bearing of Bismarck in the first two legislative assemblies of Prussia, his hatred of constitutionalism in any form, his opposition to the liberty of the press, to, the emancipation of the Jews, and other demands of the revolutionary epoch of 1848; his passionate adherence to Austria, at that time the great stronghold of reaction in Germany — sentiments strangely at variance with his later conduct. Bismarck's friends might cite the examples of most eminent statesmen of the age as precedents for such political inconsistency. But few eminent politicians would like to see a short hand account of their early speeches at the debating society, and, as Guizot has it, "L'homme absurde seul ne change pas."
But to Bismarck's early Toryism there is a psychological side: referable, I think, to what I have ventured to call his poetic temperament. Bismarck's family traditions and early impressions were not wholly of a reactionary type. Paternally, it is true, he descended from an ancient and noble family, whose exaggerated loyalty sacrificed in the sixteenth century two of their fairest estates to the rapacity of their prince. But his mother, the intellectual leader of his father's household, was of gentle but not of noble birth — a distinction observed with the utmost strictness in Germany — and her father, Privy-Councillor Menken, was a statesman of the large-minded school of Frederick the Great. Bismarck also seems to have roused against himself the suspicion of latent Radicalism by occasional outbursts against the narrow-minded prejudices of his fellow Junkers in the Alt-Mark. But when, in 1847, he entered the Preliminary Diet of Prussia, the keen atmosphere of the revolutionary epoch gave a shock to his sensitive nature. Glib-tongued orators of the Liberal party, with whom the inexperienced young provincial felt himself unable to cope, assailed what appeared to him the sacred rights of monarchy and the very foundation of social order. Even the person of the sovereign was not exempted from the fierce attacks of the advanced democrats. The scenes in the streets of the capital were a counterpart of the angry debates of the Assembly. Infuriated mobs, citizen soldiers strutting along in the consciousness of their new dignity, were sights not altogether lovely in the eyes of the æsthetical and aristocratic observer. The young man's nature bristled up at such antagonistic sights. The loyal blood of the Bismarcks boiled in his veins. On one occasion he inflicted personal castigation on an unfortunate democrat who had spoken insultingly of the royal family in a public place. In the Chamber he defiantly proclaimed the rights of throne and altar; any concession to the current of the time he denounced as cowardice. Even to the predominance of Austria in German affairs he submitted without hesitation; she seemed to him Prussia's natural leader and ally in their common struggle with the Revolution. This, it must be remembered, was the "period of strife and stress" in his political life. When afterwards he gained wider views and experiences, when impulse — for impulse it mainly was — gave way to reason, he recanted his errors, in what manner and to what degree the history of Europe can testify. An amusing incident belonging to the early period of Bismarck's career may conclude this part of the subject. It is connected with his maiden speech, received by his audience with similar shouts of laughter and indignation to those which roused the ire of the youthful member for Maidstone. Bismarck did not, like Lord Beaconsfield, hurl a prophecy of future success at his antagonists, but his retort was none the less significant. Calmly he drew a newspaper from his pocket and began perusing its contents in the most unconcerned manner until the president had restored order. So much as to Bismarck's political career; too much, the reader perhaps will say, considering the professedly unpolitical character of this paper. But it was important to show that even in the practical concerns of statesmanship Bismarck could not wholly suppress that poetical germ of his nature which in another field was to bring forth rich fruit.
Prince Bismarck is not an author. He may be classed amongst Carlyle's "great silent ones," as far as literary utterance is concerned. A collection of his speeches, which is in the course of publication, has been made from the notes of the shorthand writers without his cooperation, as far as appears. But in 1868 appeared a work somewhat pretentiously called "The Book of Count Bismarck," by Herr Plesekiel, a Conservative novelist of some repute, which contained, together with a mass of ill-arranged and mostly anecdotal biographical material, a number of private letters, by the Prussian statesman, to his wife and his only and much-beloved sister, Frau von Arnim.[1] The question why pri-
- ↑ An English version of this book has been made in the slipshod manner in which such work is unfortunately but too frequently done amongst us. The style
