Undoubtedly the Emperor is a man of many gifts, intelligent and well-informed. For all that, one gets an impression, when talking to him, that he has but a superficial acquaintance with certain subjects on which he loves to dilate. This is not surprising. In spite of his uncommon capacity for assimilating knowledge, William II. is not a man of universal mind, able to discourse with equal aptness upon politics, industry, commerce, agriculture, music, painting, architecture—one may as well say, upon every branch of human knowledge, for he does not even shrink from venturing on the steep path of the exact sciences. Perhaps he would have acted more wisely if, instead of spreading his mental activities over so many different fields, he had centred them in the study of foreign politics, and had endeavoured to find out for himself, at first hand, the real state of public opinion in the countries surrounding Germany. Had he adopted this course, those who conversed with him would not have had to record the disquieting fact that he accepted, as articles of faith, many prejudiced and utterly wrong-headed notions that were current in the German Press and among the German public. His confidence in himself has always made it impossible for him to endure, in the governance of the Empire, the co-operation of a superior mind or an independent will. When he had been on the throne two years, he impatiently shook himself free from the leading-strings—irksome, no doubt, but still necessary—held by the man to whom he owed his Imperial crown. In order to enjoy a long spell of service, his ministers must either adopt his ideas or possess the art of presenting theirs as if he had inspired them. After the dismissal of Bismarck, his chancellors were nothing but executors, more or less skilful, of his divine will, and heads of an army of bureaucrats. For an Imperial chancellor, to govern means not to foresee, but to obey a headstrong and unstable master.