THE

TRIBUTES TO THE EMPRESS FREDERICK. HERE are many articles in the magazines about the late Empress Frederick, but there are few which enable us to penetrate the veil which for many years past has hidden the intimate life of the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria from the eyes of her countrymen. Almost the only tribute which bears a distinct personal note, and unveils to a certain extent the inner life of the deceased sovereign, is that which the Princess Radziwill contributes to the New Liberal Review, to which magazine Mr. T. P. O'Connor also contributes a few pages of eloquent tribute, but obviously written from the point of view of the outsider.

I.-By Princess Radziwill.

Princess Catherine Radziwill, now in Cape Town, was first presented to the empress in 1874, when she was sixteen years of age. From that time down to two years ago, she had frequent opportunities of meeting her, and in eleven pages in the New Liberal Review she pours out her soul in pathetic lament over her friend. "Never can I forget," she declares, the kindness of the gentle lady who welcomed me with such soft and affectionate words. I still remember her words of greeting-so tactful, so full of sympathy for the child who was craving for her indulgence and protection before entering upon life-and she at once began to love and admire her as she has loved and admired no one else in the world." She evidently exercised an immense personal charm over Princess Radziwill, a charm which only those who were admitted to her intimacy fully realized. She says:

When one looked into her beautiful, earnest eyes, so full of deep expression, of admiration for what is noble and disdain for hypocrisy and treachery, one always felt ashamed of all the wicked thoughts one had ever had, of all the meanness one had ever been guilty of." rebuked one with a single glance, encouraged one with a single smile. She always found the right word to say, the right thing to do."

"She

It is an interesting tribute, probably colored by personal friendship, for unless common gossip be a considerable liar, tact was precisely the one thing in which the Empress Frederick was lacking. Princess Radziwill, however, abandons herself to the generous exaggerations of affection. In her eyes, the Empress Frederick was " a noble creature, far above the passions and wickedness of this world. . . ." In her, existence was a profession of faith-to use the expression of a great saint faith in God, in herself, in truth, in justice. Although she had been the victim of atrocious calumny, she had many friends, who re

member with what perfection of charity she allowed them to feel by a pressure of the hand, by the kindness of a look, that she understood their sorrow or their troubles. In this wise she comforted Princess Radziwill when she was mourning for the death of her eldest child, and the loving sentences which she uttered as she bent over the bereaved mother made her sorrow seem lighter and more easy to be borne. To her, she said, the empress had been something she can neither describe nor speak of without tears in her eyes and emotion in her voice.

History records but few tragedies equal to that of the life of Queen Victoria's eldest child. Her life from the time of her marriage to the hour of her death was spent in a vain longing to do good, to work for the welfare of the nation whose sovereign she had hoped to become. She drained to the dregs the cup of human sorrow; she endured humiliations and persecutions, and was misunderstood by almost all the people who surrounded her. She groaned under the tyrannous authority of an unsympathetic mother-in-law. Her generous and noble nature revolted at the sight of the frivolous and at the same time dull life led by society to whom intellectual pursuits were as a rule unknown. At first she could not realize the profound gulf which separates the English from the German nation, nor learn to accept the endless little things which at that time made Prussian court life so tedious and so useless. Her remarkable intelligence was too proud to bend down under certain privileges, or to accept certain compliments, and she became unpopular accordingly. The result was that she retired more and more into a solitude into which very few strangers were admitted, but where she found in the whole-hearted devotion of her husband a solace for the bitterness from which she suffered.

"She surrounded herself with people who understood her, she looked for men and women capable of sympathizing with the humanitarian tendencies with which she was imbued, and which always ruled all the actions of her life. She welcomed poets, writers, artists. One met men like Mommsen, Ranke, Helmholtz, in her rooms, and even they were struck with her clever intelligence and the loftiness with which she judged the events of the world and the people who had played a part in its history. All those who came into contact with her, and approached her otherwise than at state functions, were impressed by her genius."

Her very superiority to the mob of courtiers. intensified her unpopularity, but her serenity never deserted her, even in the most cruel moments of her existence, when she saw her hopes

shattered to the ground, her ambitions destroyed, and her happiness ruthlessly snatched away by death.

After the death of her sister, Princess Alice, and of her youngest son, Prince Waldemar, she spent a year in Italy. When she returned, she was no longer the same woman. There was a new softness in her. In her own woes she found an infinite compassion for those of others. She had learned forgiveness and had acquired patience, but she had also lost all wish to make others understand her, or to try to convey to the crowd the various impressions and impulses of her soul.

January 25, 1883, when they celebrated her silver wedding at Berlin, was the last bright day of the crown princess' life. Her health began to give way, and her life was darkened by the shadow of the fatal malady which ultimately left her a widow.

6.

She looked up to heaven for strength and courage, and she went on living for others, as she had always done, never sparing herself in the service of her neighbor, always active when his welfare was concerned. She had that strong, pure faith in an Almighty God which is only granted to noble spirits a faith devoid of prej udices, broad and enlightened, which sees in every human creature a soul to save, and in every sinner a heart which can repent."

"You can never be far from God if you love his creatures," she said one day to Princess Radziwill, who adds:

"No one loved God's creatures more and better than she did; no one suffered more intense agony at the sight of human sorrow, or grasped more thoroughly even the woes which did not touch her personally, or in which she played no part."

After the emperor's death, the fury with which the empress had been attacked gradually abated. Time, that great destroyer of slanders, made havoc of all those that had been poured upon her

She seldom came back to Berlin, and when she did, Princess Radziwill met her frequently. She had aged, her hair was almost white, but her eyes had retained their earlier glance and luminous clearness. Her soft, melodious voice remained unaffected by the passage of time.

The last time the princess saw her was at Bordighera, more than two years ago.

She was always the same, and as time went on her serenity seemed to increase, perhaps because she was feeling she was getting nearer and nearer to the supreme aim of every human lifereunion with those one has loved in a world where sin and sorrow are no more, only peace

and life everlasting.' The germs of the disease to which she has succumbed were already in her, and a fall she had from her horse in the summer of 1898 perhaps added to the mischief. Certain it was that her strength steadily declined after that time, until at last the evil broke out, and the long, painful illness went on mercilessly sapping away her life and torturing her body, as if the agonies her soul had endured had not been enough."

"She died a queen, brave to the end."

II. By Sir Roland Blennerhasset. Sir Roland Blennerhasset contributes to the National Review an account of the empress, whose acquaintance he made long ago when he was an attaché at the embassy in Berlin. He ridicules the idea that the empress ever tried to anglicize Germany. She was far too clever for that.

It is not possible to deny that the Empress Frederick was a person of great intellectual gifts. Bismarck knew that perfectly. Lord John Russell used to say she was one of the ablest women he had ever known. Lord Palmerston held very similar opinions; and so cautious and shrewd a man as Lord Clarendon, in a letter written in 1861, expresses his astonishment at the comprehensive and statesmanlike views which she took of affairs. It is impossible to imagine that a person so intellectually gifted could possibly have entertained for a moment the idea of introducing suddenly English institutions into Germany. She had as little intention of doing so as Prince Bismarck himself. She always denied that she had any intention of using her influence to force upon Germany English administrative methods. What she desired was to mitigate Prussian bureaucracy, to infuse a freer and more elastic spirit into existing institutions, and to identify the monarchy in Prussia with popular aspirations."

After the war, her aspiration took a new form, although her ultimate aim was still the same.

"She looked forward to the time when Bavarian and Prussian, and those who live in Baden, and the inhabitants of Württemberg and Saxony, should feel themselves thoroughly and completely members of one great country, and equally attached to its fundamental institutions. Provincial distinctions might continue. Above all, none of the centers of civilization and culture which give such vigor and vitality to intellectual life in Germany were to be sacrificed. But the unity of Germany, as it was conceived by many of the noblest Germans of the time, with wnom the empress agreed, was to be consolidated and strengthened, not by drawing closer the iron bands of military organization, but the states were to be knit together by a constitution fit for a free and

enlightened people, a popular monarchy, a bicameral system, a real and adequate representation of the people, and, above all, a responsible executive."

This ideal brought her into sharp collision with Prince Bismarck. On this question Sir Roland Blennerhasset thinks Bismarck was right and the empress was wrong; but afterward, when Bismarck began the Kulturkampf, he considered that the empress was entirely in the right in opposing it.

"It was no great difficulty for the Empress Frederick, owing to her early training, to see what the end of the Kulturkampf must be. She understood the strength of moral forces. Bismarck never did. Bismarck never grasped the distinction between what is essential in the Catholic system and what is not, and thus he proceeded to interfere in questions clearly within the province of ecclesiastical authority, and by so doing he drove every earnest Catholic in the country, no matter what his political convictions or sympathies might be, into association, if not alliance, with persons who desired the overthrow of the empire. The party then began to attract to itself all kinds of discontented persons. Extreme particularists in various parts of the country, ultra-Conservatives in the south, and Radicals of various kinds joined the party, hoping under the cloak of religion to further their political views. Thus it grew and became more and more powerful, and at last it had to be arranged with. One fine day the world learned that the flag of the German empire had been struck to a combination that had been denounced, with more or less truth, as inimical to the very existence of the empire. It is quite certain that if the Empress Frederick had been listened to the German empire would have been spared that humiliation, and further, the party of the Center, which is so powerful and likely to remain so, would not now be in existence."

Nor was this the only mischief which came to Germany as the result of the disregard paid by Bismarck to the Empress Frederick's protest. Sir Roland Blennerhasset attributes the growth of the Social Democratic movement largely to the fact that the National Liberals discredited themselves by the support which they gave to Bismarck in his policy of persecution. How rapidly the Social Democrats have increased and multiplied may be seen from the fact that "in the general election of 1878 only 435,000 votes were cast for the Social Democrats all over Germany. Twenty years afterward, 2,125,000 persons out of 7,600,000 voters polled for the candidates of that party. It has secured some fifty-six seats in the Reichstag."

Sir Roland, at the close of his article, says:

There are several other questions which, if space allowed, I should like to speak about, more especially the earnest desire of the Empress Frederick to lift up in all countries the position of women. Had she been placed in a position of power in Germany, I feel confident she would have done great things in this direction."

GERMANY AS ENGLAND'S TRADE RIVAL.

MR.

R. ERNEST WILLIAMS, the author of the well-known pamphlet entitled " Made in Germany," contributes an article to the current number of the National Review in which he somewhat exultantly points to the fact that his predictions of five years ago have been more than vindicated by events. He says, regarding England's loss of industrial and commercial prestige to Germany:

Nor

"We have within the past five years lost our supremacy in coal-production; we have lost it in pig-iron production; our inferior place as a steelproducer is becoming worsened each year; we have lost our supremacy as a general exporting nation. There are only two big industries in which we remain supreme-textiles and shipsand in each of them we are threatened as menacingly as twenty years ago we were threatened in those industries which we have now lost. are we gaining in commerce as distinct from manufacture. The progress of Hamburg and other Continental ports bears witness of that. Nor are we maintaining our place as the world's bankers. Nations in need of money no longer come to us as a matter of course; they have commenced to take their wants to the United States; China's war loan had to be placed jointly in England and in Germany, and was taken up mostly in Germany. England herself has gone a-begging to the United States for money to carry on the South African war. In 1890, our exports were worth £7 0s. 74d. per head; in 1900, they were worth only £6 5s. 10d. (The export of ships is not included in either year, because they were not exhibited in the Board of Trade returns in 1890.) These figures prove that we have lost ground, not only relatively to other countries, but actually upon a per head basis of our own country's population."

The phenomenal growth of Hamburg affords him another opportunity of crowing over his critics. Hamburg, he says, is now the first port on the Continent, and is only second to London. How long London will retain her supremacy remains to be seen. He concludes his survey by a reference to the effect of American competition upon English and German trade. He says:

"The industrial competition of the United States five years ago was, by comparison with what it is now and threatens to be in the near future, as the hand-breadth cloud upon the hori

zon.

England's advance to industrial greatness was, even during those years of the nineteenth century when the advance was most rapid, an imperceptible crawl compared to the sudden stride of the United States. Germany's advance was more rapid than England's, but it was much slower than America's. And do not think that Germany will cease to be formidable because a greater industrial power than Germany has arisen. Germany, in many respects, will become more formidable than ever. Driven out of many of her markets by the United States, she will fight with the greater pertinacity against England for the possession of those markets in which England retains a foothold."

DO MEN WISH TO BE IMMORTAL?

To the Fortnightly Review for September, Mr.

F. C. S. Schiller contributes a very interesting paper upon this subject. He holds very strongly that man does not desire immortality, does not even, indeed, wish for a future life. If it can hardly be said that he is quite content to cease to exist after the breath is out of his body, he certainly shows no keen interest in the inquiry as to whether or not when a man dies he shall live again.

LITTLE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION.

Mr. Schiller quotes an anecdote told by Mr. Myers about a churchwarden of unimpeachable orthodoxy who, when pressed as to his expectation of a future life, answered that he supposed he would enter into eternal bliss, but that he wished Mr. Myers would not bring up such depressing topics. The experience of the Psychical Research Society, which has never had more than 1,500 members, with an income of $10,000 a year, affords a gauge of the indifference with which this subject is regarded in Great Britain, and matters are even worse elsewhere. Mr. Schiller says scientific investigation of immortality is not encouraged. People do not want to hear about it, and above all they do not want to know about it. For if once they knew, it would be most inconvenient. They would have to act on their knowledge, and that might upset the habits of a lifetime."

But even the churches, which are founded upon a belief in immortality, do nothing to promote the verification of the hypothesis upon which they rest, if we may trust in deductions based on Mr. Schiller's experience and observation.

NO RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM.

Mr. Schiller says:

"The religious renounce the attempt of maintaining immortality, as a matter of fact, and taining immortality, as The adducing tangible evidence in its favor. doctrine becomes a dogma which has to be accepted by faith, and the obligation of raising it to positive knowledge is expressly disavowed. On the contrary, it is just because the religious doctrines of immortality are not taken as facts that they are accepted. The religious doctrines with respect to the future life form a sort of paper currency inconvertible with fact, which suits people and circulates the better because of its very badness. The truth is that everybody has felt the importance of the subject, but that at any given moment only an infinitesimal fraction actually feel it, so that there is never any effective demand for its investigation. Whoever conceives a desire to know the truth about the future life engages in a struggle with social forces which is almost sure to end tragically. But, as a rule, the interest is short-lived and soon dies out—or, rather, is trampled out by the social disapproval of the pretension to be more troubled about such matters than one's elders and betters."

SPIRITISM.

There is, however, one exception to this universal ignoring of a future life. Mr. Schiller

says:

The only exception seems to be spiritism, which appears to be a religion whose sole essential dogma is the assertion of the possibility of, in a manner, unifying this world with the next by communicating with the departed, and whose sole essential right is the practice of such communication. That is what renders the psychol. ogy of spiritism so interesting and worthy of analysis. In the first place, it should be noted that it is not a scientific movement (in spite of a few notable exceptions), but a religion, nay, in all probability the most ancient of all religions. And yet, as a religion, spiritism has been and is a failure, and for this fact it may be suggested that the reason is just that it does treat the future life as a hard (and somewhat crude) fact. This is the source both of its strength and of its weak. ness. Of its strength, because no other doctrine can minister with such directness to the bereaved human heart, no other consolation can vie with its proffer of visible and tangible tokens that love outlasts death, and that the separation death inflicts is not utter and insuperable."

Mr. Schiller, however, is not content to theorize upon this subject. Together with Mr. Richard Hodgson, of the American Psychical Research