ever advancing phalanx of German spies.



July 9, 1890. [8]

It seems to me that this Wagnerian Emperor, pursuing his legends to the
uttermost parts of the earth, is doing his utmost to darken our
horizon. Everywhere, always he confronts us, appearing on the scene to
deprive us of the last remnants of good-will left to us in Europe.

In the Scandinavian States, even after 1870, we had preserved certain
trusty friendships: of these William II now tries to rob us. He
appears and, to use his own expression, draws men to him by magic
strings. To the people who are offshoots of Germany he figures as "the
Emperor," unique, mysterious, he who goes forward in the name of the
fables of mythology, gathering and uniting anew in his slumbering
people the instincts of vassalage. "Super-German virtues," he calls
them, "ornaments of old-time Germany." This monarch who, in his own
land, is pleased to pose as a Liberal!

Can it be that this same William who, on the Bosphorus held communion
with the stars, who, writing to Bismarck, said, "I talk with God,"
finds the celestial responses so inadequate that his mind must needs
invoke a retinue of Teutonic deities?

"Let the Latins, Slavs and Gauls know it," says he, "the German Emperor
bears to Germans the glad tidings which promise them the sovereignty of
the world!"