Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885

Then hurrah! for the Land League,
And Parnell so brave;
Each bad landlord, my boys,
We'll muzzle him tight.
May the banner of freedom
And green laurels wave
O'er the men of the Land League,
And Parnell so brave.”

Irish humor is not dead yet, but it is decaying or dormant; and if ever, in spite of the malign influence of the Gulf Stream, and the Nationalist Party, and a sense of their past wrongs, and race-hatred, and half-a-dozen other drawbacks, Ireland should recover her sanity and grow prosperous and contented, then, and not till then, may we expect to see her sons grow merry as well as wise, – unless, indeed, their sense of humor is entirely improved out of them in the process. Judging from the character of the men of Antrim, this is not impossible. But valuable as is the gift of humor, the harmony of Great Britain would not be too dearly bought by its sacrifice. —The Spectator.

PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER

The late general election in Germany showed results which have signally verified Prince Bismarck's calculations on the tendencies of modern democracy.

The Liberalists, who represent the opinions of the Manchester school, lost a great number of seats – no less than forty-four; while signal victories were won by the Conservatives, the Catholics, and the Socialists. The doctrines of the Liberals were treated with unequivocal contempt in the large cities, and several members of the party retained their seats only through the support grudgingly given to them by Socialist electors at the second ballot. At the first ballot the Socialists testified to their absolute hatred of the Liberals by voting for Conservative or Catholic candidates in constituencies where they were not strong enough to carry candidates of their own; but at the second ballot they dictated terms to the sorely mortified party whose overthrow they had caused, and agreed to assist Liberals who promised to vote for a repeal of the law against Socialists. The Liberals swallowed the leek and made the promise, though throughout the electoral campaign they had denounced the Socialists as the worst enemies of human progress. The Socialists, on their side, went to the polls as if obeying the injunction which Ferdinand Lassalle laid upon working-men eighteen months before his death[27 - Lassalle was killed in a duel in 1864, at the age of thirty-nine.]: “I have always been a Republican, but, promise me, my friends, that if ever a struggle should take place between the Divine Right Monarchy and the miserable Liberal middle-class, you will fight on the King's side against the bourgeois.”

German Conservatives have regretted that Lassalle died at least six years too soon, for it is supposed that if he had witnessed the triumphs of Bismarck's policy and the unification of Germany after the war of 1870, he would have used his influence over the working classes to make them trust the great and successful champion of their nation. This, however, is doubtful, for the post-mortem examination of Lassalle's body revealed that he had in him the germs of disease by which his intellect would have gradually deteriorated. He had become a voluptuary before he died, and had he lived a little longer he might simply have been dazzled by the conqueror s glory, and have lost his influence by accepting honors and favors too readily as the reward of his homage. On the other hand, if Lassalle had remained head-whole and heart-whole, Bismarck and he could not have lived together. Both giants, one must have succumbed to the other after some formidable encounter. The two spent an afternoon in company at the height of the Conflikt-Zeit, when Bismarck was wrestling with the Liberal opposition in the Prussian Parliament. They smoked and drank beer, laughed like old friends over the events of the day, talked long and with deepening earnestness over the world's future, and separated well pleased with each other. But Lassalle is believed to have shown his hand a little too openly to his host. There were points where the policy of the two blended, and one point of ultimate convergence might have been found if Lassalle's only object had been to seek it; but his personal ambition was at least equal to his zeal as a reformer. “He is a composer,” said Edward Lasker, “who will never think his music well executed unless he conducts the orchestra.”

It is well to remember what were the views of Lassalle about Germany, and how much they differed from those of his inferior successor in the leadership of the Socialists, Karl Marx. In a historical tragedy, “Franz von Sickingen,” which Lassalle published in 1859, he declared that “the sword is the god of this world, the word made flesh, the instrument of all great deliverances, the necessary tool of all useful undertakings.” In the 3d scene of Act III. Franz von Sickingen, the hero in whom Lassalle portrays himself, exclaims against the sordid ambition of petty princes, adding: “How are you to make the soul of a giant enter into the bodies of pigmies? … what we want is a strong and united Germany free from the yoke of Rome – an empire under an evangelical emperor.”[28 - In the play, Charles V. has a long conference with Franz, but ends by saying of him what Bismarck must have said to himself about Lassalle: “The man is great, but his is not the greatness which I seek, and which I can employ.”“Der mann ist gross, doch ist es nicht die Grösse,Welche ich suche und gebrauchen kann.”]

This has been also the wish of Bismarck's life – and this wish he has realised; the obstacles he had to surmount before achieving success offer a most curious subject for study. The political difficulties have furnished matter for many books, but something remains to be said of the social difficulties.

“A conqueror's enemies are not all in front of him,” said Wallenstein, and we know Voltaire's apologue about that “grain of sand in the eye which checked Alexander's march.” Bismarck, like other great fighters, has had to shake off friends – real friends – tugging at his arm. He has had to foil boudoir cabals more powerful than Parliamentary majorities. He has got into those little scrapes which Lord Beaconsfield compared to sudden fogs in a park: “You may have the luck to walk straight home through them, or they may cause you to go miles out of your way and to miss anything, from a dinner to an appointment on which all your prospects depend.” Bismarck again has known the worry and agony of being unable to convince persons of thick head or of timorous conscience, whose co-operation was absolutely indispensable to him. Lord Chesterfield well said that the manner of a man's discourse is of more weight than the matter, for there are more people with ears to be charmed than with minds to understand. Bismarck is no charmer; he has had to contend with the disadvantage of cumbersome speech moved by slow thoughts, and of a temper inflammable as touchwood. For many years he was considered by those who knew him best to be more of a trooper than a politician.

Lord Ampthill once found him reading Andersen's story on the Ugly Duckling, which relates how a duck hatched a swan's egg, and how the cygnet was jeered at by his putative brethren, the ducklings, until one day a troop of lordly swans, floating down the river, saluted him as one of their race. “Ah,” observed Bismarck, “it was a long time before my poor mother could be persuaded that in hatching me she had not produced a goose.”

Bismarck was born in 1814, and at the age of seventeen went to the University of Göttingen. Here he joined a Verbindung– one of those student associations whose members wear flat caps of many colors, hold interminable Kneipen or beer-carousals, and fight rapier duels with the members of other clubs. Bismarck's Verbindung was select, containing none but the sons of noblemen, and it called itself by Kotzebue's name, out of antagonism to a Liberal club which was named after Karl Sand, Kotzebue's murderer.[29 - Karl Sand, a student of Erlangen, assassinated Kotzebue at Manheim in 1819, and having ineffectually tried to commit suicide, was executed in the following year. In striking Kotzebue, he meant, as he said, “to exterminate the apologist of despotism.”] There hangs in one of the rooms at Varzin, a pencil sketch of young Otto Bismarck fighting with a “Sandist” who was the great swashbuckler of his party. Both combatants are dressed, as is still the custom for such meetings, in padded leather jackets, tall hats, iron spectacles with wire netting over the glasses, and they wear thick stocks covering all the neck and throat. Only parts of the face are exposed, the object of the fighters being not to inflict deadly injuries, but to slit each other's cheeks, or to snip off the tip of a nose. Bismarck's adversary, named Konrad Koch, was a towering fellow with such a long arm that he had all the advantage; and after a few passes he snicked Bismarck along the left cheek down to the chin, making a wound of which the scar can be seen to this day. But before the duel he had bragged that he would make the “Kotzebuan” wear the “Sandist” color, red – and, laughing triumphantly at the fulfilment of his threat, as he saw Bismarck drenched in blood, he so infuriated the latter that the Kotzebuan insisted on having another bout. This was contrary to the regulations of student duels, which always end with first blood, so Bismarck had to take patience until his cut was healed, and until he could prove his fitness to meet Koch again, by worsting a number of Sandists. The rapier duels were, and are now, regular Saturday afternoon pastimes, taking place in a gymnastic room, and the combatants on either side being drawn by lot; but it is a rule that, when a student has beaten an opponent, he may decline duelling with him again until this antagonist works his way up to him, so to say, by prevailing over all other swordsmen who may care to challenge him. Bismarck had to fight nearly half-a-dozen duels before he could cross swords with Koch again, but on this second occasion he dealt the Sandist a master-slash on the face and remained victorious.

This series of duels had some important consequences. A satirical paper called Der Floh (The Flea), which was published at Hanover, inserted an article against student fights, and pretty clearly designated young Bismarck as a truculent fellow. Bismarck went to Hanover, called on the editor of the paper, and holding up to his nose the cutting of the offensive article, requested him to swallow it. One version of the story says that the editor's mouth was forced open and that the article was thrust into it in a pellet; another version states that a scrimmage ensued and that the student, after giving and receiving blows and kicks, was hustled out of the office. But it is certain that the affair reached the ears of the Rector of Göttingen University, who sent for Bismarck and rebuked him in a paternal way for his pugnacity. Bismarck did not accept the reproof. To the Rector's astonishment he made an indignant speech, expressing his detestation of Frenchmen, French principles and revolutionary Germans, whom he called Frenchmen in disguise. He prayed that the sword of Joshua might be given him to exterminate all these. “Well, my young friend, you are preparing great trouble for yourself,” remarked the Rector, with a shake of the head; “your opinions are those of another age.” “Good opinions re-flower like the trees after winter,” was Bismarck's answer.

At this time, however, Bismarck's principles were not yet well set. The son of a Pomeranian squire, he had the Junker's abhorrence of Radicals, and from the study of J. J. Rousseau's “Emile,” he had derived the idea that all cities are nests of corruption. Though he execrated Rousseau's name, he was so far his disciple as to look upon country life as the perfect life; in fact, he was an idealist, and he was often sadly at a loss for arguments with which to refute the reasoning of political opponents. This tormented him, for he did not wish to be a man like that Colonel in Hacklander's “Tale of the Regiment,” who said of a philosopher: “I felt the fellow was going to convince me, so I kicked him down stairs.” From Göttingen he went to the University of Berlin, and there vexed his soul in many disputations, without acquiring the consciousness that he was growing really strong in logic. At last he heard in a Lutheran church a sermon which left a lasting impression on his mind. He has often spoken of it since as “my Pentecost.”

The preacher was treating of infidelity in connection with Socialist aspirations, and he observed that men could not live without faith in some ideal. Those men who reject the doctrine of immortality and of a world after this, delude themselves with visions of an earthly paradise. The Socialist's dream is nothing else; and his shibboleths of equality, fraternity and co-operation, are but a paraphrase of the Christian's “love one another.” Love is not necessary to the fulfilment of the Socialist's schemes than it is to the realisation of one's image of Heaven. A world in which there shall be no poor – in which each man shall receive according to his needs and work to the full measure of his capacities, having no individual advancement to expect from his industry, but content to see other men, less capable, fed out of the surplus of his earnings – what would this be but a paradise purged of all human passions – envy, jealousy, covetousness and sloth? Unless there were universal love, how could all the members of a Socialist community be expected to work to their utmost? And if every man did not work his best, so that the weak and the clumsy might live at the expense of the strong and the clever, how could the community exist?

This was the substance of the sermon which Bismarck heard, and those words “the Socialist's Earthly Paradise” have remained fixed in his memory ever since as a terse demonstration as to the inanity of Socialism. State Socialism is of course another matter, and very early in life Bismarck came to the conclusion that the wise ruler must try to make himself popular by humoring the fancies of the people, whatever they may be, and however they may vary. If he can divert the people's fancies towards the objects of his own preference, so much the better, and it must be part of his business to endeavor to do this. But if he cannot lead, he must seem to lead while letting himself be pushed onward. “The people must be led without knowing it,” said Napoleon in a letter which he wrote to Fouché to decline Barrère's offer of pamphlets extolling the Emperor's policy. Bismarck has described universal suffrage as “the government of a house by its nursery;” but he added: “You can do anything with children if you play with them.”

It has been one of the secrets of Bismarck's strength that he has never let himself be imposed upon by inflated talk about the “majesty of the People.” The Democracy has been in his eyes a mere multitude of mediocrities. “Cent imbéciles ne font pas un sage,” said Voltaire, and though La Rochefoucauld inclines to the contrary opinion in some of his well-known aphorisms,[30 - “Personne n'a de l'esprit, comme tout le monde.” “On peut avoir plus d'esprit qu'un autre, mais non plus d'esprit que tous les autres.”] it is a provable fact that the only successful rulers are those who have had eyes enabling them to analyse the component elements of a crowd. As sportsmen delight in tales of the chase, and soldiers in anecdotes of war, so Bismarck has always taken a peculiar pleasure in stories showing how one man by presence of mind has mastered an angry mob, or outwitted it, or coaxed it into good humor. A sure way to make him laugh is to tell him such stories, and it must be added that he likes them all the better when they exhibit the bon enfant side of the popular character.

During the siege of Paris, whilst he was at Versailles, a pass was applied for by a relation of M. Cuvillier Fleury, the eminent critic and member of the French Academy. The Chancellor at once gave the pass, saying: “M. Fleury is an admirable man. I know a capital story about him.” The story was this: M. Fleury, who had been tutor to the Duc d'Aumale, was in 1848 Private Secretary to the Duchess of Orleans. When the revolution of February broke out, a rabble invaded the Palais Royal, where the Princess resided, and began smashing works of art, pictures, statuettes, and nicknacks. All the household was seized with panic except M. Fleury, who, throwing off his coat, smeared his face and hands with coal, caught up a poker, and rushed among the mob, shouting: “Here, I'll show you where the best pictures are.” So saying, he plied his poker upon furniture of no value, and, thus winning the confidence of the roughs, was able to lead them out of the royal apartments into the kitchen regions, where they spent their patriotic fury upon the contents of the larder and cellar. The sequel of this story is very droll, and Bismarck relates it with great relish. A few days after he had saved the Palais Royal, M. Fleury was recognised in the streets as the Duchess of Orleans's Secretary, and mobbed. He was being somewhat roughly hustled when a hulking water-carrier elbowed his way through the throng and roared: “Let that man be! He is one of the right sort. He led us to the pillage of the Palais Royal the other day!”

Bismarck once told Lord Bloomfield that he had the highest opinion of Charles Mathews, the actor. It turned out that this opinion was not based on any particular admiration for Mathews's professional talent, but on his coolness during a theatrical riot which Bismarck witnessed during a visit to London. Mathews was manager of a theatre, and for want of pay, part of his company had struck work. It was impossible to perform the piece advertised, so pit and gallery grew clamorous. In the midst of the hubbub, Mathews came before the curtain and jovially announced that, although he must disappoint the audience of the comedy which they had expected, he was ready to perform anything they pleased, provided only that he could satisfy the majority. A voice from the gallery sang out: “'Box and Cox.'” “Well, that is an excellent play,” said Mathews gravely, “but before my honorable friend puts a motion for its performance, I think he should explain to the audience why he prefers it to all others.” This turned a general laugh against the “mover,” who of course became bashful and could explain nothing. Mathews then made a chaffing little speech on the comparative merits of various plays, and at length withdrew, saying that as he could discern nothing like unanimity among the audience, he thought it best that they should all agree to meet him another day, but that meanwhile those who liked to apply for their money at the doors should have it. It seems that a number of men had come to the theatre on purpose to create a disturbance, but Mathews's banter put the whole audience into good humor, and the house was emptied without any riot.[31 - Prince Bismarck does not care much about the theatre, and it may be mentioned that when he visited Paris in 1867, Offenbach's “Grande Duchesse,” which, as a skit upon militaryism, made so many laugh, excited in him only anger. He was especially indignant at the song of “Here is the Sabre of my Sire.” “You can't expect a pair of Jews (Offenbach and Ludovic Halévy) to feel any reverence for military traditions,” he said; “but now 'Le Sabre de mon Père' will be associated with ludicrous ideas in the minds of Frenchmen, and old generals will be ashamed to give their swords to their sons on account of this odious jingle.” At this same visit to Paris, however, Bismarck saw a performance of Sardou's “Nos bons Villageois” at the Gymnase, and he laughed loudly at the scene in which a Colonel, who is Mayor of his village, makes all the municipal Councillors sign a document acknowledging that they are “a troop of donkeys.”]

Bismarck has another favorite story about mobs. When the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia went as Viceroy to Poland in 1862, he was received in the streets of Warsaw with cries of “Long live the Constitution!” A Prussian, Count Perponcher, who was present, asked a vociferating Pole who “Constitutiona” was? “I suppose it's his wife,” answered the Pole. “Well, but he has children,” said Perponcher, “so you should cry: “Hurrah for Constitutiona and the little Constitutions,”” which the Pole at once did. Hearing Bismarck tell this anecdote – not for the first time probably – his son-in-law Count Rantzau, once said: “You can make a mob cry anything by paying a few men among them a mark apiece to start the shouting.” “Nein, but you need not waste your marks,“ demurred the Chancellor, ”es gibt immer Esel genug, die schreien unbezahlt.” (There are always asses to bray gratis).

The knowledge of how men can be swayed involves an accurate estimate of the influence which oratory exercises over them. Bismarck, as we have said, is not eloquent, and it is one of his maxims that a man of many words cannot be a man of action. “The best Parliamentary speeches” – he said, in conversation with M. Pouyer Quertier about M. Thiers – “are those which men have delivered to criticise other men's work, or to set forth what they themselves were going to do, or to apologize for what they have left undone.”

Action speaks for itself. “When I hear of ministers in parliamentary countries making long speeches to defend their policy, it always strikes me that there has been very little policy; and I am reminded of those big dishes of stew which our frugal German housewives serve up on Mondays with the remnants of Sunday's dinner – lots of cabbage and carrots, making a great show, with small scraps of meat.”

Action fascinates the masses as much as speech,[32 - Two of Bismarck's heroes in history are Wallenstein and William the Silent. He once said of Marshal von Moltke: “Lucky man, he need only make his one speech a year in the Reichstag and then the echoes of cannon seem to be speaking for him!” Marshal von Moltke, however, speaks as well as he writes. His Letters to his late wife, while he was travelling in Turkey and the Danubian Provinces, are faultless in their composition, instructive, amusing, and models of style. All the qualities which distinguish them are to be found in the Marshal's speeches, which are clear, short, and captivate the attention, not less by what they contain than by the tuneful voice in which they are uttered.] for it demands courage, which is of all virtues the rarest.[33 - Some years ago, when a young Prussian officer of noble family was turned out of the army for declining a challenge on conscientious grounds, an English clergyman sent Prince Bismarck a copy of the Diary of Mr. Adams, who was American Minister of the Court of St. James's at the beginning of this century. Mr. Adams speaks with admiration of the efforts which were being made to put down duelling in England by force of public opinion. Prince Bismarck, in courteously acknowledging the book, wrote: “There is much good sense in England, but you have not done away with duelling, as you suppose. There is more of it among your schoolboys, who fight with fists, than among those of any other country; and this may prevent the necessity for much fighting in after-life. English boys take rank at school according to their pluck, and hold that rank afterwards.”] Pastor Stocker, of anti-Semitic renown, relates that Bismarck once asked him whether there were any text in the Bible saying, “All men are cowards?” “No, you are thinking of the text: 'The Cretans are all liars,'” said Stocker. “Liars – cowards, it comes to much the same thing,” answered Bismarck; “but it's not true only of the Cretans;” and he then asked Stocker whether the latter had met many thoroughly brave men. The Court pastor replied that there might be several definitions of courage; but Bismarck interrupted him with a boisterous laugh: “Oh, yes, the moral courage of letting one's face be smacked rather than fight a duel; I have met plenty of men who had that.”

Bismarck's own courage is that of a mastiff, and in early life it often got him into scrapes. We have remarked how some of these might have been detrimental to his whole career. Whilst he was doing his One Year Voluntariate in the Prussian Light Infantry, he paid a visit to Schleswig, which was then under Danish rule. One day, wearing his uniform, he was seated in a Brauerei when he overheard two gentlemen holding a political conversation and expressing extreme Liberal sentiments. With amazing impudence he walked up to their table and requested that: “If they must talk nonsense, they would use an undertone.” The two Schleswigers told the Junker to mind his own business, whereupon Bismarck caught up a beer-jug and dashed its contents in their faces. This affair caused very serious trouble. Bismarck was taken into custody and ordered out of the country. On joining his regiment he was placed under arrest again, and there was an interchange of diplomatic notes about him. He only escaped severe punishment through powerful intercession being employed at Court on his behalf.

Some years later when Bismarck had been appointed to the Legation at Frankfort (a post which he owed to the delight with which Frederick William IV. had read his bluff speeches in the Prussian Lower House), he was present at a public ball, where a member of the French Corps Législatif, M. Jouvois de Clancy, was pointed out to him as a noted fire-eater. This gentleman had been a Republican, but had turned his coat after the coup d'état. He was a big man with dandified airs, but evidently not much accustomed to society, for he had brought his hat – not a compressible one – into the ball-room; and in waltzing he held it in his left hand. The sight of the big Frenchman careering round the room with his hat extended at arm's length was too much for Bismarck's sense of fun; so, as M. Jouvois revolved past him, he dropped a copper coin into the hat. One may imagine the scene. The Frenchman, turning purple, stopped short in his dancing, led back his partner to her place, and then came with flashing eyes to demand satisfaction. There would have been assault and battery on the spot if friends had not interposed; but on the following day the Frenchman and the Prussian met with pistols and the former was wounded. Unfortunately for Bismarck, M. Jouvois knew Louis Schneider, the ex-comedian, who had become Court Councillor to Frederick William IV., and was that eccentric monarch's favorite companion. Schneider had but a moderate fondness for Bismarck, and he represented his act of gaminerie in so unfavorable a light to the King that his Majesty instructed the Foreign Office to read the newly appointed diplomatist a severe lecture.

Bismarck has never liked Frenchmen. His feelings towards them savor of contempt in their expression, but there is more of hatred than of genuine disdain in them, and much of this hatred has its source in religious fervor. Bismarck is a believer. The sceptical levity of most Frenchmen, the profanity and licentiousness of their literature, their want of reverence for all things, whether of Divine or of human ordinance – all this shocks the statesman, who still reads his Bible with a simple faith, and who has attentively noted the doom which is threatened to nations who are disobedient, During the Franco-German War, Countess Bismarck, hearing that her husband had lost the travelling-bag in which he carried his Bible, sent him another with this naïve letter: “As I am afraid you may not be able to buy a Bible in France, I send you two copies of the Scriptures, and have marked the passages in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel which relate to France– also the verse in the Psalms which says that 'The unbeliever shall be rooted out.'”

Carlyle saw affinities between the character of Cromwell and that of Bismarck, but the only resemblance between the two men is physical. One may question how far Cromwell was a believer: he certainly had as little respect for sacred words as he had for cathedrals and kings, and he juggled with texts of Scripture as it suited his purpose. Bismarck has never canted. His acknowledgments of Divine mercies have only been expressed where national triumphs were concerned – never where his own personal enterprises had to be lauded. On the other hand, he has evinced strong religious scruples under circumstances when few men would have credited him with such. He has spent more sleepless hours from thinking over the deposition of George V. of Hanover than Cromwell did from fretting over Charles I.'s execution. He reconciled that deposition with the dictates of his reason, but not with those of his faith in the inviolability of kings. When it had been decided to annex Hanover, the Crown lawyers were instructed to draw up a report of legal justifications for this measure; but when Bismarck had read half through this document, he threw it aside with irritation: “Better nothing than that – it reminds me of Teste's Memorandum on the confiscation of the estates of the Orleans family.”[34 - M. Teste had been one of Louis Philippe's Ministers. Getting into disgrace through financial jobberies, which subjected him to criminal proceedings, he had to resign his portfolio and retire altogether from public life. To revenge himself on Louis Philippe's family (though no member of it had had any share in his ruin) he privately drew up for Napoleon III. the report that was required to justify the seizure of the Orleans property. No respectable lawyer could be found to do this work.]

Again Bismarck, while making it the chief occupation of his life to study how the Plebs might be managed, has never stooped to such immoral means for this purpose as the French officials of the Second Empire employed. He was deeply interested in Napoleon III.'s experiments with universal suffrage. The whole system of plébiscites, official candidatures, prefectoral newspapers, and electoral districts, so arranged that peasant votes should neutralise those of Radical working-men, seemed to him “very pretty,” as he once told a disgusted Republican refugee. But the encouragement given by De Morny, De Persigny, and others to every kind of immorality that could amuse the people – frivolous newspapers, improper novels and plays, gambling clubs, and outrageous fashions in dress – this was a very different affair. De Morny was fond of quoting the anecdote about Alcibiades having cut off the tail of his dog to give the Athenians something to talk about, and during Bismarck's short stay in Paris as Ambassador in 1862, he and the Prussian statesman had more than one conversation about the art of ruling. Bismarck had the frankness to say that he looked upon the comedies of Dumas the younger, and indeed on most French plays of the lighter sort, as grossly corrupting to the public morals. “Panem et circenses,” smiled De Morny. “Panem et saturnalia,” muttered Bismarck.

Another point upon which De Morny and Bismarck could not agree, was about the qualities that are requisite in a public servant. De Morny cared nothing for character. The men whom he recommended for prefectships or posts in the diplomatic service were, for the most part, adventurers – brilliant, witty, diseurs de rien and cajolers of the other sex. “A French Ambassador,” he maintained, “should always consider himself accredited auprès des reines.” Bismarck loathes ladies' men: and he had the poorest opinion of Napoleon III.'s diplomatists. His own ideal of a State functionary is the blameless man without debts or entanglements – laborious, but not pushing, well-educated but not abounding in ideas, a man in all things obedient. His sneering judgment on plenipotentiaries like M. Benedetti and the Duc de Gramont is well known. He called them “dancing dogs without collars.” They never seemed to have a master, he complained, “but stood up on their hind legs and performed their antics without authority from man alive. If they barked, you were sure to hear a voice from Paris crying to them to be quiet. If they fawned you might expect to see them receive some sly kick, warning them that they ought to be up and biting.” Bismarck conceived some liking and respect for Napoleon III., whom he saw to be better than his entourage. Had the Emperor's health remained good, the war of 1870 would doubtless never have taken place; but so early as 1862 Bismarck perceived that Napoleon III.'s bodily ailments were causing an indolence of mind that left the Emperor at the mercy of intriguing counsellors; and what he observed in his subsequent visits to Paris in 1867 and to Plombières in 1868, confirmed these impressions. His ceaseless study of France as the great enemy that would have to be coped with soon, moreover added to his deep and moody detestation of that country. When the formal declaration of war by France reached Berlin in July 1870, Count Bismarck was staying for a few days at Varzin. The news was communicated to him by a telegram which was put into his hands just as he was returning from a drive. He at once sprang into his carriage, to go to the railway station, and on his way through the village of Wussow, he saw the parish minister standing at the door of his manse. “I said nothing to him,” ejaculated Bismarck, in relating the story long afterwards to some friends, “but I just made a sign as of two sabre-cuts crosswise, and he quite understood.”

The pastor of Wussow understood the sign of the cross in sword-cuts to mean crusade, and as such the war against France was viewed by all good Prussians. Bismarck and the village clergyman were at one in regarding the French people as the Beast of the Apocalypse, and Paris as Babylon. Such sentiments are not incompatible with Christian piety, for there must be militants in the Church. But where Bismarck ceases to be a Christian in the common acceptance of that term, is in his exaggerated contempt for almost all men as individuals.[35 - After a dinner at Count Lehndorff's the conversation once fell upon religious topics, and Bismarck exclaimed: “I cannot understand how without faith in a revealed religion we can believe in God; nor do I see how, without faith in a God, Dispenser of all good and Supreme Judge, a man can do his duty. If I were not a Christian, I should not remain at my post. It can yield me nothing more in the way of honors; the exercise of power is no longer a pleasure but a worry, since I can never carry out the simplest scheme without struggles, trying to a man of my age and weak health. If I were ambitious of popularity, I could get it by retiring. All men would speak well of me if I lived in retirement. I should then perhaps have more real power than I have now. I should certainly have more power to help my friends. But it is because I believe in a Divine dispensation which has marked out Germany for great destinies that I remain at my post. I have a duty to perform and must continue to do it so long as I am permitted. If I am stricken down and rendered incapable for work, then I shall know that my time of rest has come; but not till then.”]

His want of charity – we do not of course mean in almsgiving, for in this respect he is as generous as the Princess, his wife, allows him to be – is the most unamiable and disconcerting trait in his nature. Disconcerting because misanthrophy is an evidence of moral short-sightedness, begetting timidity and rendering a man incapable of forming disciples to carry on his work. Without trustfulness, a statesman can make no real friends. It may be said that uncharitableness like Bismarck's must be the result of many disenchantments; but a man who only keeps rooks and ravens must not complain that all birds are black. The men who were at different times Bismarck's most zealous helpmates – Count Harry Arnim, Herr Delbrück, Count Stolberg and Count Eulenborg – were all discarded as soon as they gave the smallest sign, not of mutiny, but of independence. Bismarck would not accept advice or remonstrance from them; he required on all occasions that blind obedience which is not loyal service, but servility. For the same cause he would never employ Herr Edward Lasker, whose great talents as a financier and parliamentary debater would have been of immense value to the monarchy. He has rejected the advances of Herr Bennigsen, the Hanoverian founder of the Nationalverein, who is now leader of the National Liberals; and those of Dr. Rudolph Gneist, who is one of the ablest politicians in Germany, but who had the misfortune to take the wrong side during the Conflikt-Zeit. Opposition, as Bismarck has often taken care to impress upon his hearers, shall never be regierungsfähig so long as he holds office. He abominates the Parliamentary system which brings to power men who have begun life as demagogues agitating for the abolition of this and that, and who, afterwards, are obliged to make shameless recantations, or to quibble away their words. The contrary system of selecting for his assistants only men who have never sown political wild oats is, however, compelling Bismarck to rely now on such henchmen as Herr Von Puttkamer and Herr Hofmann. The former is the Chancellor's brother-in-law, an excellent subordinate, supple as a glove, but with no originality of mind or firmness that could enable him to remain Home Minister if he were not propped up in this post. Herr Hofmann is also a mere painstaking bureaucrat, who, if he did not hear the voice of command, would be quite inapt to think for himself. Of late Prince Bismarck is said to have been training his son, Count Herbert to act as his Secretary and to take his place by-and-by. Count Herbert is a clever man, but dynasties of maires du palais have never succeeded in any country, and it is strange Bismarck should have forgotten that the Hohenzollern dynasty has owed its rapid rise to a respect for that principle which he is now ignoring, namely the selection of the best men without favoritism. If independence of mind and character have been eyed with suspicion by the Prussian kings, as they now are by the Chancellor, Germany would have had no Bismarck.

The popular idea of a genial, soldierly, blunt-spoken Bismarck is a wrong one. Bismarck can be jovial among friends and good-humoredly affable with strangers; but genial he is not. There is a sarcastic tone in his voice which grates on the ears of all who are brought in contact with him for the first time, and his unconcealed mistrust for the rectitude of all public men, of no matter what country, who do not happen to be in his good graces at the time, is too often offensive. It must be remembered that when Bismarck has quarrelled with public men, it has generally been because, having changed an opinion himself, he has been unable to persuade men to do the same at a moment's notice. Turn by turn, Free-trader and Protectionist, inclining one day to the Russian, another to the Austrian alliance, coquetting at one time with England, then with Italy, and even with France, he has ever been actuated by the sole desire to use every passing wind which might push the interest of his Government. He has declined to formulate any policy in details, because against such a policy parties might coalesce, whereas by veering and tacking often, he throws disunion among his opponents. He appropriates what is best in the new designs of this or that party, takes for his Sovereign and himself the credit of carrying them into execution, and then leaves the original promoters with a sense that power has gone out of them – that they have been played with, but that they have nothing to complain of.

This policy of variations, however, has exposed Bismarck to some cutting rebukes from loyal Prussians whose consciences were not acrobatic. The trouble with Count Harry Arnim began when this diplomatist – “Der Affe,” as he was nicknamed by his familiars – said to Countess Von Redern, at one of the Empress Augusta's private parties, that he had hitherto been trying to walk on his feet in Paris, but that from “his latest instructions he gathered that he was expected until further notice to walk on his hands.” The saying was reported to Bismarck and made “his three hairs bristle.” “The 'Ape' has only been employed, because we thought him quadrumanous,“ he exclaimed, and from that moment there was war between the two men.

Another time Bismarck had to bear a snub from a young nobleman of the House of Hatzfelt. This gentleman, being left in charge of a Legation during the absence of the Minister, sent home a despatch embodying views favorable to the policy which the Chancellor had, until then, been pursuing towards the country where the attaché was residing. But it so chanced that the Chief of the Legation had been summoned to Berlin on purpose to receive instructions for a change of policy; so that when the attaché's despatch arrived, it gave no pleasure in Wilhelmstrasse, and the Chancellor spoke testily of its writer as a ”Schafsköpf.” Hearing this, the attaché resigned. He was a young man of high spirit, who had many friends at Court, and it was pointed out to the Chancellor by an august peacemaker, that the young fellow had not been very well-treated. Somewhat grudgingly – for he does not like to make amends – the Chancellor was induced to send his Secretary to the ex-attaché offering to reinstate him. But the recipient of this dubious favor drew himself up stiffly and said: “Germany has not fallen to so low a point that she needs to be served by Schafsköpf; and for the rest, you may tell the Chancellor that I have not been trained to turn somersaults.”[36 - Bismarck has never had much veneration either for diplomatists or diplomacy. Here is an extract of a letter which he wrote to his wife in 1851 when he was at Frankfort: “In the art of saying nothing and in a great many words, I am making rapid progress. I write many pages of letters which read like leading articles, and if Manteuffel, after perusing them, can tell what they are about, he certainly knows more than I. Every one of us pretends to believe that his colleagues are full of ideas and plans; and yet all the time the whole body of us knows nothing, and each is aware that the others know nothing. No man, not even the most malicious sceptic of a democrat, can believe what charlatanism and big pretence is all this diplomacy.”It may be remarked, in view of Prince Bismarck's opinions on duelling, that for an affront like that which he offered to the young attaché, a French Admiral, the Bailli de Suffren, was killed by a lieutenant. The affront was offered on the high seas; the subaltern bore it at the time without a murmur, but on returning to France he resigned and sent the admiral a challenge, saying: “You are no longer my superior now. We are both gentlemen and you owe me a reparation.” In Germany this would have been impossible, for the attaché must have belonged either to the Landwehr or the Landsturm, so that the Chancellor as a general of the Landwehr remained always his superior. Thus in military countries one of the chief excuses for duelling – namely, that it enables a man to punish the insolence of office – cannot be urged.]

It has been mentioned that Bismarck has had to contend with many a boudoir cabal. The Empress Augusta's long antipathy to him is no secret, and the Chancellor has never had to congratulate himself much on the friendliness of the Crown Prince's and Princess's circle. The ill-will of royal ladies enlists that of many other persons influential in society; but it stands to Bismarck's honor that he has never used newspapers to combat these drawing-room foes. The revelations made to the public some years since by an ex-member of the “Reptile's Bureau” were no doubt in the main true, and they showed that the Chancellor had raised the art of “nobbling” the Press to a high pitch of perfection. Not only had he, all over Germany, newspapers supported in part out of the Secret Service Fund and inspired wholly by the Press Bureau, but he has been accused of employing hirelings on the staffs of newspapers reputed as independent, and through these he was in a position to procure the insertion of articles in foreign journals, these effusions being afterwards reprinted in German papers as genuine expressions of foreign opinion.

All this constituted a very powerful organization, which the Chancellor might have used with telling effect in fighting society caballers. But while he has not scrupled to direct the heaviest artillery of his newspapers and not unfrequently torpedo attacks against open political opponents, he would never let his difficulties with “die Wespen” as he called society aggressors, be made the subjects of Press comments. Newspapers, guilty of assailing members of the Imperial family or of the Court household, have been unsparingly prosecuted by his orders. “Er is kein Journaliste!” exclaimed a too zealous partisan-writer, who had gone to the Chancellerie with a proposal for creating in Berlin a newspaper like the Paris Figaro, “er könne sich nicht auf die feine Malice zu verstehen.” This may be rendered as, “He won't throw mud;” and it is no small compliment to the integrity of a statesman, whom his enemies are wont to describe as more astute than Machiavelli, and more unscrupulous than Richelieu.[37 - A fact that speaks well for Prince Bismarck is that ladies are not afraid of him. Napoleon I. made women cower; they knew that his Corsican spitefulness would disdain no means of retaliation for a slight or an injury. But ladies have often been maliciously epigrammatical, or downright saucy to the Chancellor, without having anything worse to fear from him than scowls and grumbles.]

In the autumn of the present year the Pope gave a commission to the painter Lenbach to paint a portrait of Prince Bismarck. The Chancellor agreed to sit; the artist went several times to Varzin, and people have been asking ever since what is the meaning of this strange fancy of Leo XIII.'s to have a portrait of the arch-enemy of Rome, the formidable champion of the Kulturkampf. A French journalist has suggested that there is at the Vatican an artistic Index Expurgatorius – a Galerie des Réprouvés– and that Bismarck's portrait is to hang there in the place of honor, between that of Dositheus the Samaritan, and Isaac Laquedem the Wandering Jew.

It is more likely that the Pope aspires to some political rapprochement with Germany, and if he have such a hope it must have come to him from the knowledge that the Chancellor would not object to a reconciliation. But if Bismarck consents to make peace with the Vatican, and to find some official post for Herr Windhorst, it would not be that any of his own private Lutheran prejudices against Rome have vanished. He is a doughty Protestant in whose religion there is no variableness, but he may veer on the Kulturkampf as he did on that of free trade, simply because, having failed, after doing his best, to crush the Catholics, he will see no use in recommencing the struggle. And whatever is useless seems to Bismarck a thing which should not be attempted, indeed, many of his great triumphs hitherto have been won by shaking hands with yesterday's enemy, and saying “Let us two stand together.” Before long the world may see Prince Bismarck recognise the Roman Catholic Church as one of the greatest living forces of Continental Conservatism, and enlist its services in the work of “dishing” both Liberals and Socialists. It is significant that in one of his few autumn speeches, Bismarck was heard quoting Joseph De Maistre's dictum about the Soldier and the Priest being the sentries of civilisation. —Temple Bar.

A FEW NOTES ON PERSIAN ART

The limner's art in Persia has few patrons, and the professional draughtsman of the present day in that country must needs be an enthusiast, and an art-lover for art's sake, as his remuneration is so small as to be a mere pittance; and the man who can live by his brush must be clever indeed. The Persians are an eminently practical people, and buy nothing unless it be of actual utility; hence the artist has generally to sink to the mere decorator; and as all, even the very rich, expect a great deal for a little money, the work must be scamped in order to produce a great effect for a paltry reward. The artists, moreover, are all self-taught, or nearly so, pupilage merely consisting of the drudgery of preparing the canvas, panel, or other material for the master, mixing the colors, filling in backgrounds, varnishing, &c. There are no schools of art, no lectures, no museums of old or contemporary masters, no canons of taste, no drawing from nature or the model, no graduated studies, or system of any kind. There is, however, a certain custom of adhering to tradition and the conventional; and most of the art workmen of Iran, save the select few, are mere reproducers of the ideas of their predecessors.

The system of perspective is erroneous; but neither example nor argument can alter the views of a Persian artist on this subject. Leaving aside the wonderful blending of colors in native carpets, tapestries, and embroideries, all of which improve by the toning influence of age, the modern Persian colorist is remarkable for his skill in the constant use of numerous gaudy and incongruous colors, yet making one harmonious and effective whole, which surprises us by its daring, but compels our reluctant admiration.

Persian pictorial art is original, and it is cheap; the wages of a clever artist are about one shilling and sixpence a day. In fact, he is a mere day-laborer, and his terms are, so many days' pay for a certain picture. In this pernicious system of time-work lies the cause of the scamping of many really ingenious pieces of work.

As a copyist the Persian is unrivalled; he has a more than Chinese accuracy of reproduction; every copy is a fac-simile of its original, the detail being scamped, or the reverse, according to the scale of payment. In unoriginal work, such as the multiplication of some popular design, a man will pass a lifetime, because he finds it pay better to do this than to originate. This kind of unoriginal decoration is most frequent in the painted mirror cases and book-covers, the designs of which are ancient; and the painter merely reproduces the successful and popular work of some old and forgotten master.

But where the Persian artist shines is in his readiness to undertake any style or subject; geometrical patterns – and they are very clever in originating these; scroll-work scenes from the poets; likenesses, miniatures, paintings of flowers or birds; in any media, on any substance, oils, water, or enamel, and painting on porcelain; all are produced with rapidity, wonderful spirit, and striking originality. In landscape, the Persian is very weak; and his attempts at presenting the nude, of which he is particularly fond, are mostly beneath contempt. A street scene will be painted in oils and varnished to order “in a week” on a canvas a yard square, the details of the painting desired being furnished in conversation. While the patron is speaking, the artist rapidly makes an outline sketch in white paint; and any suggested alterations are made in a few seconds by the facile hand of the ustad nakosh (master-painter), a term used to distinguish the artist from the mere portrait-painter or akkas, a branch of the profession much despised by the artists, a body of men who consider their art a mechanical one, and their guild no more distinguished than those of other handicraftsmen.

A Persian artist will always prefer to reproduce rather than originate, because, as a copy will sell for the same price as an original, by multiplication more money can be earned in a certain time, than by the exercise of originality. Rarely, among the better class of artists, is anything actually out of drawing; the perspective is of course faulty, and resembles that of early specimens of Byzantine art. Such monstrosities as the making the principal personages giants, and the subsidiaries dwarfs, are common; while the beauties are represented as much bejewelled; but this is done to please the buyer's taste, and the artist knows its absurdity. There is often considerable weakness as to the rendering of the extremities; but as the Persian artist never draws, save in portraiture, from the life, this is not to be wondered at.

The writer has before him a fair instance of the native artist's rendering of the scene at the administration of the bastinado. This picture is an original painting in oils, twenty-four inches by sixteen on papier-mâché. The details were given to the artist by the writer in conversation, sketched by him in white paint on the papier mâché during the giving of the order, in the course of half an hour; and the finished picture was completed, varnished, and delivered in a week. The price paid for this original work in oils in 1880 was seven shillings and sixpence. The costumes are quite accurate in the minutest detail; the many and staring colors employed are such as are in actual use; while the general mise en scène is very correct.

Many similar oil-paintings were executed for the writer by Persian artists, giving graphic renderings of the manners and customs of this little-known country. They were always equally spirited, and minutely correct as to costume and detail, at the same low price; a small present for an extraordinarily successful performance gladdening the heart of the artist beyond his expectations.

As to original work by Persian artists in water-color, remuneration is the same – so much per diem. A series of water-colors giving minute details of Persian life were wished; and a clever artist was found as anxious to proceed as the writer was to obtain the sketches. The commission was given, and the subjects desired carefully indicated to the artist, who, by a rapid outline sketch in pencil, showed his intelligence and grasp of the subject. The writer, delighted at the thought of securing a correct and permanent record of the manners and customs of a little-known people, congratulated himself. But, alas! he counted his chickens before hatching; for the artist, on coming with his next water-color, demanded, and received, a double wage. A similar result followed the finishing of each drawing; and though the first only cost three shillings, and the second six, the writer was reluctantly compelled to stop his commissions, after paying four times the price of the first for his third water-color, on the artist demanding twenty-four shillings for a fourth – not that the work was more, but as he found himself appreciated, the wily painter kept to arithmetical progression as his scale of charge; a very simple principle, which all artists must devoutly wish they could insist on.