shouted and stamped and clapped, and banged the beer-mugs. Just simply a storm. Then the little man with his long hair and Emersonian face edged his way past us and took his seat. I could have touched him with my hand—Mommsen!—think of it! This was one of those immense surprises that can happen only a few times in one’s life. I was not dreaming of him, he was to me only a giant myth, a world-shadowing spectre, not a reality. The surprise of it all can be only comparable to a man’s suddenly coming upon Mont Blanc, with its awful form towering into the sky, when he didn’t suspect he was in its neighbourhood. I would have walked a great many miles to get a sight of him, and here he was, without trouble or tramp or cost of any kind. Here he was, clothed in a Titanic, deceptive modesty which made him look like other men. Here he was, carrying the Roman world and all the Cæsars in his hospitable skull, and doing it as easily as that other luminous vault, the skull of the universe, carries the Milky Way and the constellations. One of the professors said that once upon a time an American young lady was introduced to Mommsen, and found herself badly scared and speechless. She dreaded to see his mouth unclose, for she was expecting him to choose a subject several miles above her comprehension, and didn’t suppose he _could_ get down to the world that other people lived in; but when his remark came, her terrors disappeared: ‘Well, how do you do? Have you read Howells’s last book? _I_ think it’s his best.’ The active ceremonies of the evening closed with the speeches of welcome, delivered by two students, and the replies made by Professors Virchow and Helmholtz. Virchow has long been a member of the city government of Berlin. He works as hard for the city as does any other Berlin alderman, and gets the same pay—nothing. I don’t know that we in America could venture to ask our most illustrious citizen to serve in a board of aldermen, and if we might venture it I am not positively sure that we could elect him. But here the municipal system is such that the best men in the city consider it an honour to serve gratis as aldermen, and the people have the good sense to prefer these men, and to elect them year after year. As a result, Berlin is a thoroughly well-governed city. It is a free city; its affairs are not meddled with by the State; they are managed by its own citizens, and after methods of their own devising. _A PETITION TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND_ HARTFORD: _Nov. 6, 1887_.