As might be naturally expected in this bustle of busy officials, of bankers and merchants burdened with a novel wealth, of the ceaseless rattle of bayonets and clatter of swords and spurs, art and literature are pretty well pushed to the wall. The vast new growth of Berlin and the rush toward it of German wealth, rank, and fashion, have drawn in their train a certain current of painters and writers, but nothing at all in proportion with the expansion in other lines of activity. Berlin’s new supremacy has not affected Leipsic as the book centre of German-speaking people, or Munich and Düsseldorf as homes of art study.
These changes may come, too, in time, particularly if the young Emperor exerts himself to achieve such an end. Up to the present, he has been too busy even to think of such a thing. The exactions of his daily routine of labour are so great that he simply has no time for the softer and more intellectual side of life, even if the taste were there. He has found leisure to sit for several portraits since his accession, but that seems to have been the sum of his attention to art. As for literature, an observant official in Berlin assured me of his conviction that William had not had the time to read a single book since his accession.
Whatever may come in the future, it is undeniable that the author now cuts a poor figure in Berlin. The city’s drift is toward material things—toward business, official rank, and martial perfection. Even the most prosperous and popular writers of books in Berlin strive to obtain some small post in the civil service in order to command social position. Among many instances of this brought to my notice one will serve as an illustration. Ernst von Wilderbruch is the most successful of contemporary Berlin playwrights, but on his card you will read that he is a Counsellor of Legation at the Foreign Office. This office yields him a salary equal to a twentieth part of his income from his plays, but it is of the greatest importance to him because it insures his rank. Here in England Edmund Gosse has an official place—just as in Boston Robert Grant holds a post in the municipal service. But can you fancy either of these gentlemen putting the fact on his card, or preferring to be known as an official rather than as a writer?
Even the splendid University of Berlin exerts a liberalizing influence rather through the public political attitude of its professors than by the diffusion of literary tastes among the community. This fact, together with the recollections which associate the late Emperor Frederic with bookish people, and the irritated consciousness that a very large proportion of Germany’s present authors are Jews and Radicals, gives the contemptuous attitude of Berlin’s aristocratic and military classes toward literature a decided political twist.
This is rendered the more marked by the overwhelming Radicalism of the city’s electorate. The immense balloon-like rise of the value of land, and the tremendous race to erect buildings everywhere, brought to the city a great concourse of artizans and labourers from all parts of Germany. Competition gave them big wages, but it also incited the formation of powerful trades’ unions, the best of which were in effect Radical clubs, and the worst of which became centres of Socialist agitation. Berlin has six members in the Reichstag, of which four are Radicals, or Freisinnige, and two are Social Democrats. One of the Radicals is Prof. Rudolph Virchow, and one of the Socialists is Paul Singer, a Jew. The municipal institutions of Berlin, so far as they depend upon the popular vote, are also in the hands of the Radicals.
So much for the new Berlin. On Oct. 28, 1888, William, who had just returned from his Italian visit, the last of his series of journeys for that year, received the Burgomaster and a delegation from the Town Council, who came to the Schloss to congratulate him upon his return. They presented an effusively loyal address, clearly intended as a peace-offering from the Radical city to the new sovereign, and announced the intention of erecting a great fountain in the Schloss-Platz to commemorate the event.
William received this polite expression with studied insolence. After ironically commenting upon the unexpectedness of such a demonstration, he brusquely told them to build more churches in Berlin and to choke off their Radical editors, who, during his absence, had shamelessly discussed the most private affairs of his family. He had been particularly angered by their insistence upon drawing comparisons between himself and his late father, an affront which he would not longer tolerate. He was about to take up his residence in Berlin, and “considering the relations which existed between the municipal authorities of Berlin and this Radical section of the press,” he concluded that his hearers could stop this editorial impudence if they liked. Their address was full of loyal professions; very well, let them put these into practice.
Having said this in his roughest manner, William turned on his heel and left the room without shaking hands with the Burgomaster or so much as nodding to his colleagues.
This happened four months or so before the change in the young Kaiser’s views and attitude which has been dealt with above. It is not out of place here, however, because, although William was now swiftly and with steady progress to alter his opinions on most other public subjects, he has not even yet altogether outgrown the notion that editors ought to wear muzzles.