In spite of his belief in the special mission of the Hohenzollern family to carry out Divine purposes, an idea not uncorroborated by the course of history, he is in every respect more democratic than his Court. The magic “von” has, under his influence, lost some of its prestige. He has bestowed the coveted syllable on certain people whom he desired to see at Court, and invited to his table many men not enjoying the prepositional advantage. One of them, Herr Ballin, the head and inspiration of the Hamburg-America Line of Steamships, a self-made man with Jewish blood in his veins, was even asked to Rominten, where only the elect expect to meet each other. Not only that--to him was conceded a rare and much-coveted privilege: he was allowed to go stag-hunting, and, worse still, bagged three fine specimens, one of them a stag-royal. What made this still more galling to the blue-blooded _entourage_ was that a special friend of the Kaiser, a dear, delightful, charming old gentleman whom everybody liked, had been accorded a similar favour, but came back time after time without wearing the coveted spray of oak-leaves in the back of his hat, the leaves whose absence is so painfully eloquent of failure. A universal groan used to go up from the lingerers in the courtyard as the yellow _Jagd-Wagen_ appeared in sight and still no “_Spruch_” was visible to the anxious watchers. “There, the General has again had no luck!” they would remark; and it became quite monotonous to see the General depart, all smiles, in his green uniform amid a chorus of “_Waidmann’s Heil_,” and watch his return sadly and slowly in the dusk of evening. The Emperor likes to be identified with successful people of every class, to feel that he has contributed something to their success, to indicate to them further channels of improvement. There are probably few successful artists, architects, engineers, or shipbuilders who have not been at some time indebted to the Emperor for many professional suggestions. It is a matter of common knowledge that all architectural plans for Government buildings, post offices, railway stations, barracks, etc., are invariably submitted to His Majesty--a censorship productive of many terrors and much apprehension in the official mind, for the question of expense is ignored and the Imperial blue pencil strikes out perhaps the toil of months, substituting something maybe less adequate to the intended purpose. Yet, on the whole, this autocratic method has been productive of much good: it has saved the nation from the frightful utilitarian atrocities of the inartistic Town Council, whose hideous square piles of bricks lie like a nightmare on the public conscience. If the Emperor often misses the best, his taste is at any rate on a sufficiently high level of excellence, and it improves with advancing years.