The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1901-12-08

| Crete came no manfully to the rescue. was
caused by Nicholas's effort to enter dis
guised into = Shinto temple and to pene-
trate the jealor~ly-guarded mysteries which
no white man has ever seen.
Those who saw him in France on his
late visit were all struck by a certain I'M
| canny look always lurking in his face.
however he might smile In Obedience TO
the protocol: the expression OF the de-
veloping melancholia maniac. Nicholas
believes that he Is doomed TO be assassi-
mated. not because Il Is the natural end
for a Russian Emperor. but because astrol-
ogers and crystal gazers who knew Moth
ing Of his rank, have moro than once pre-
dicted for him a violent death.
1t is a long step from Nicholas oil rus
STA to the sad little King of spain, whose
appearance gives the impression that. he
is travelling down the same dark road to
melancholy. Alfonso, the dark-browed,
heavy-eyed, slender-limbcd boy OF 10.
plays sadly in a reserved stretch oil the
| sands of San Sebastian. his grave mother
watching him all the time, and his few
carefully picked playmates, chosen from
the sons of the grandees OF Spain, scarcely
daring TO touch him.
The utter smash Of Spain in the Ameri-
can war came lust as the boy was beginning
10 fee, that he would be 30 trained as to
play his part nobly. The practical wiping
out OF Spain from any world Importance
has saddened both mother and son deeply
incurably.
Even without that crushing blow Al
fonso could never nave been gay; he is one
of the victims of education His young
life has been one long, dreary grind at
books. He has had cramned into his
aching head five or sin languages, II
enough history and political economy
not to mention all the ordinary branches
to stock a college professor for oil his career.
Probably very little of AlfOnsos undi-
pested learning will remain with him when
next year, he filings away his books and
picks up the sceptre. But II looks as II
the melancholy of his school days would
hang over him all his life.
The old Emperor of Austria belongs to
a generation when royal personages were
not supposed TO know any more than
other people or even 80 much. lie II ne
lieved to possess a genial contempt Tor
all books and 10 ignore that special form
of nervous sensibility that often menaces
the bookish temperament. But he has
heavy troubles of his own, and small in
sanities that spring from them.
Apart from some of his own misdeeds
there has been heavy grief In hlS family,
grief coming both from madness and from
crime. Apart from the influence OF tho
terrible stories that cling around the Arch
dukes, and of the sad Empress, asSasslnated
i'm the midst of her half insane dream or
companionsiiip with the old Greek gods,
the Austrian Kaiser is depressed by the
hllDM lflEt 'ld' iN ~ -
away beneath him.
He suffers from a mixture OF melancholia
and megalomania and jumps from un-
healthful and even unseemly gayety 10
brooding care, waking sometimes from
that condition 10 singular forms OF petty
personal tyranny. one OF his mail in
sanities is his preserving of the famous
wild boar shooting of the imperial forests.
His ~son-in-law, Prince Leopold of Ba-
varia, is passionately addicted to the rur-
suit of the wild boar, and Is always trying
10 dodge his father-in-law's vigilance
and have a 60 at the tusked monsters OF
the woods. The old Emperor sometimes
dreams o. nights that this desperate young
Prince is out by ~torchlight in quest of the
sacred animal, Trembling with rage the
Kaiser will ring up his majordomo and will
not hc pacifled till Inc has been assured
a score of times that the Prince is inno-
Gently asleep in the palace.
II would. no doubt, be impossible to make
out a presentable list of royal persons a.
sane as sailors. Tn King of England might
90 as an example though, after all. a
fhcoriSt bent on making his point nj any
cost might say that Edward seems TO have
suffered from chronic debt mania. which,
i'm an exaggerated form, nay be a sign OF
distorted mentality. ~
One Of the last persons one would thlnk
Of accusing of any mental twist would he
the jolly young Queen OF Holland, so often
described as the perfect type OF healthy
mind in healthy body. Yet not a few people
were painfully startled by a little incident
OF her Inauguration.
As she stood nj the church ALTA with her
mother. they two alone within the SanCtu-
ary. she dropped her bouquet. She looked
appealinglv at her mother; the eS-Qucen
flushed deeply and nodded refusal. ,
Then Wilhelmina ~ retched out her hand
In an imperious gesture. pointed to IN"
bouquet on the ground and gazed steadily
in her mothers ewes And the mother, hali
CRYING, stopped and handed the bouquet
to the Queen.
The incident shocked every one that saw
IL Was it. the beginning ~ royal megalp-
mania