I first saw George Bancroft when he was Minister at Berlin.  He had read a little book of mine, The Color Guard, my diary as a Corporal of the Nineteenth Army Corps, scribbled off on my cap-top, my gun-stock, or indeed my shoe-sole, or whatever desk I could extemporise as we marched and fought.  That book gave me some claim to his notice, but a better claim was that his wife was Elizabeth Davis, whom more than a hundred years ago my grandfather of the ancient First Parish in Plymouth had baptised and who as a girl had been my mother’s playmate in gardens near Plymouth Rock.  I did not presume upon such credentials as these to obtrude myself, and was pleasantly surprised one day by a note inviting me to the Embassy.  It was a retired house near the Thiergarten.  I found Mr. Bancroft embarrassed with duties which in those days gave trouble.  German emigrants returning after prosperous years to the Fatherland were often pounced upon, the validity of their American citizenship denied, and taxes and military service demanded.  It was tough work to straighten out such knots and the Minister was in the midst of such a tangle.  But his high, broad forehead smoothed presently, and his grey eyes grew genial, while the vivacious features spoke with the very cordial impulse with which he greeted one who had heard the bullets of the Civil War whistle and was the son of his wife’s old friend.  Another tie was that his father, Dr. Aaron Bancroft of Worcester, and my grandfather, had stood shoulder to shoulder in the controversy of a century ago which rent apart New England Congregationalism.  Presently we sat down to lunch, a party of three, for the board was graced by the presence of Mrs. Bancroft, a woman of fine accomplishments polished through contact with high society in many lands, and a gifted talker.  Many readers have found her published letters charming.  The talk was largely of the Civil War and Bancroft’s words were in the best sense patriotic.  During and before that period his course had been much disapproved.  He had been Collector of Boston under Democratic auspices and had served under Polk as Secretary of the Navy, where he laid the country lastingly under debt by establishing the Naval Academy at Annapolis.  I do not approve or condemn, but I felt him wisely and warmly patriotic, deeply concerned that the outcome of our long national agony should be worthy of the sacrifice.  The breath of a pleasant spring day pervaded the elegant apartment while the birds sang in the tall trees stretching out toward the forest of the Thiergarten.  I especially associate with the Bancrofts their beautiful outdoor environment.  Another day I drove with the Minister, our companions in the carriage being the wife and the daughter of Ernst Curtius, to visit the rose gardens about Berlin.  I have met few men readier or more agreeable in conversation.  With a pleasant smile and intonation he touched gracefully on this and that, sometimes in reminiscence.  I remember in particular a vivid setting forth of