'France is difficult,' said my acquaintance, His Serene Highness. 'It is not really democratic; and England will go to pieces before it becomes democratic.

'You Americans have freedom with order, and you respect rank and titles, though you do not covet them. That is why the Kaiser would not send any ambassador not of a great family to you. All Americans who come to Berlin desire to be presented at court. It is a sign that you will come to our way of thinking some day. We are not so far apart. You who write must tell your people that we are calumniated, we are not despots. That woman, the author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden, married to a friend of mine, does us harm. But most Americans see Germany in a mellow light. We are akin in our aspirations—Frederick the Great understood that.

'Bismarck, great as he was, became ambitious only for his family. His son, the coming chancellor, would have used our young emperor as a puppet, if our emperor had not put him into his place. This is the truth, and I am telling it to you confidentially. The British Government will come to anarchy if it weakens the House of Lords. The House of Commons is already weak. There is no barrier between honest rule and the demagogues. With your magnificent Senate there will always be a wall between the will of the canaille and good government. We Germans understand you!'

'But suppose,' it was Mr. Alexander Weddell, then connected with the Legation, now Consul General at Athens, who broke in, 'you should differ from us on the Monroe Doctrine. I have recently read an article by Mr. Frederick Wile in an English magazine on your management of your people in Brazil.'

'"Our people!" The Serene Highness seemed startled. 'A German is always a German. It is the call of the blood.'

'And something more,' Mr. Weddell said, 'a German citizen is always a German citizen; you never admit that a German can become a Brazilian. Suppose you should want to join your Germans in Brazil with your Germans at home. What would become of our Monroe Doctrine?'

'There are Germans in your country who have ceased to be Germans, and your upper classes are Anglicised, except when they marry into one of our great families; nevertheless, our own people would still see that you don't go too far with your Monroe Doctrine. It has not yet been drastically interpreted. The Monroe Doctrine is a method of defence. To interfere with the call of the German blood from one country to another would be offensive to us, and I cannot conceive of your country so far forgetting itself!'

His Serene Highness was of a mediatised house—a gentleman who had much experience in diplomacy. He had, I think, visited Newport, and been almost engaged to an American girl. The legend ran that, when this lady saw him without his uniform, she broke the engagement. He was splendid in his uniform. He thought he knew the United States; he even quoted Bryce and De Tocqueville; he had the impression that the Kaiser's propaganda of education was Germanising us for our good. 'The most eminent professors at your most important universities are Germans. Your newest university, that of Chicago, would have no reputation in Europe if it were not for the Germans. Wundt has revolutionised your conception of psychology; your scientific and historical methods are borrowed from us. Even your orthodox Protestants quote Harnack. Virchow long ago put out the lights of Huxley and Spencer. And the Catholic German in America, whom Bismarck almost alienated from us, revolts against the false Americanism of Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop Ireland, whom the Kaiser rates as a son of the Revolution. Your Catholic University has begun to be moulded in the German way. Mgr. Schroeder, highly considered, was one of the most energetic of the professors——'

'Was,' I said. 'I happen to know that he was relieved of his professorship because of those very dominating qualities you value so much.'

'That is regrettable; but, you see, in Germany we follow the train of events in your country. Who has a larger audience than Münsterberg? In the things of the mind we Germans must lead.'