the visit of Mr. Beerbohm Tree and his English company to the
German capital. Their repertory of Shakespearean drama greatly
delighted the Emperor, who expressed his pleasure to Mr. Tree and his
fellow-players personally, and did not dismiss them without
substantial tokens of his appreciation.

Earlier in the year the French actress, Suzanne Depres, visited Berlin
and appealed strongly to the Emperor's taste for the "classical" in
music and drama. Inviting the actress to the royal box, he said to
her:

"You have shown us such a natural, living Phaedra that we
were all strongly moved. How fine a part it is! As a
youngster I used to learn verses from 'Phaedra' by heart. I
am told that in France devotion to classical tradition is
growing weaker, and that Moliere and Racine are more and
more seldom played. What a pity! Our people, on the
contrary, remain faithful to their great poets and enjoy
their works. After school comes college, and after
college--the theatre. It should elevate and expand the soul.
The people do not need any representation of reality--they
are well acquainted with that in their daily lives. One must
put something greater and nobler before them, something
superior to 'La Dame aux Camelias.'"

A month later, however, he made one of his extremely rare visits to an
ordinary Berlin theatre to see--"The Hound of the Baskervilles"!

Meanwhile in domestic politics Chancellor von Buelow's famous "bloc"
continued to work satisfactorily, notwithstanding difficulties arising
from the conflicting interests of industry and agriculture, Free Trade
and Protection and differences of creed and race. At the end of this
year it was near falling asunder in connection with the question of
judicial reform, but Prince von Buelow kept it together for a while by
an impassioned appeal to the patriotism of both parties. In the course
of the speech he told the House how, when he was standing at
Bismarck's death-bed, he noticed on the wall the portrait of a man,
Ludwig Uhland, who had said "no head could rule over Germany that was
not well anointed with democratic oil," and drew the conclusion from
the contrast between the dying man of action and the poet that only
the union of old Prussian conservative energy and discipline with
German broad-hearted, liberal spirit could secure a happy future for
the nation. The "bloc," as we shall see, broke up in 1909 and Pri