THE VANISHED POMPS OF
YESTERDAY
"Lo, all our Pomp of Yesterday
Is one with Ninevah and Tyre!"
—RUDYARD KIPLING
THE VANISHED POMPS
OF YESTERDAY
CHAPTER I
Special Mission to Rome—Berlin in process of transformation—Causes of Prussian militarism—Lord and Lady Ampthill—Berlin Society—Music-lovers—Evenings with Wagner—Aristocratic Waitresses—Rubinstein's rag-time—Liszt's opinions—Bismarck—Bismarck's classification of nationalists—Bismarck's sons—Gustav Richter—The Austrian diplomat—The old Emperor—His defective articulation—Other Royalties—Beauty of Berlin Palace—Description of interior—The Luxembourg—"Napoleon III"—Three Court beauties—The pugnacious Pages—"Making the Circle"—Conversational difficulties—An ecclesiastical gourmet—The Maharajah's mother.
The tremendous series of events which has changed the face of Europe since 1914 is so vast in its future possibilities, that certain minor consequences of the great upheaval have received but scant notice.
Amongst these minor consequences must be included the disappearance of the Courts of the three Empires of Eastern Europe, Russia, Germany, and Austria, with all their glitter and pageantry, their pomp and brilliant mise-en-scène. I will hazard no opinion as to whether the world is the better for their loss or not; I cannot, though, help experiencing a feeling of regret that this prosaic, drab-coloured twentieth century should have definitely lost so strong an element of the picturesque, and should have permanently severed a link which bound it to the traditions of the mediæval days of chivalry and romance, with their glowing colour, their splendid spectacular displays, and the feeling of continuity with a vanished past which they inspired.