What those classical types of
Balzac or Dostoievski are to the critic, what those diseases and
criminal cases are to the surgeon and the lawyer, the writings of
Treitschke are to the student of history and politics; they throw a
new and vivid light on the dark and hidden depths of the Prussian
mind. They reveal like no other German writings the meaning of German
policy, the spirit which inspires it. They explain what without them
would have remained unexplained. He is much more than the historian of
the Prussian State, he is the champion of its ideals. Much better than
Bismarck, or the Kaiser, or than the "Clown Prince," he makes clear to
us the aims and the aspirations of the Hohenzollern monarchy and of
the German nation.

In the history of literature and thought it is given to but very few
writers thus to become the spokesmen of a whole people. To achieve
such importance a writer must possess many qualifications. He must
possess a strong and dominating character. He must be a great literary
artist. He must be a clear, a bold, and an independent thinker. The
following pages will show in how eminent a degree Treitschke possessed
all those qualities and how unreservedly they were placed at the
service of the Prussian cause.

II.--TREITSCHKE'S PERSONALITY.

The first quality which challenges attention is the commanding
strength of his personality. He combines the most contradictory gifts:
the temperament of the artist, the imagination of the poet, the
inspiring faith of the idealist, the practical sense of the realist,
and the enthusiasm of the apostle. He always impresses you with that
magnetic sense of power into which Carlyle impresses his readers. Like
Carlyle, he is a firm believer in the heroic, and he has himself the
temper of a hero. Three of his volumes of essays bear the significant
title, "Deutsche Kaempfe" ("German Battles"). All through his career
Treitschke has been fighting his patriotic battles. Obsessed by his
ideals, he always has the courage of his convictions, and is always
ready to suffer for them. In his early youth he had a painful quarrel
with his father, a Saxon General and a loyal servant of the Saxon
dynasty, because the son would not refrain from his attacks on Saxon
"particularism" and would not abstain from championing the Prussian
cause. Treitschke never evades a difficulty. He is never swayed by
outside influences. He never dreads contradiction. When facts do not
tally with his favou