pon
the duties of his calling, which he can surely do better when alone
with God and Nature than in the confusion of a court." His ministers
and all who have occasion to approach him in a business capacity
declare that at every such interview they are surprised at his
thorough knowledge of the subject under discussion, as also at his
keen insight into character and motives.

To an unprejudiced observer--say to an intelligent foreigner who
remains in Bavaria long enough, not only to hear all the gossip, but
to see and judge for himself as to the merits of the case--the
career of this young king is exceedingly interesting and worthy of
admiration. It is something, in these times of political intrigue and
diplomatic evasion, that a king can say, "My word is sacred," without
awakening in any mind a remembrance of broken faith and forgotten
obligations. It is something, amid the corruptions of a dissolute
capital and the temptations of a royal court, that the sovereign,
young, full of tender sentiment, and unprotected by the marriage tie,
lives on with virtue unimpeached; not even the bitterest enemy daring
to breathe a word against the purity of this modern Lohengrin. It is
something that a man born to the splendors of a throne should
prefer to these the simplicity of Nature, the solitude of woods
and mountains, the companionship of music that searches the soul's
sincerity, and of books that have no recognition of royalty in their
announcement of immortal and universal truths.

In the endless criticism of which the king is the subject attention is
often called, sometimes in pity, sometimes in blame, to the fact that
he has no intimate friend or friends. Those who make this reproach
forget that his station demands a certain degree of isolation, unless
he would lay himself open to the charge of favoritism, and the object
of his preference to the flatteries and manoeuvrings of the parasites
that infest a court. Of the men of his own age whose rank would
entitle them to associate with the king on terms of familiarity, there
is not one who has sufficient sympathy with his tastes and pursuits
to be chosen by him as a companion; and the tyranny of etiquette
and custom forbids him to seek out a congenial friend from among the
untitled scholars and thinkers who judge him tenderly and justly from
afar. Moreover, his early unfortunate essays in this direction may
well have taught him to be reserved and cautious in be-stowing his
co