They have done much for Germany, but the best, perhaps, of all is that they have made economy and simple living feasible and even fashionable; they have made talent aristocratic; they have insisted that social life shall be founded on service and breeding and ability. They will have no dealings with Herr Muller, the rich shopkeeper, but whatever name the distinguished artist, or public servant, or man of science, or young giant in any field of intellectual prowess may bear, he is welcomed. In general this welcome given by German society to talent holds good. There is, however, a society composed of the great landed proprietors, who live in the country, who come to Berlin rarely, and whose horizon is limited severely to their own small interests, their restricted circle, and by their provincial pride. They recognize nobody but themselves, for the reason that they know nobody and nothing else. There is an exclusiveness born of stupidity, just as there is an exclusiveness born of a sense of duty to one's position and traditions in the world. One must recognize that this side of social life exists in Germany just as it exists in England, and France, and Austria, but it is fast losing its importance and its power.
One hears it lamented that society is changing, that the rich Jew and the rich gentile are received where twenty-five years ago the social portals were shut against them, and that many go to their houses who would not have gone not many years ago. My experience is too slender to weigh these matters in years; my contention is only that, from an American or English stand-point, their social life is notably simple, and still largely founded on merit and service, rather than upon the means to provide luxury.
Though there are thousands of people received at court each year, this does not mean that they are invited to the more intimate parties of those in court control. They are tolerated, not welcomed. Such people are invited to the court ball, but never thought of, even, as guests at the small supper party of, say, a court official later in the evening. Prussia and Germany are still ruled socially and politically by a small group of, roughly, fifty thousand men, eight thousand of them in the frock-coat of the civilian official, and the rest in military uniforms. Added to this must be named a few great financiers, shipping and mining and industrial magnates, and great land-owners, and less than half a dozen journalists, and as many professors.