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562 themselves by energy, audacity, and self-reliance, feel, for that very reason, a specially uncharitable dislike to mendicants.

The begging letters received by a man like Prince Bismarck may be literally reckoned by thousands. Some time ago, when the chancellor was ill at Varzin, all letters addressed to him, which were not of a strictly private character, were sent back to Berlin, to be there read and answered. The greater number of these letters contained "most humble requests" — gehorsamste Gesuche, — yet scarcely any of these begging-letter-writers had any claim on the prince. One of the officials whose busi ness it was to read these petitions — an orderly man, and apparently an amateur of statistics — amused himself by drawing up a list of all the requests for money only. They amounted to half a million sterling! The prince did not laugh when he was told this, but he shrugged his shoulders with a look of bitter contempt. On the other hand, it is natural that quiet, respectable people with proper dignity, who require nothing from the prince and do not wish to trouble him with their private affairs, should never be brought into contact with him, unless they stand in some official relation to him, or unless some real business takes them to him. So it has come to pass quite naturally, that Prince Bismarck sees a great deal of the mean side of humanity; and it is scarcely surprising that he should have become sceptical and even misanthropical. His experience proves that men, as a rule — a rule which, happily, suffers many exceptions — are not proud; that they are willing to humble themselves for very small considerations; that there are many bullies among them, and that those same bullies may be easily bullied. Bismarck is certainly well aware that there are many good, honest people in the world, but experience has taught him that it is his ill-fate to have dealings with a proportionately small number of these. He is firmly attached to the few men and women whom he trusts, because he knows them to be his true friends; but he is suspicious of strangers. His first thought, when he sees a new face, may naturally be, "Well, what does this man want of me?" This would explain why he is generally feared, though his intimate friends are loud in their praises of his kindness and amiability.

Prince Bismarck's health has given way of late. He has not husbanded his strength, and has never led what may be called, from a hygienic point of view, a rational life. His nerves, which have been overstrained, have become morbidly sensitive. His sleep is not good: he goes to bed at abnormally late hours, and often only finds rest when the sun is above the- horizon. Under these circumstances, life in the country, where he sees nobody but members of his own family and a few friends who have been invited either as his guests or to act as his secretaries, is what suits him best. His visits to Varzin and to Friedrichsruhe have gradually become longer and longer. It is probable that this will go on, and that he will end his eventful life as the "Hermit of Varzin" — a name which has already been applied to him.

When he is in the country Bismarck leads the life of a squire of the old school. He looks carefully after his property, takes great interest in his peasants, goes out riding, hunting, and shooting; and is no free-thinker. He has always without ostentation but with great earnestness professed to be a religious man. "Life would be worth nothing," he writes to his brother-in-law, "if it were to be ended by death here below." And in another letter of his we find the following passage: "I do not understand how a man who reflects on his own condition can endure the sorrows and troubles of this life, if he has not a firm belief in God."

the foregoing pages we have attempted to sketch the outline of Bismarck's character. We do not pretend to have exhausted the subject. A mans character is a wonderfully complicated affair a curious compound of things good and evil, great and mean. Strange and even inexplicable contradictions puzzle the observer; and he who aspires to be complete in his description must always fail. It is impossible, in such matters, to speak "the whole truth." "Nothing but the truth" may be said by any one who chooses; and we have endeavored to perform, at any rate, that part of the duty of an honest witness.

To complete our sketch within its narrow limits, we have still to give, in chronological order, the most important dates in the German chancellor's life.

Edward-Leopold-Otto von Bismarck was born at Schoenhausen on the 1st of April, 1815. His father, who seems to have been a very kind-hearted, jovial sort of man, inserted in a Berlin paper a notice of his son's birth, with an injunction to his friends "not to congratulate him" (unter Verbittung des Gluckwunsches).