Yet his ways are anything but
kingly; they resemble rather those of a shopkeeper. He literally fills
the earth with his circulars on the art of government, spreads before
us the wealth of his intentions, and puffs his own magnanimity. He
struggles to get the widest possible market for his ideas: 'tis a petty
dealer in imperial sovereignty.
There is nothing fresh about his wares, but he does his best to
persuade us that they are new; one feels instinctively that some day he
will throw the whole lot at our heads. I am quite prepared to admit
that, if he had any rare or really superior goods to offer, his
advertising methods might be profitable, but William's stock-in-trade
has for many years been imported, and exported under two labels, namely
the principles of '89 and Christian Socialism.
The German Emperor has mixed the two, after the manner of a
prentice-hand. His organ, the _Cologne Gazette_, with all the honeyed
adulation of a suddenly converted opponent, [2] has called this mixture
"Social Monarchism." Therefore, it seems, the German Emperor is
neither a constitutional sovereign nor a monarch by divine right. He
has restored Caesarism of the Roman type, clinging at the same time to
the principle of divine right--and the result is our "Social Monarch"!
Rushing headlong on the path of reform--full steam ahead, as he puts
it--he is prepared to change the past, present and future in order to
give happiness to his own subjects.
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