sly performed as an
accompanying duty, and was flushed after dinner, burning for tobacco and
a couch for his length. Then he talked of the littleness of Europe and
the greatness of Germany; logical postulates fell in collapse before
him. America to America, North and South; India to Europe. India was
for the land with the largest sea-board. Mistress of the Baltic, of the
North Sea and the East, as eventually she must be, Germany would claim
to take India as a matter of course, and find an outlet for the energies
of the most prolific and the toughest of the races of mankind,--the
purest, in fact, the only true race, properly so called, out of India,
to which it would return as to its source, and there create an empire
magnificent in force and solidity, the actual wedding of East and West;
an empire firm on the ground and in the blood of the people, instead
of an empire of aliens, that would bear comparison to a finely fretted
cotton-hung palanquin balanced on an elephant's back, all depending on
the docility of the elephant (his description of Great Britain's Indian
Empire). 'And mind me,' he said, 'the masses of India are in character
elephant all over, tail to proboscis! servile till they trample you,
and not so stupid as they look. But you've done wonders in India, and
we can't forget it. Your administration of Justice is worth all your
battles there.'

This was the man: a milder one after the evaporation of his wine in
speech, and peculiarly moderate on his return, exhaling sandal-wood, to
the society of the ladies.

Ottilia danced with Prince Hermann at the grand Ball given in honour of
him. The wives and daughters of the notables present kept up a buzz of
comment on his personal advantages, in which, I heard it said, you saw
his German heart, though he had spent the best years of his life
abroad. Much court was paid to him by the men. Sarkeld visibly expressed
satisfaction. One remark, 'We shall have his museum in the town!' left
me no doubt upon the presumed object of his visit: it was uttered and
responded to with a depth of sentiment that showed how lively would
be the general gratitude toward one who should exhilarate the place by
introducing cases of fish-bones.

So little did he think of my presence, that returning from a ride one
day, he seized and detained the princess's hand. She frowned with pained
surprise, but unresistingly, as became a young gentlewoman's dignity.
Her hand was rudely caught and kept