in than any
other, we read of trains to Berlin taken by storm, banquets,
processions, chorus-singing--of real, heartfelt, rapturous
effervescence.

There cannot be a shadow of doubt that, to numberless non-Prussians at
any rate, the new era of German unity has brought a symbol of greatness
not before known, and that they worship in Bismarck the hero who has
given them a country to love, who has delivered them from the pettiness
and self-satisfaction of Philistinism.

Now, if this be so--if, indeed, the countries of the world at large, and
Germany in particular, acknowledge him almost affectionately as the
leading statesman of the day, would it not be an interesting study to
examine the degree of merit due to him personally, the character of the
present administration, and what lasting good or lasting evil may be
expected from this new phase of European politics? The subject, through
its weight and its bulk alike, excludes full treatment within the limits
of an essay. Nevertheless, since it intertwines itself with nearly every
other question of moment, a few remarks by an outsider may be
acceptable.

[Illustration: Proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles.]

None but the incorrigibly childish can be inclined to ascribe to good
luck a prosperous career extending over near twenty-three years, spent
under the fiercest glare of the world's sunshine. No minister of any
age was more bitterly assailed or opposed, even at the court of which he
is now the acknowledged major domus in the manner of the Pepins and
other Thum-Meiers of the Frankish monarchy. The king's brother, Prince
Charles, detested the innovator whose opinions on the necessity of
Austria being removed from membership in a remodelled German
confederation, had for years leaked out from the despatch-boxes of the
Foreign Office. Even the Junkers, whose dauntless leader he had been
before and after the revolutionary events of 1848, shrank instinctively
from a man who could not be credited with veneration for the Holy
Alliance. It is remembered in Berlin that, on the nomination of one of
them, well at court, a diplomatist of some standing, to the post of
under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, the new member of the
government confessed to his friends that he accepted the post _in spite_
of Bismarck's "foreign" policy, and only in consideration of his
contempt for parliamentarism. The queen, on the other hand, brought up
in principles of constitutiona