o when he ascended the throne;
it is "With the People for the Fatherland"--not inappropriate in view
of his inheritance of a problem clamoring for solution, the extension
of the suffrage and a more direct representation of the people in both
the upper and lower houses of the Riksdag. The new king, who possesses
an uncommon amount of energy, may probably be depended upon to
accomplish this reform.

There is neither pride of an objectionable type, nor any tendency to
tyranny, nor one strain of arrogance in the new king. He may not be
able to draw upon such ripe culture or upon such fine talents as the
monarch who preceded him, yet the Swedes have no fear that his love of
truth and justice will not outweigh this deficiency and probably make
him a more practical ruler. As for the French descent of the Swedish
royal house, neither the present nor the late king have ever been
ashamed of their ancestry, or forgotten that the first Bernadotte on
their throne was one of Napoleon's greatest marshals.

Never will Gustavus V be able to give to words or actions that
brilliantly original and kingly tone for which his late father was so
admired everywhere. That, to the mind of all beholders, is to be the
drawback of his reign, for he is the merest mortal; where his father
was the luminous angel. Where Oscar would have been finely eloquent,
Gustavus shows himself merely sensible. Oscar's temper was heated,
his emotions were forever coming to the surface. Gustave is, if more
poised, less interesting. He has always been addicted to manly sports
and exercises. He has often been observed to "put up" an excellent
game of tennis at the club in Stockholm. But he is without the alert
and springy step of the old Oscar, whose muscles remained taut and
elastic almost to his dying day. Gustave lacks the literary aptitudes
of his late father, likewise, who left a well-filled book of verse
which admirers all over Europe did into French, German, Italian,
Danish, and even Hungarian. Gustave has not inherited his mother's
musical genius, either. She was at one time a devotee of Wagner, a
disciple of Kant, and always a pious evangelical of the German
cast. From both his parents Gustave received every encouragement to
proficiency in music. Music, to the late Oscar, was, both in theory
and practice, an essential element in the intellectual life. Gustave
is less the artist than the practical king.

He encourages international congresses of every kind to