0, a crown when he had no hope of ever feeling one on his
brow, and the problems of a court without a nobility.

And now the world is asking, "Has Norway done well for herself?"
Certainly she has done well in putting a Scandinavian prince on the
throne. No alien would ever understand Norway or be understood. If
reports are creditable, the Kaiser made the most of his friendship
with the country in support of the claims of a son of his own. Had a
German secured the throne, there would have been sown fresh seeds
of discord on a peninsula which can raise a sufficient crop of
dissensions without any aid from the rest of Europe. For Denmark,
still nursing the rankling grievance of the Schleswig-Holstein affair,
detests the thought of everything German.

King Haakon combines the advantages of Scandinavian birth with the
very positive political asset of blood relationship to half the courts
of Europe. Grandson of the late King Christian of Denmark, the young
monarch is also nephew to King George of Greece, the Dowager Empress
of Russia, and Alexandria of England, a grand-nephew to the late Oscar
of Sweden, son-in-law to King Edward VII, and cousin to the Czar. To a
relatively defenseless country like Norway, this means a good deal.

In himself the new king is a clean-lived, healthy young man of
thirty-three, in personality quite fit to represent a nation which
thinks well of itself. Tall, though not quite so tall as his uncle,
Prince Christian, whose mark on the famous old royal measuring-column
at Roskilde comes just under that of the giant, Peter the Great, King
Haakon is slight, yet vigorous-looking, and splendidly well set up.
The face, while scarcely so handsome as the profile pictures lead us
to think, is a distinguished one, and has for Norway this charm, that
it is markedly not of the Bernadotte type, although his mother is
a Bernadotte. Those who know him describe him as an extremely
intelligent and sensible young man, easy and tolerant without being
weak, and capable of strenuous devotion to hard work. These things
bespeak an industrious, efficient, and tractable king, such as the
Norwegians, who would equally resent either vacillation or tyranny,
know how to appreciate.

It has been said in France that King Haakon abandons tiller and
compass for crown and scepter without one hour's training in politics
or diplomacy.

The statement appears incontestable. In view of the remarkable
longevity of the late king of De