The fierce light which beats upon a throne, if it is apt to dazzle the bystander, helps those at a distance, especially in these days of the still fiercer light of modern publicity, to judge fairly the throne’s occupant.  The character of the Emperor as monarch ought, therefore, as far as is possible in the absence of archives marked “secret and confidential” and yet lying in the ministries of all countries, to disclose itself nowadays with reasonable clearness.  Yet, even still, different and conflicting opinions regarding it are to be gathered in Germany and out of it.

Indeed, his own people are among the severest critics.  One of them, Professor Quidde, early in the reign, made an extraordinarily ingenious, but quite unjustifiable, comparison of him to Caligula, which, though only consisting of classical quotations and making no mention of the Emperor, was seen by everybody to refer to him and has caused discussion ever since.  While many foreign critics have done the Emperor justice, others in turn have made him out to be arrogant, snobbish, bombastic, superficial, incompetent, and insincere.  To writers of this class he is always the German War Lord, ready to pounce, like a highwayman or pirate, on any unprotected person or property he may come across, regardless of treaty obligations, of international disaster, or of the dictates of humanity.  One day they announce he is planning the annexation of Holland in order to get a further set of naval bases, the next that he means to take Belgium to make a road for his armies into France, a third that he is about to set at naught the Monroe doctrine and with his Dreadnoughts seize Brazil.  All these things are conceivable and not impossible, but they are in the very highest degree improbable, and, as yet at least, ought not to be considered seriously.  To sensible and better-informed people everywhere he is a Prussian king of the best type, a sincere friend of peace, with a mania for pushing the maxim “Si vis pacem para bellum” to extremes, politically the most influential man in Europe, and, with all his faults, one of the greatest Germans of his time.

The character of the Emperor, as monarch, is reflected very largely in the character of the Germany of to-day.

Germany is optimistic, ardently desirous of peace, bent on worthily maintaining the great place she has won, and deserved to win, among the nations, and so materially prosperous as to make many Germans tremble at the thought that the prosperity may be too great to last.  This, however, is not to assert that in Germany everything is couleur de rose.  There are not a few things in the Empire’s social and political conditions which are antiquated or promise no good.  Noxious as well as beneficial forces have been introduced into the social life of the country and are beginning to make themselves felt.  German home-life is ceasing to be the admirable and exemplary thing it was before the present era of class rivalry,