Gratitude is a word that William often thinks fit to use, but it is a
sentiment that he is careful never to indulge in.
It is impossible to discover any sign of a heart in the actions of the
German Sovereign. One may therefore predict that he will continue to
show an ever increasing preference for distinguished personalities, whom
it may please him to destroy, or creatures who would be the butts of his
malicious sport, rather than to encourage the kind of public servants who
strive continually to increase their efficiency, so as to serve him
better. Instead of being simply good and ruling benevolently, he aspires
to be first a sort of pope, imposing upon his people a social state
composed of servility and compulsory comfort, and again a leader of
crusades, drawing his people after him to the conquest of the world.
Spiritual and material interests, military organisation, he mixes and
confuses them like everything else which occurs to his mind, and every
day he does something to destroy the results of that marvellous
continuity, which did more to establish the power of William I than the
victories of Sadowa and Sedan. Ever more and more infatuated with the
idea of military supremacy, he now pretends to be greatly concerned with
the idea of disarmament. And he, the avowed protector of socialists,
looks as if he were about to accept from Mr. Dryander, the protestant
presidency of that association of workmen, which is being organised for
the purpose of fighting socialism.
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