Of the other official visits at this time, foremost in importance was that to the chancellor of the empire, Prince Hohenlohe. Although he was then nearly eighty years old and bent with age, his mind in discussing public matters was entirely clear. Various later conversations with him also come back to me--one, especially, at a dinner he gave at the chancellor's palace to President Harrison. On my recalling the fact that we were in the room where I had first dined with Bismarck, Prince Hohenlohe gave a series of reminiscences of his great predecessor, some of them throwing a strong light upon his ideas and methods. On one occasion, at my own table, he spoke very thoughtfully on German characteristics, and one of his remarks surprised me: it was that the besetting sin of the Germans is envy (Neid); in which remark one may see a curious tribute to the tenacity of the race, since Tacitus justified a similar opinion. He seemed rather melancholy; but he had a way of saying pungent things very effectively, and one of these attributed to him became widely known. He was publicly advocating a hotly contested canal bill, when an opponent said, "You will find a solid rock in the way of this measure"; to which the chancellor rejoined, "We will then do with the rock as Moses did: we will smite it and get water for our canal." As to the next visit of importance, I was especially glad to find at the Foreign Office the newly appointed minister, Baron (now Count) von Bulow. During the first part of my former stay, as minister, I had done business at the Foreign Office with his father, and found him in every respect a most congenial representative of the German Government. It now appeared that father and son were amazingly like each other, not only in personal manner, but in their mode of dealing with public affairs. With the multitude of trying questions which pressed upon me as ambassador during nearly six years, it hardly seems possible that I should be still alive were it not for the genial, hearty intercourse, at the Foreign Office and elsewhere, with Count von Bulow. Sundry German papers, indeed, attacked him as yielding to much to me, and sundry American papers attacked me for yielding too much to him; but both of us exerted ourselves to do the best possible, each for his own country, and at the same time to preserve peace and increase good feeling.