with years - large, full, wide apart, beautiful in repose and capable of expressing, without any help from the other features, the most various moods

The face and head which rose out of | are the man. They are deep bluethe black coat and soft, pale yellow the blue seems to have grown deeper neckcloth are known to everybody by pictures and photographs, and also by description, and yet they are not known. I have tried before now to describe them. Like others, I thought I knew authority, tenderness, anger, and them well. But every view is a new many others. The dry light of pure view. The power of the head and face intelligence seems their natural exis what it was. Age has altered, not pression till it changes into some other, impaired it. The firmness of outline and when they are turned upon an inremains. The muscles of the neck dividual or a Parliament in a spirit of have not lost their elasticity, the head inquiry they look through and through rises aloft and alert; in the carriage of the individual or the Parliament. The it something haughty, something almost power of penetrating character, of defiant and victorious, as of one who judging men, has ever been one of his all his life long has had enemies to deal gifts and one of his sources of mastery with, and the habit of overcoming in public affairs, and this also you see them. The lines and outlines are in these piercing orbs, the light of drawn with a free hand and a wide sweep; with the breadth to which nature more often attains when she works on a great scale, as in fashioning a mountain range or shaping a continent. The actual measurements of the skull must be extraordinary. I do not know what they are, but no figures could express the sense of intellectual force and force of character.

Herr Lenbach once spoke of the face as faultless. Nothing, he thought, could be added or taken away without injuring it; all the features were perfect. This is stating the matter too strongly. Herr Lenbach has painted Prince Bismarck often and well; no one else so well; the world of the hereafter will owe much to him; for photographs may not last forever, nor do photographs always tell you what you most want to know about a face. Perhaps, by long study and admiration, Lenbach has in his own mind idealized his sitter. He does not idealize him on canvas, except in the sense that he paints character as well as the external facts of face and figure. If the features were, as he said on that occasion, faultless, they would be, in Tennyson's phrase, faultily faultless. They are nothing of the kind. They are not regular, not classic, not moulded to any known type or accepted standard, or not all of them. The face is the man, with all his individuality, and the eyes

which is the next moment peaceful and kindly. The eyebrows, which are very heavy, are not so much tangled as interwoven; the full tufts of white hair braiding themselves into strands. The moustache, which overhangs without concealing the mouth or much altering the expression of the lips, follows the lines of the mouth, which at either end it closely embraces.

The masterful strength of all the lower part of the face is but the counterpart of the upper; the capaciousness of the brain and the wilfulness of the character are each indicated clearly; neither is out of proportion; there is neither excess of intelligence nor excess of firmness; the two are in harmony, and you would never fear that mere activity of mind should turn into particularism, or that mere determination should paralyze the thinking faculties; nor has either of these catastrophes occurred in actual life. The work of his life has, of course, left its mark upon the worker. The figure before you, with its simple and beautiful dignity, is the history of Germany for thirty years; a new Thirty Years' War, as beneficent as the old one was destructive. Prince Bismarck, and not the youthful Hohenzollern at Potsdam, is the incarnation of imperial Germany.

I will supplement my memories and impressions by an extract from E.'s notes, from which, indeed, I have bor

rowed already, and shall borrow here- [It was all the more instructive to after, though they were not meant to behold him struggling amid these be printed. E. saw the prince for the linguistic difficulties; you saw the first time, and says:

Bismarck's personality gives one a great impression of size, but still more of strength and force, physical and mental. He looks at you very directly when speaking to you. Sat very straight in his high, straightbacked armchair, one hand holding his pipe, the other generally on the head of one of the dogs. His gestures few but forcible. Did everything with energy and earnestness, even to blotting his autograph with great care, so that it should not be smudged. His eyes very bright and full of fire when he was interested, with many twinkles of fun. English rather an effort at first, but came more and more easily. Very courteous; would not light his pipe till he had asked whether I minded. Evidently very kindly, and beloved by his household. Delights in his woods, and in his pets, not only in the dogs and the swans and ducks, but in his chickens, which are allowed to invade the lawn, to the despair of the gardener. Rebecca, or Bekchen, the favorite of the two great Ulmar dogs, having been longer with him than that Imperial intruder," Cyrus, who was given him by the present emperor when the dog that "old William" gave him died.

66

machinery at work, as when on a great steamship you look through a glass partition at the engines doing their twenty knots an hour. Still, the medium sometimes hampered him; but when a change was suggested, he refused. It seemed as if it were part of his conception of his duties as host to express himself in the native tongue of his two guests.

But

Many years ago it was said of him that he had refused to allow French, which he knows as well as German, to be spoken in his presence. this he declared was an idle tale. "I never presumed to dictate to others in private life. What I did was to protest against the use of French in the Prussian Diet, and in matters of German business." His English grew more and more fluent as he talked. When, at one moment, some wishedfor phrase would not frame itself to his mind, he turned to E., with the humor

ous smile so characteristic of him and so

for granted he knows the language now as well as then. His is not a mind which lets go of any useful knowledge once acquired.

frequent, and said: "There was a time when I could speak Russian," and he added that he still occasionally read a He spoke throughout in English, not Russian newspaper. His appointment without a certain effort. His mastery as ambassador to Petersburg dates from of English, for conversational purposes, March, 1859. Then it was, no doubt, and upon a wide range of topics, is and during the three years he retolerably complete. It is not pro-mained there, that he pursued his fessor's English, nor that of the stu- studies in Russian, and it may be taken dent, but idiomatic, vigorous, often colloquial, and ever the English of the man of affairs and of the world. Language is to him an instrument, to be used as he uses other instruments. for his own ends. He has audacities of speech as well as of act. What is wanting to him in English is practice. He had of late, he said, no occasion to speak English more than twice a year, and his fluency was less than it had been. But if he sometimes had to search for the word, he always found it, and always the right word, and sometimes a picturesque one where Bismarck used a single French expression, but that belongs to another part of the story.

greater familiarity might have led him or another to use a commonplace one.

It did seem, I will add, as if there was a ban upon French. Princess Bismarck much prefers it to English, which she speaks and understands not without effort. But when anything was said to her in French, she took pains to answer in English or German. Two years ago, in Homburg, I had heard her speak French during the greater part of a long and interesting dinner. Prince

II.

rather, it would not strengthen the army—it would weaken it.

In

"You do not want more men. creasing the number of men would mean drawing off a great many officers

involve the making all at once of many new and inexperienced officers, weakening the army in one most essential

THE prince plunged almost at once into politics, but at first they were the politics of Friedrichsruh." They are quite enough to occupy me," he said, "and quite as intractable as any I to train the new soldiers. This would have had to deal with elsewhere. For here at Friedrichsruh we have swans and ducks and rats, who will not live at peace with each other if left to them-respect. selves, and they give me a great deal of trouble. The swans are not on good terms with the ducks; in fact, they want to eat them, or their young, and the rats are the enemies of both. It is extremely difficult to construct a constitution under which they can all thrive, or to make them understand what is best for each." Then, after a pause, and with a twinkle, "Especially the rats." He continued, "I try to make my will prevail. I have tried that before in other affairs; and sometimes succeeded and sometimes not. But I have to resort, as I did when I was chancellor, to all sorts of devices. They will not do as I say merely because I say so. The swans have to be kept by themselves by a wire fence, as you will see. They are the majority, but majorities in Germany do not always have their own way." This disquisition on the politics of the swans and ducks proceeded for some time with the utmost gravity. There was no effort to apply the allegory closely, or to identify the swans or the ducks, still less the rats, with any existing political party or group. It was, nevertheless, an apologue, and it was possible to imagine that, if one could look into the prince's mind, similitudes might be discoverable.

There are not non-commissioned officers enough not enough who could drill all these new men and perform their present duties. You cannot create them. Where are they to come from? Nor, if you had the men and the officers all ready for the emergency which the framers of this bill contemplate, could you use them for an emergency. When a war breaks out there will be, at first, perhaps three or four battles at different points about the same time. The result of these battles may decide the campaignmust, at any rate, have a great influence on the fortunes of the war. They will be fought, each one of them, by perhaps two hundred thousand or, at most, a quarter of a million men on each side. You can use, that is to say, for your emergency, and for what is likely to be the most critical, if not decisive moment of the conflict, a million of soldiers. You cannot use more except as reserves, and for future battles, which may or may not have to be fought. But you have three millions already. What is the use of another eighty thousand ?

"No, what the army wants is more artillery. We won our last war with France by artillery. The best artillery will win the next, even more certainly. So changed are the conditions of war The Army Bill followed not long that, without a competent artillery, the after the swans and ducks, and was best infantry can no more by itself win discussed with equal gravity. Prince a battle than cavalry could. But in Bismarck's opposition to the bill which this arm, though we may be still supethe emperor deems vital to Germany rior to France, we are not superior in has never been a secret, and is no the same proportion that we were in secret now. He gave his reasons, or 1870. The certainty of victory depends some of his reasons, for thinking it on our maintaining not merely a suwas a bad bill in itself. The army, he periority, but a considerable superioradmitted, or, indeed, asserted, undoubt-ity. That is what a wise bill would edly needs strengthening, but this bill aim at. But this is not a wise bill, nor would do it in the wrong way; or, are the authors of it wise. The em

peror pause.

the word:

" but at that word came atation does not answer. No two situaThen he resumed, changing tions are alike, and a man should not copy even himself."

He

"The government is weak and short- He thought the Socialists more likely sighted. It has made mistake after to gain strength in the coming elections mistake. It has flung away position than any other party, an opinion I had and advantages, not seeming in the already heard in Berlin and elsewhere. least aware what it was doing at the What was said on this matter of electime. Just when it was likely to be in tions should, however, be taken with need of money, it cut off a large source reference to the date. The conversaof revenue by its new commercial tion occurred on the 17th of May. He treaties. No one had attacked these was of the same mind about the Socialrevenues, they were not felt as a griev-ists as when himself in power. The ance or a burden, and they produced growth of their numerical power in the fifty millions. Now they hope to carry country and in Parliament had not the Army Bill, finance and all, by shaken his conviction of the soundness threatening the country, by frightening of his own policy toward them. people, by prophesying war and ruin would have pursued it to the end. and the defeat of the army if it be not increased just as they propose. All this has a bad effect on the minds of the people, and especially, if they believe it, on the soldiers-discourages them and makes them doubtful of themselves. But there is little evidence thus far that the panic they have tried to breed has really taken root among the soldiers, or among the German people. We shall know in a few weeks what the German people have to say to this new scheme; and what the fate of the Army Bill is to be.

"Whereas the government, by treating the Socialists as a political power, a force in the country to be met seriously and argued with, instead of as robbers and thieves to be crushed, has increased very much their power and importance, and the consideration shown them. I would never have allowed this. They are the rats of the country, to be staniped out. I had foreseen this and feared it when I perceived the turn things were taking in a certain quarter. I warned the emperor against it. The warning was thrown away.

"The elections? Well, it is very 66 True, I was rather in favor of the difficult to see where a government ma- Labor Conference. I assented to it. jority is to come from, or how they are I hoped there would be a majority of to govern without a majority. It is sane and sensible men, or, at least, a true we carried on the government of good proportion of people who would Prussia from 1862 to 1886 without a discuss the subject rationally, and that budget and without a majority. But if an impression would be made on the I were again in office, which I shall emperor's mind. At the worst, it never be, I could not give to his Im- might serve to him as a kind of notice perial Majesty the advice which I gave what he was to expect, and what sort to the king of Prussia at that time. of reception his own ideas would have The circumstances are entirely differ- among those whose benefit he was ent, and Germany is not Prussia. I seeking, and to whom he appealed. should not do it again. A policy of Nothing of the kind. that kind is not to be drawn into a learned nothing. precedent."

The remark of De Tocqueville, in the recently published "Souvenirs," occurred to me: "I have always noticed that in politics grave errors are often due to having too good a memory." I quoted it.

The emperor

I was wrong · -at any rate, I was disappointed. It all came to nothing."

Socialism impressed him more as a danger to the empirea nearer danger-than to society. The Socialists are anti-Imperialists. Like Socialists elsewhere, like the trades unions in "Yes," said the prince; "mere imi-England and in all other countries

where they exist, they put class inter- omitted to express any opinion. The ests before the interests of the com- world knows well enough already what munity. They want to subvert pretty much everything in Germany, no doubt, but first of all the army, and the present system of compulsory service, and to abolish the taxes without which the army cannot be maintained. They care not if the empire be left defenceless.