Some passages from a sermon delivered by the German Emperor
on his yacht have been published here, and even in their translated form excite admiration and surprise by their real if high-pitched eloquence. The Germans, however, are not surprised. They say their Emperor is a genuine orator, with all the merits and some of the defects of the oratorical temperament. The merits are that he looks at things in a large way, that he thinks out everything that he notices at all, and that he sincerely desires to carry his audience with him,—a great guarantee that he will not be tyrannical. The defects are that the picturesque attracts him too much, that when telling sentences arise in his mind be must utter them, and tbat when he is in a mood to speak his power of speech carries him away. That seems to English observers sound criticism, but needs the addition—which was true also of Mr. Gladstone—that in all business which he understands the Emperor is a master of detail. Hie precautions for his troops in this Chinese campaign extend to the minutest particulars. He displayed, too, extraordinary perseverance and knowledge of his countrymen in the way in which he pushed through his Naval Bill.
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