ing of the train, and then.... "Thank God, it's over!" If the
invisible powers had really been struggling over the destiny of men, how
the evil half of them must have shrieked with delight that day as the
Kaiser rode back to Potsdam and our King returned to London!

PEN-PORTRAIT OF THE KAISER

Other whisperings there were of the storm that was so soon to burst on
the world. In the ominous silence there were rumours of a certain change
that was coming over the spirit of the Kaiser. For long years he had
been credited with a sincere love of peace, and a ceaseless desire
to restrain the forces about him that were making for war. Although
constantly occupied with the making of a big army, and inspiring it with
great ideals, he was thought to have as little desire for actual warfare
as his ancestor, Frederick William, had shown, while gathering up his
giant guardsmen and refusing to allow them to fight. Particularly it was
believed in Berlin (not altogether graciously) that his affection for,
and even fear of his grandmother, Queen Victoria, would compel him to
exhaust all efforts to preserve peace in the event of trouble with Great
Britain. But Victoria was dead, and King Edward might perhaps be smiled
at--behind his back--and then a younger generation was knocking at the
Kaiser's door in the person of his eldest son, who represented forces
which he might not long be able to hold in check. How would he act now?

Thousands of persons in this country had countless opportunities before
the war of forming an estimate of the Kaiser's character. I had only
one, and it was not of the best. For years the English traveller
abroad felt as if he were always following in the track of a grandiose
personality who was playing on the scene of the world as on a stage,
fond as an actor of dressing up in fine uniforms, of making pictures,
scenes, and impressions, and leaving his visible mark behind him--as in
the case of the huge gap in the thick walls of Jerusalem, torn down (it
was said with his consent) to let his equipage pass through.

In Rome I saw a man who was a true son of his ancestors. Never had
the laws of heredity better justified themselves. Frederick William,
Frederick the Great, William the First--the Hohenzollerns were all
there. The glittering eyes, the withered arm, the features that gave
signs of frightful periodical pain, the immense energy, the gigantic
egotism, the ravenous vanity, the fanaticism amounting to fr