in August of 1911. "I wish," I said then, "all our politicians who
concern themselves with Anglo-German relations, those who are pro-German
as well as those who are not, could go to Berlin and learn something,
not only of the language and intellectual history of Prussia, but of the
standpoint of her people--and of the disadvantages as well as the
advantages of an excessive lucidity of conception. Nowhere else in
Germany that I know of is this to be studied so advantageously and so
easily as in Berlin, the seat of Government, the headquarters of
_Real-politik_, and it seems to me most apparent among the highly
educated classes there."

Bismarck does not appear to have known much while in office about
Tirpitz, and when the latter desired later on to enlist his outside
support he did not find it at first easy. But, having with some
difficulty got the assent of the Emperor to a new ship being named after
Bismarck, he in the end got from the latter permission to visit him at
Friedrichsruh in 1897. There Tirpitz arrived at noon. The family were
at luncheon. He tells us how the Prince sat at the head of the table,
and how he rose, cool but polite, and remained standing till Tirpitz was
seated. The Prince assumed the air of one suffering from sharp neuralgic
pain, and he kept pressing the side of his head with a small indiarubber
hot-water bottle. It was only with an appearance of difficulty that he
uttered, and his food was minced meat. However, when he had drunk a
bottle and a half of German champagne (_Sect_) he became animated. After
the dishes were removed, Countess Wilhelm Bismarck lit his great pipe
for him, and with the other ladies quitted the room. The atmosphere was
one of gloomy silence. But the great man suddenly broke it by raising
his formidable eyebrows, and directing a grim look at Tirpitz, whom he
appears next to have asked whether he himself was a tomcat that needed
only to be stroked in order to procure sparks to be emitted. Tirpitz