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Rh veins, forget all his fatigue, gather himself up, and, striding away, penetrate into the forest, — not to be satisfied until he has found the animal and slain it. I am like that man. I have been out shooting since sunrise. It is now getting late. I have done a good days hard work, and I am weary. Other people may fire at hares and partridges; I have quite enough of that sort of game. … But, gentlemen, if a boar is to be slain, let me know about it, and I will go into the thick of the forest and try to kill him."

He has kept his word. He has lived on quietly at Varzin and at Friedrichsruhe, as long as there were only small birds flying over the political horizon; but as soon as Congress met, Bismarck was there to preside. And we may feel sure that he will not desert the field so long as the battle against Socialism is raging in Germany.

Women seem to have exercised singularly little influence over Bismarck. There is an old story of his having once been in love before he married; but the story is so vague, that we may well doubt its resting on any solid foundation. It is more than likely that he did not entirely escape that sweet disease of youth called "love-fever;" but he had it probably in a mild form, and it soon passed away. At all events, it left no traces. The fact is, that he married at the age of thirty-two, and that since that day nobody — not even his worst enemy — has attempted to throw the slightest suspicion on his character as a husband and a father. His domestic life has been thoroughly pure, and it is well known by all who surround him that he shows unflinching severity towards all breakers of the seventh commandment. While he is indulgent to most youthful extravagances and frolics — of which his own early days were full — he cannot tolerate libertines, who seem to inspire him with a natural antipathy bordering on disgust. Though always kind and courteous in female society, Bismarck has never distinguished any of the numerous beauties he has met in his life so as to authorize even a suspicion that he paid special attention to any woman, still less that he courted any. He has had affectionate and respected female friends — among whom the grand duchess Helena of Russia must be reckoned — but the only women who, to all appearances, have found room in his heart and occupied it, are his mother, his sister, his wife, and his daughter.

Bismarck's mother, Louise Wilhelmine Menken, was born in 1789, and married in 1806, when she was only sixteen. She died on the 1st of January 1839, without having witnessed her sons greatness. She bore to her husband, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand von Bismarck (born in 1771, died in 1845), six children, three of whom Ferdinand; Johanna, and Franz, died in infancy; while three others, Bernard (born 1810), Otto (born 1815), and Malvina are still living.

Malvina, Bismarck's youngest and only surviving sister, was born in 1827, and married in 1844 Baron Oscar von Arnim-Kroechlendorff. The relations between this lady and her brother Otto have always been of a singularly affectionate character. He used to treat her, when they were both at home, with a tender deference that student-brothers rarely show to their younger sisters. Those who remember seeing them as young people together, say that he was as kind and respectful to her as if she had been his bride. When she married, he wrote her a letter which is a curious mixture of playfulness and regret. "It is most unnatural and egotistical," he says, "that girls, who have bachelor brothers, should in an inconsiderate way go and get married, just as if they had nothing else to do in this world but to follow their own inclinations." In his letters he gives her all sorts of pet names; and even when he is at his hardest work, with his health giving way, and when all who approach him are awed by the expression of almost terrific severity on his countenance, his letters to "his beloved sister, his dearest Malvina, his dear little one," remain invariably kind, and are often full of evident good-humor. He cuts jokes about important affairs, about men who think themselves very big, and about himself. But when his sister is in trouble, he finds wonderfully concise expressions for conveying tender and deep sympathy, and through the whole correspondence there runs, so to speak, one unbroken thread of profound brotherly love.

The wife of Prince Bismarck, Johanna von Putkammer, of an old and noble Pomeranian family, was born in 1824. He made her acquaintance at the marriage of one of his friends, where she acted as bridesmaid, and two years later in 1847 he asked her to become his wife. Her family was not at first disposed to accept his proposals. At that time Herr von Bismarck enjoyed a rather curious reputation. He was surnamed "der tolle Bismarck" (mad Bismarck), and had earned this title by his numerous duels, his daring feats of horsemanship, and some widely-spread 