William of Germany | Page 4

for the historian. What would
history be without war?--almost inconceivable; since wars, not peace,
are the principal materials with which it deals and supply it with most
of its vitality and interest--must it also be admitted, its charm? For what
are Hannibal or Napoleon or Frederick the Great remembered?--for
their wars, and little else. Shakespeare has it that--
"Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water."

Who, asks Heine, can name the artist who designed the cathedral of
Cologne? In this regard the biographer of an emperor is almost as
dependent as the historian.
The biography of an emperor, again, must be to a large extent, the
history of his reign, and in no case is this more true than in that of
Emperor William. But he has been closely identified with every event
of general importance to the world since he mounted the throne, and the
world's attention has been fastened without intermission on his words
and conduct. The rise of the modern German Empire is the salient fact
of the world's history for the last half-century, and accordingly only
from this broader point of view will the Emperor's future biographer, or
the historian of the future, be able to do him or his Empire justice.
Lastly, another difficulty, if one may call it so, experienced equally by
the biographer and the historian, is the fact that the life of the Emperor
has been blameless from the moral standpoint. On two or three
occasions early in the reign accounts were published of scandals at the
Court. They may not have been wholly baseless, but none of them
directly involved the Emperor, or even raised a doubt as to his
respectability or reputation. Take from history--or from biography for
that matter--the vices of those it treats of, and one-third, perhaps
one-half, of its "human interest" disappears.
In the circumstances, therefore, all the writer need add is that he has
done the best he could. He has ignored, certainly, at two or three stages
of his narration, the demands of strict chronological succession; but if
so, it has been to describe some of the more important events of the
reign in their totality. He has also felt it necessary, as writing for
English readers of a country not their own, to combine a portion of
history with his biography. If, at the same time, he has ventured to
infuse into both biography and history a slight admixture of philosophy,
he can only hope that the fusion will not prove altogether disagreeable.

II.

YOUTH

1859-1881
As the education of a prince, and the surroundings in which he is
brought up, are usually different from the education and surroundings
of his subjects, it is not surprising if, at least during some portion of his
reign, and until he has graduated in the university of life,
misunderstandings, if nothing worse, should occur between them:
indeed the wonder is that princes and people succeed in living
harmoniously together. They are separated by great gulfs both of
sentiment and circumstance. Bismarck is quoted by one of his
successors, Prince Hohenlohe, as remarking that every King of Prussia,
with whatever popularity he began his reign, was invariably hated at
the close of it.
The prince that would rule well has to study the science of government,
itself a difficult and incompletely explored subject, and the art of
administration; he has to know history, and above all the history of his
own country; not that history is a safe or certain guide, but that it
informs him of traditions he will be expected to continue in his own
country and respect in that of others; he must understand the political
system under which his people choose to live, and the play of political,
religious, economic, and social forces which are ever at work in a
community; he must learn to speak and understand (not always quite
the same thing) other languages besides his own; and concurrently with
these studies he must endeavour to develop in himself the personal
qualities demanded by his high office--health and activity of body,
quick comprehension and decision, a tenacious memory for names and
faces, capacity for public speaking, patience, and that command over
the passions and prejudices, natural or acquired, which is necessary for
his moral influence as a ruler. On what percentage of his subjects is
such a curriculum imposed, and what allowances should not be made if
a full measure of success is not achieved?

But even when the prince has done all this, there is still a study, the
most comprehensive and most important of all, in which he should be
learned--the study of humanity, and in especial that part of it with the
care of whose interests and happiness he is to be charged. A few