When some years ago he for a few weeks occupied Highcliffe Castle, near Bournemouth--a proceeding which very much annoyed a section of his subjects, who considered that Germany possessed just as many “eligible residences” for the purposes of a “cure” as did England, of whom those Germans who know least of her are naturally most suspicious--his letters to Her Majesty, portions of which she occasionally read aloud at supper, showed how absolutely he enjoyed that peaceful, comfortable, untrammelled, simple country-house life: how the beautiful gardens--there are no beautiful gardens in Germany--the product of years of thought and labour, a growth of the ages, imbued as they are with the glamour and mystery of the past, appealed to the artistic side of his soul; how “thoroughly at home"--his own expression--he felt there, how rested and refreshed in body and soul. He wanted the Empress, if only for a week, to come and join him, so that she might share something of his delight and pleasure in the old house, in its wealth of memories, its many treasures of art and historical relics; but there was the difficulty of accommodating the suite, the ladies and gentlemen, the maids and footmen, with which royalty can never dispense, however simple in its own personal needs it may be. So the plan fell through--the time was too short to arrange matters; but the Emperor in his letters described in minutest detail everything that happened there--his delight in the pretty English children he met, his pleasure in the tea he gave to the boys and girls on the estate, his astonishment at their well-dressed appearance, their reserved, composed manners, at the way in which they sang grace, at the clergyman who controlled the proceedings and knew how to box and play cricket. It is quite impossible to imagine a German _Pastor_ who can play cricket, and as for boxing ...! “Poor Papa!” said the Princess, “he is quite broken-hearted at leaving his dear Highcliffe.” Any one living in the atmosphere of German palaces can understand this regret. It is conceded that no one in the world can create like the English that delightful surrounding of freedom and comfort, of cultured, artistic luxury combined with a certain strenuous out-of-door life. The palaces inhabited by the Emperor are huge, magnificent buildings, expensively and uncomfortably constructed; and Germany has too recently been engaged in the stern business of war, her faculties are still too absorbed in the great question of defence, to be able to afford the leisure to accumulate those relics and treasures of past ages which are the charm of England.