But because the Kaiser’s ideas of proper government included mighty armaments, the military party, always the dominant class, was encouraged to grow stronger and more powerful each year. His very enthusiasm over his efficient army and navy no doubt had a very great influence on the nation at large. Trained to venerate their ruler, naturally they were willing to uphold what he upheld. He had always fostered the growth of trade, and his people had seen how this policy had benefited them. The Kaiser believed in increasing his army and navy, and the people, never questioning his judgment, did not rebel when the tax-collector took a little more of their earnings each year. Whether the Kaiser ever realised that his encouragement of the military caste had loosed a force that might sweep everything before it is hard to say. If it ever occurred to him that the party was growing too strong, surely his mystic belief in his own divinely derived power reassured him with the argument that his personal authority could always hold these turbulent elements in check. Accustomed to rule as absolutely as any mediæval potentate, the Kaiser had unconsciously called into being vast forces which in turn were to dominate him, to engulf him, and to make him the foremost figure in the most gigantic cataclysm of human history. CHAPTER VIII THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE Looking back over my travels, few visits stand out with more pleasant recollections than those I have paid to Petrograd. In the present Tsar, Nicholas II., one finds a type of sovereign not only different from either King Edward or the Kaiser, but, in my experience, unique. Sovereigns may have moments of an affectionate emotion; they rarely have consistent tenderness. In their most intimate relations of family life they are apt to resume suddenly the frigid tones of royalty; and I have seen a king, talking even with his mother, get himself unexpectedly into his royal manner and speak as stiffly as if he were giving his mind to some lower breed of human being. Many a person, chatting _tête-à-tête_ with a sovereign alone, has been charmed by the simple naturalness of his manner, and meeting him an hour later, before others, has wondered if it could be the same man. Not so the Tsar. He has more human tenderness than I ever saw in any other man. He enters a crowded audience-room with the same charming kindliness and unconsciousness of self that he has in the privacy of family life. His eyes have always the one clear gaze of a clean soul.