1705041920

1705041921 But it held! Not a stone, except those which the enemy extracted, was loosened. Indeed, at the very height of calamity, skilful hands were at work making the pillars more solid than before. And it now became evident that whereas most Germans had revered the royalty as the very foundation of the empire, it had been merely a brilliant but unnecessary facade.

1705041922

1705041923 The survival of the state is the surest evidence that the important part which Bismarck assigned to royalty in his political scheme was purely a concession to his class—one might almost call it a weakness. For as the ruling houses fell and the empire endured, Bismarck’s precautions for the future, despite all this baggage of tradition, were justified by their results. After the tempest, people looked about them and saw that the man who had done this was much more modern than he himself had ever hoped to be.

1705041924

1705041925 When the empire was founded at Versailles, amidst the medieval roar of victorious cannon, the golden mirrors in the Glass Gallery of the palace reflected only the forms of warlike princes; the industrious masses were elsewhere. When in the same hall forty-eight years later the empire was sentenced to atone and pay for its defeat, the golden mirrors no longer reflected a single royal figure. The last three emperors of Europe had been slain or deposed. Twenty-two German dynasties had been deprived of power—not by compulsion from without, hardly even by the natives themselves, but by corrosion, by the rust of an era which had served its purposes and was now ready for death.

1705041926

1705041927 Yet the documents which two humble citizens were called upon to sign at that momentous hour did not involve the destruction of Bismarck’s work, but only of the work of William the Second. It was William who had fostered, and Bismarck who had opposed, all those policies which eventually involved Germany in war. Foreign colonies and a marine were typical instances of all that the founder of the state had not wanted. Had he really raised the empire on the point of a victorious sword? Or had he not, rather, employed the sword purely as a means of overcoming Europe’s resistance to German unity? Did he not for twenty years thereafter, resist all the temptations of imperialism, all the enticements of militaristic expansion? And was it not Bismarck who, braving the anger of the king and all the generals at Nikolsburg, created the prototype of a modern peace: without cession of territory, without indemnity, dictated solely by the desire to restore friendly relations with the enemy as quickly as possible? Was Bismarck really of the past?

1705041928

1705041929 At the end he broods, despite protestations of homage, alone and in exile. When he is nearly eighty, and people try to argue him into the tranquillity proper to his years, he looks at them from under his bushy eyebrows and asks, “And why should I be tranquil?” The wife is gone upon whom he had lavished all the warmth which he repressed in his frigid dealings with the outer world. This woman had been his haven of retreat. All the yearnings for quiet, woodland and home which troubled this restless, knotty character were embodied in her—even though his equally strong love of executive activity and political organization always kept him occupied in the service of the state. The more turbulent his career, the more peaceful his marriage had to be—and was.

1705041930

1705041931 He had a critical mind which readily turned to history and to literary composition; and he was by nature a woodsman and a huntsman, a rustic who resented all officialdom. His sojourns in the country, which he had accepted in his youth, without thinking, were deliberately protracted in later years—for it was here that he derived the strength to breathe in ministerial chambers, in the closets of a castle, and in the halls of a parliament which he despised. This antinomy between the scene of his activity and the landscape of his heart never ended, for it was merely the symbol of a chronic indecision;and when, at the last, he had full leisure to enjoy the silence of his forests, he longed to be back in the turmoil which he had cursed for years.

1705041932

1705041933 This was his human lot. Bismarck was not happy by nature, and he knew it.

1705041934

1705041935 But he accepted life like a man, did his work with substantial materials, saw the vision of his thirties realized in his sixties, and for ten full years could look upon himself as the arbiter of the Continent. Yet he could never rid himself of the fear that all this might vanish overnight if he were not there—and in his last weeks his daughter heard him praying aloud for the future of Germany.

1705041936

1705041937 In a long coat, and a wide hat, peering out grimly like a Wotan, he could be seen, at the end, among the prehistoric oaks of his forests, walking about slowly and alone, between two mastiffs.

1705041938

1705041939 Notes

1705041940

1705041941 Bismarck （1815-1898）, the great German statesman, the one man responsible for welding a German nation out of the many German principalities. The fallen angel is, of course, Satan.This brief sentence at the top of the page beautifully describes the Satan given in the opening books of Milton’s Paradise Lost .

1705041942

1705041943 Powerful frame, strong body or physique.

1705041944

1705041945 mastiffs, one of a breed of powerful, smooth-coated dogs, valued chiefly as watchdogs.

1705041946

1705041947 assassin, one who practices secret murder.

1705041948

1705041949 Unter den Linden, under the linden trees, the name of a street in Berlin, Germany.

1705041950

1705041951 the king, Frederick William IV （1797-1888）, William I, German Kaiser （1871-1888）, Prussian king （1861-1888）.

1705041952

1705041953 about to yield in 1862, because of opposition to the king’s army program in Parliament. Bismarck was just then appointed minister-president, and after he had failed to secure approval of the king’s program, he dissolved Parliament, and in direct violation of the constitution, collected and expended state revenue. He assumed control of the entire government and suppressed all opposition.

1705041954

1705041955 scabbard, sheath of the sword.

1705041956

1705041957 elicited, drew out or drew forth; evoked.

1705041958

1705041959 convulsed, shook violently （literally and figuratively）.

1705041960

1705041961 gloss over, cover up; explain away; say as little as possible.

1705041962

1705041963 after a thousand years of dissent . Charlemagne was able to bring most of the present Germany into the bounds of his empire by his energetic conquest of the Saxons, but the unity of his empire was ephemeral. The breakdown of the state was signalized in the Treaty of Verdun （843） when the three sons of Louis I, the Pious, divided the territories, the eastern portion going to Louis the German. The eastern territories never achieved a real unity; five great duchies, Saxony, Franconia, Lorraine, Bavaria, and Swabia, developed, and were dominant. From that time down to Bismarck’s day, these and many other divisions that later sprang up kept Germany from becoming a united nation.

1705041964

1705041965 rent, torn apart; dissociated.

1705041966

1705041967 coping, meeting with; dealing with.

1705041968

1705041969 oscillation, changing repeatedly back and forth; fluctuation.

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