y
man there, except the representative of seventy millions of people, is
in some sort of uniform. If it really were Thomas Jefferson whose
administration inaugurated the disgusting simplicity which goes by his
name, I wish the words had stuck in his throat and strangled him.
"Jeffersonian simplicity!" How I despise it! Thomas Jefferson, I
believe, was the first Populist. We had had gentlemen for Presidents
before him, but he was the first one who rooted for votes with the
common herd by catering to the gutter instead of to the skyline, and
the tail end of his policy is to be seen in the mortifying appearance
of our highest officials and representatives. _Hinc illae lachrymae_!

I looked at the servant who announced our names in Paris at General
Porter's first official reception, and even he was much more gorgeous
in dress than the master of the house, the Ambassador Extraordinary
and Minister Plenipotentiary representing seventy millions of people!
Not even in his uniform of a general! The only man in the room in
plain black. The United States ought to treat her representatives
better. When Mr. White at Berlin was received by the Emperor, he, too,
was the only man in plain black.

No wonder we are taken no account of socially when we don't even give
our ambassador a house, as all the other countries do, and when his
salary is so inadequate. Every other ambassador except the American
has a furnished house given him, and a salary sufficient to entertain
as becomes the representative of a great country. All except _ours_!
Yet none of them is obliged to entertain as continuously as our
ambassador, because _only_ Americans travel unremittingly, and _only_
Americans expect their ambassador to be their host.

"O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"

Of course I notice such things immensely more in Berlin than in Paris,
because the glory of a Court is much more than the twinkle of a
republic.

I have worked myself into such a towering rage over this subject that
there is no getting down to earth gracefully or gradually. I have not
polished off the matter by any manner of means. I have only just
started in, but a row of stars will cool me off.

* * * * *

Before I came to Berlin I heard so much about Unter den Linden, that
magnificent street of the city, that I could scarcely wait to get to
it. I pictured it lined on both sides with magnificent linden-trees