The king was still cheerfully talkative and abounded in ideas.  He fell presently into an amiable controversy with the American, who seemed to feel a lack of impressiveness in the occasion.

It was ever the Transatlantic tendency, due, no doubt, to the necessity of handling public questions in a bulky and striking manner, to over-emphasise and over-accentuate, and the president was touched by his national failing.  He suggested now that there should be a new era, starting from that day as the first day of the first year.

The king demurred.

‘From this day forth, sir, man enters upon his heritage,’ said the American.

‘Man,’ said the king, ’is always entering upon his heritage.  You Americans have a peculiar weakness for anniversaries—­if you will forgive me saying so.  Yes—­I accuse you of a lust for dramatic effect.  Everything is happening always, but you want to say this or this is the real instant in time and subordinate all the others to it.’

The American said something about an epoch-making day.

‘But surely,’ said the king, ’you don’t want us to condemn all humanity to a world-wide annual Fourth of July for ever and ever more.  On account of this harmless necessary day of declarations.  No conceivable day could ever deserve that.  Ah! you do not know, as I do, the devastations of the memorable.  My poor grandparents were—­RUBRICATED. The worst of these huge celebrations is that they break up the dignified succession of one’s contemporary emotions.  They interrupt.  They set back.  Suddenly out come the flags and fireworks, and the old enthusiasms are furbished up—­and it’s sheer destruction of the proper thing that ought to be going on.  Sufficient unto the day is the celebration thereof.  Let the dead past bury its dead.  You see, in regard to the calendar, I am for democracy and you are for aristocracy.  All things I hold, are august, and have a right to be lived through on their merits.  No day should be sacrificed on the grave of departed events.  What do you think of it, Wilhelm?’

‘For the noble, yes, all days should be noble.’

‘Exactly my position,’ said the king, and felt pleased at what he had been saying.

And then, since the American pressed his idea, the king contrived to shift the talk from the question of celebrating the epoch they were making to the question of the probabilities that lay ahead.  Here every one became diffident.  They could see the world unified and at peace, but what detail was to follow from that unification they seemed indisposed to discuss.  This diffidence struck the king as remarkable.  He plunged upon the possibilities of science.  All the huge expenditure that had hitherto gone into unproductive naval and military preparations, must now, he declared, place research upon a new footing.  ’Where one man worked we will have a thousand.’  He appealed to Holsten.  ’We have only begun to peep into these possibilities,’ he said.  ’You at any rate have sounded the vaults of the treasure house.’