Theodor Mommsen, more than any other, forty years ago, was the leading historian of Germany.  He began his career as a student of law, in the antiquities of which he became thoroughly versed.  In particular Justinian and the Roman authorities, among whom he stands as chief, were the objects of Mommsen’s research.  From jurisprudence he passed to the study of general history, and of the most interesting period of Rome he absorbed into his mind all the lore that has survived.  This he digested and set forth in a monumental work, which, translated into English, has been, in the English-speaking world of scholars at least, as familiar as household words.  At a still later time he was an active striver in the political agitations of his day.

I sent in my card to Mommsen with some trepidation and was at once admitted.  I found him sitting at leisure among his books and Bancroft’s introduction brought to pass for me a genial welcome.  He was a man not large in frame with dark eyes, and black hair streaked with grey.  No doubt but that like German scholars in general he could talk English, but he stuck to German and I was rather glad he did so; I could take him in better as he discoursed fluently in his mother-tongue.  Mommsen was a man of sharp corners who often in his political career brought grief to adversaries who tried to handle him without gloves.  I was fortunate in catching him in a softer mood and witnessed an amiability with which he was not usually credited.  His little daughters were in the room, pretty children with whom the father played with evident pride and joy, interrupting the conversation to caress the curly pates, and trotting them on his knee.  He put keen questions to me as regards America, showing that while busy with Caesar and the on-goings of the ancient forum he had been wide awake also to modern happenings.  He expressed much regard for Bancroft and praised Grant for selecting as minister to Germany a personality so agreeable to European scholars.  He told me of the jubilee of Bancroft which was about to be celebrated with marked honours.  Fifty years before Bancroft had “made his doctor” at Goettingen, one of the earliest Americans to achieve that distinction, and the German universities meant to show emphatically their recognition of his merit.  The celebration afterwards took place, not interrupted by the warlike uproar in which the land was about to be involved.  A proud honour indeed for the American minister.  It was a noteworthy occasion to talk thus familiarly with one of the most illustrious scholars of the time, and I recall fondly the pleasant details of the picture.