The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-05-11
ROYAL READERS.
FINE STUDENTS AND WELL vERs-
ED IN LITERATURE.


tivated Woman and King Edward,
Her SON, Is Somewhat Like the OLD
Time Monarch Who Used to Paw
Learned Men to Know Things for
Him-His SOM the Present Prince
OF Wales, However, Is Thoroughly
Vp-tO-Date-The Kaiser Another
Example of Modern CuIture-His
Press Bureau the Best Equipped In
the WOrId-The Old King and
queen of Italy Read Little, but the
couple Now i'm the Royal Palace Mt
Rome Are Extremely Well Inform
ed.
copyright 1902. by Stephen Austin.
In the good old days kings and
queens were not expected to know
anything about literature: it was one
OF the prerogatives of royalty to be
ignorant. A king has to be a walking
encyclopedia; a queen wins admiration
from her people when 1t is known that
She loves books, and has q cultivated
taste. Young princes have to wade
through languages, science and roliti-
cal economy; small princesses are ex-
pected to have a loving acquaintance
with poets and the better sort of novel
lists. The change has come about
within our own times; in nearly every
case the younger sovereigns and royal
ties generally are highly cultured, de-
voices of learning and literature, while
The older crowned heads are as empty
Of book-knowledge as so many plough
boys.
Take the English royal family for
an example. The late Queen Victoria
was undoubtedly a woman Of great
brain power and character, she prob
ably knew as much about the ruling of
her immense possessions as any of
her ministers, and sometimes ran very
close to violating the unwritten Eng
lsh constitution by putting direct per-
scnal restraint upon the responsible
heads of state departments. Yet her
literary taste was utterly beneath con-
tempt. She gead a good deal of Ten
nyson, no doubt, but it was mainly
because of a certain sentimentality in
winch her poet-laureate met her own
womanly feeling; what was really fine
and great in Lord Tennysons work al
most certainly left her unmoved. Her
characterization mostly for Lublica-
tion by a titled secretary--show that
a no sound literary Judgment.
And her later reading was either IN
L.1..., " "a saotion ana sermons OF in
novels of the least intellectual order.
Her indirectly expressed approval of a
,ook several times sent up sales, as
in the case of Rhoda Broughton or
'ella," but it almost always meant
that the book was devoid of all real
value The old Queen read simply to
MnIe away the heavy hours. She
belonged, able woman though she wax,
he Of
sons
Her son, the present King, belongs
practically to the same period; he is
not in the first bloom of his youth and
he, too, is no great reader, certainly not
thinker or a critic. Much less able
than his mother, he practically is an
uneducated man, except in the sense
that he is a man of the world and
knews life very thoroughly in all it's
phases 1t is nowhere recorded that
he ever expressed an opinion of a book;
probably he has read very few. Ger
tainly his poor attempts at speech
making show him to be completely out
OF touch with the world of thought. He
represents fairly well the jovial me-
diaeval monarch who paid learned men
TO know things" for him while he him
self went his way in contented indif-
ference to all the intellectual life of his
day.
80 Prince of Wales and the Kaiser
The contrast of the old order with the
new becomes evident in the case of his
son, the Prince of Wales. The Prince
l. not conspicuously learned man, not
perhaps brilliantly gifted man, but
ne is far ahead of the King in his
interest in letters and in thought To
near him speak in public, If only at
some absurd unveiling ceremony or the
a Fl la &c n
recognize at once a man fairly abreast
Oh the intellectual achievement of his
Gay, man OF personal convictions ac-
CURED by reading and matured by
meditation He is a well educated cu!-
uVated man, representing the new gem
GRAFTON of royalty.
On about the same intellectual plane
STANDS the much-talked-of Kaiser He,
Is true, is not 4 great reader of
DOCKS. He has been called the '.Yel-
low journalist of royalty on account
OF ms love for ultra-modernism, his
passion for splurge and display
naturally he is great reader of news
papers and magazines; he prefers to
get information rapidly and in the
vivid popular form in which the ready
writer Tor the press serves it up. He
Iets other people do the work of re-
search for him, he gets his learning
dt secondhand but he lets nothing
escape; he is in the closest touch with
modern science, art literature, politics
anu personality have heard d member
VI the German embassy at Paris say
me haiser's ready memory, diligently
iuIhsned by years of newspapers and
magazine reading in four languages |
enables him to pour out streams of
AK Tor hours without ever being de- |
-tected IN error of fact, though touch |
ing on nearly every phase of human |
dCIVlty IN the past hundred years.
me attache thought, by the way, |
mat Wilhelm had little or no practical |
acquaintance with the history of the |
world IN former ages-except in so far |
as MS fetish, the house of Hohenzol- |
Ierhs, was concerned. The Kaiser is a |
man of his own day, intensely inter-
ested in the present and future, but
colo towards the past. His press bu-
Ieau' by the way is possibly the best
equlpped in the world; a numerous
staH of imperial readers" wades |
through German, French, English and
american and Oriental papers every
Jay to clip 70 rhim editorial matter
ana articles on literature and science
winch may interest him. AS sort of
side-dish, he devours also fact-arti- /
Sles dealing with sport, especially, l |
nave heard, with pugilism. The Kaiser
uoes some boxing himself in the priva-
~ OF Potsdam; it is very probable
mat Prince Henry of Prussia return
ing from the United States trip
p,ought a good deal of ring gossip with