aight under it. Heralds proclaimed her as
the anointed of God, and it did not seem presumptuous. Brave men died in
thousands shouting her name, and it did not seem unnatural. No mere
intellect, no mere worldly success could, in this age of bold inquiry,
have sustained that tremendous claim; long ago we should have stricken
Caesar and dethroned Napoleon. But these glories and these sacrifices did
not seem too much to celebrate a hardworking human nature; they were
possible because at the heart of our Empire was nothing but a defiant
humility. If the Queen had stood for any novel or fantastic imperial
claims, the whole would have seemed a nightmare; the whole was
successful because she stood, and no one could deny that she stood, for
the humblest, the shortest and the most indestructible of human gospels,
that when all troubles and troublemongers have had their say, our work
can be done till sunset, our life can be lived till death.

THE GERMAN EMPEROR

The list of the really serious, the really convinced, the really
important and comprehensible people now alive includes, as most
Englishmen would now be prepared to admit, the German Emperor. He is a
practical man and a poet. I do not know whether there are still people
in existence who think there is some kind of faint antithesis between
these two characters; but I incline to think there must be, because of
the surprise which the career of the German Emperor has generally
evoked. When he came to the throne it became at once apparent that he
was poetical; people assumed in consequence that he was unpractical;
that he would plunge Europe into war, that he would try to annex France,
that he would say he was the Emperor of Russia, that he would stand on
his head in the Reichstag, that he would become a pirate on the Spanish
Main. Years upon years have passed; he has gone on making speeches, he
has gone on talking about God and his sword, he has poured out an ever
increased rhetoric and aestheticism. And yet all the time people have
slowly and surely realised that he knows what he is about, that he is
one of the best friends of peace, that his influence on Europe is not
only successful, but in many ways good, that he knows what world he is
living in better than a score of materialists.

The explanation never comes to them--he is a poet; therefore, a
practical man. The affinity of the two words, merely as words, is much
nearer than many people suppose, for the matter