between the United States and Germany has had its root in
misunderstandings; and, as one of the things nearest my heart
since my student days has been a closer moral and intellectual
relation between the two countries, there is, perhaps, a reason
for throwing into these misunderstandings some light from my own
experience.

My first recollections of the present Emperor date from the
beginning of my stay as minister at Berlin, in 1879. The official
presentations to the Emperor and Empress of that period having
been made, there came in regular order those to the crown prince
and princess, and on my way to them there fell into my hands a
newspaper account of the unveiling of the monument to the eminent
painter Cornelius, at Dusseldorf, the main personage in the
ceremony being the young Prince William, then a student at Bonn.
His speech was given at some length, and it impressed me. There
was a certain reality of conviction and aspiration in it which
seemed to me so radically different from the perfunctory
utterances usual on such occasions that, at the close of the
official interview with his father and mother, I alluded to it.
Their response touched me. There came at once a kindly smile upon
the father's face, and a glad sparkle into the mother's eyes:
pleasing was it to hear her, while showing satisfaction and
pride, speak of her anxiety before the good news came, and of the
embarrassments in the way of her son at his first public address
on an occasion of such importance; no less pleasing was it to
note the father's happy acquiescence: there was in it all a
revelation of simple home feeling and of wholesome home ties
which clearly indicated something different from the family
relations in sundry royal houses depicted by court chroniclers.