imagine the historian bent over his desk, surrounded by books and knee-deep in newspapers, selecting and weighing events, studying characters, developing personalities, and passing what he hopes may be a final judgment on the court and period he is considering. For a study of the Emperor's life, as it passes in his Court, a large number of works are available, but not many that can be described as authoritative or reliable. Among the latter, however, may be placed Moritz Busch's "Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of His History," three volumes that make Busch almost as interesting to the reader as his subject; Bismarck's own "Gedanke und Erinnerungen," which is chiefly of a political nature; and the "Memorabilia of Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst," who was for several years Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine and subsequently became Imperial Chancellor in succession to General von Caprivi. These works, with the collections of the Emperor's speeches and the speeches and interviews of Chancellor Prince von Bülow, may be ranked in the category of serious and authentic contributions to the Court history of the period they cover. Then there are several German descriptions of the Court, reliable enough in their way which is a dull one, to those who are not impassioned monarchists or hide-bound bureaucrats. In the category of works by unscrupulous writers that entitled "The Private Lives of William II and His Consort," by a lady-in-waiting to the Empress from 1888 to 1898, easily takes first place. Certainly it gives a lively and often entertaining insight into the domestic life of the palace, but it is so clearly informed by spite that it is impossible to distinguish what is true in it from what is false or misrepresented. Finally, for the closer study of individual events and the impressions they made at the time of their happening, the daily press can be consulted. For the Bismarck period the biography of Hans Blum is of exceptional value.