detail, which can have any bearing upon human improvement. I remember a
half hour's conversation with him once over a cupping glass, which he
had gotten from an excavation in the Roman ruin called the Saalburg,
near Homburg. He always appeared to me most deeply concerned with the
arts of peace. I have never heard him speak much of war, and then always
with abhorrence, nor much of military matters, but improved agriculture,
invention, and manufacture, and especially commerce and education in all
their ramifications, were the chief subjects of his thought and
conversation. I have had the privilege of association with many highly
intelligent and profoundly learned men, but I have never acquired as
much knowledge, in the same time, from any man whom I have ever met, as
from the German Emperor. And yet, with all this real superiority of mind
and education, his deference to the opinions of others is remarkable.
Arrogance is one of the qualities most often attributed to him, but he
is the only ruler I ever saw in whom there appeared to be absolutely no
arrogance. He meets you as man meets man and makes you feel that you are
required to yield to nothing but the better reason.

A Man of Warm Affections.

In the third place, the Emperor impressed me as a man of heart, of warm
affections, and of great consideration for the feelings and well-being
of others. He can not, at least does not, conceal his reverence for, and
devotion to, the Empress, or his love for his children, or his
attachment to his friends. He always speaks of Queen Victoria and of the
Empress Friedrich with the greatest veneration, and once when speaking
to me of an old American friend who had turned upon him he said that it
was difficult for him to give up an old friend, right or wrong, and
impossible when he believed him to be in the right. His manifest respect
and affection for his old and tried officials, such as Lucanus and zu
Eulenburg and von Studt and Beseler and Althoff, give strong evidence of
the warmth and depth of his nature. His consideration for Americans,
especially, has always been remarkable. It was at his suggestion that
the exchange of educators between the universities of Germany and of the
United States was established, and it has been his custom to be present
at the opening lecture of each new incumbent of these positions at
the University of Berlin, and to greet him and welcome him to his work.
He is also the first to extend to these fore