The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-30
sydney Brooks in Mcclure's Magazine f,

Sydney Brooks in McClure's Magazine for
July
|n0HE Kaiser is no sybarite, and luxury
and coddling have found scant
L place in the education of his chill
dren. Throughout the social life of Ger
many, the balance inclines in favor of
the man as deciseively as In America 1t
leans to the side of the woman; and no
one need ask whether the Kaiser who
is thorough German. a king, an emperor
and disciplinarian to boot, is the master
at Potsdam. The subsection of the woman
to the man he accepts unquestionably as
law of nature This is the old Ger
man ideal and the modern attempts to
challenge it he classes with Hauptmanns
dramas and the impressionist school of
painting, as a vagary to be sternly dis
countenanced, or rather as disease to
be stamped out. The rule of primitive
life that would confine women to church,
kitchen and children finds nowhere, not
even In Germany, a more thoroughgoing
defender than the Kaiser. In all such
matters, as in all matters of literary and
artistic taste, he is both Tory and a
Phiistine.
Happily, the Empress, whether by in
stinct or of necessity, has long since ac-
commodated herself to the subordinate
role of the typical German Hausfrau,
She has all of the domestic virtues.
She is kindly. modest, warm-hearted. be-
nevolent; charitable, not merely as a,
duty. but by nature; a mistress of the
of oil ho
fession Of keeping house; absorbed In
her family and in good works; with
neither instinct nor inclination for po-
litical intrigue or for setting herself UP
as an arbiter Of fashions in dress or
letters or art. In short, hers is an am
liable, wholesome, unpretentious, rather
negative personality. and her main public
achievement. SO far, has been the build
ing of a vast number OF churches in an
impossible style Of architecture.
The Kaiser could not have found a
wife more precisely suited to his tenn
permanent. Her poise and restfuness, her
"Reminiscences and tenderness, create the
very atmosphere that a man SO domineer-
Ing and hard driven, SO Astounding In life,
so volcanic and egotistical. finds most
soothing and most fortifying. 1t is well,
perhaps, for the peace of the fireside,
that William should be an Emperor, with
all the distractions and anxieties and the
intolerable load Of work that the posi-
ton entails AS a mere husband he
would present as formidable problem
as feminine diplomacy has ever been
called upon to solve.
The young couple were provided with
an establishment in the Marble Palace
at Potsdam, and william threw himself
with redoublsd ardor into his military
duties. He is a soldier before he is
husband or a father, almost before he
Is an Emperor or human being. On
the very morning of his wedding he drilled
his company as usual, and sunrise of
the next day found him rushing off to
Potsdam to decorate subaltern. The
first proclamation that he issued as En-
peror was addressed, in ringing periods,
to his army:
"Thus we belong to each other. I and
the army; thus we were born for each
other; and firmly and inseparably will
we hold together, whether Gods will gives
US peace or storm"
Perhaps he was never happier than
when, as crown prince and colonel Of the
hussars Of the guard. he exercised his
troops on the Templehof Field. and
swung home at their head dovn the I'm
ter den Linden, crowded with cheering
Behring'S; or when. ~ emperor, he COM
manded an army corps at the maneuvers