castle, dazzling in its marble whiteness and overlooking the Acroceraunian mountains, or to hunt or shoot at the country seat of some influential or wealthy subject.  In fine, he is still engaged with all the energy of his nature, if in a somewhat less flamboyant fashion than during his earlier years, in his, as he believes, divinely appointed work of guiding Prussia’s destiny and building up the German Empire.