I will not dilute the flavor of the original by any individual essence of my own. The reminiscences are accessible and are not to be imitated. But to the reader of them one fact above all others will be evident: M. de Blowitz was and is a diplomatist of the first order. Seek to explain the eternal hatred felt towards him by a Prince Bismarck on any other ground. The attempt is impossible. IDEALS OF A GREAT JOURNALIST. Whatever M. de Blowitz's loyalty to the "Times," he has been loyal above all to his own ideal. This ideal has always been to get at the most political truth possible as a condition of exerting an individual influence on European states in the interest of European peace. To me, individually, this ideal seems rather too generous. Everybody now-a-days wants to take a part in affairs, when only to look on is surely the one wise part to take. But generous M. de Blowitz is, and he is demonstrating now, in a series of "recollections," that his ideal can be carried out in a striking way. I do not deny for a moment that the point is proven. I doubt very much, however, if any other similar series of facts will ever be marshalled to the same end. But all the more reason for being belongs, just for this cause, to the "Blowitziana." [Illustration: THE _Lampottes_; THE COUNTRY HOUSE OF M. DE BLOWITZ.] The "Blowitziana"! This, however, is just what some of us feel more inspired, than at liberty, to give. I recall here, over this paper, too many things at once; and all the impressions, seeing M. de Blowitz as I do continually, fortunately lack perspective. But to note this and that about him seems in a way as much a duty as a pleasure, for I remember well that my original notion of this remarkable man was widely different from that which began to form in my mind once I knew him. I don't think that people who hear about him, people who read his name in the newspapers, the average citizen of the world who doesn't know him personally, have quite the right idea about him. During the last twenty years he has obtained a reputation for being the most persistent ferreter of news in existence; but in many minds there is distrust whenever, over his signature, some unexpected revelation comes to change the key in the European concert. Perhaps an unlooked-for document is published, interrupting the plans of European statesmen, bringing to nothing all their most elaborate scheming; and on the morrow, by some official source, comes a denial that any such document was ever dreamed of. It is obviously impracticable for M. de Blowitz to give his proofs, and this or that unthinking reader, used to a thousand irresponsible writers who care only for what is sensational, and who never verify their information, hurriedly relegates the disclosure of the "Times" correspondent to the same category. This is natural enough, of course. But let there be no mistake. The revelation was worthy of the name; of this you may be sure. M.