To a somewhat complaining deputation from the new provinces, Bismarck good-humoredly explained that Prussia was like a woollen jacket, very unpleasant at first, but when people got accustomed to it they found it very comfortable, and at last came to think it a great benefit.
Bismarck allowed another deputation to whine for a long time about universal military service and the weight of taxation; he then said, very seriously and in a tone of the greatest astonishment, “Dear me, these gentlemen probably thought they could become Prussians for nothing!”
A well-known politician promulgated a very paradoxical statement at Bismarck’s dinner-table; some one present started forward to refute it. “Pray don’t trouble yourself,” exclaimed Bismarck; “if you will only have patience for two minutes, the learned Herr Professor will at once contradict himself in the most brilliant manner!”
In the year 1848 there was a great deal rumored about a falling away of the Rhine Provinces. “Where are they going to fall to?” asked Bismarck.
“And in France they no longer say, ‘travailler pour le roi de Prusse’ to indicate a lost labor of love, but ‘travailler pour le maître de M. de Bismarck!’” whispered a fat diplomatist cautiously to his neighbor.
“How is it,” King William merrily once asked the Minister-President and his cousin Herr von Bismarck-Briest, “that the Bismarcks of Schönhausen are all such tall, strapping fellows, and those of Briest the contrary?” Count Bismarck replied, “Because my ancestors all served the King as soldiers in battle, while my cousins were engaged in civil affairs!” Herr von Bismarck-Briest added, with presence of mind, “That is why I have put my seven sons into the army.”
It was true that six Bismarck-Briests fought in the last war under the King’s standard; a pity that the seventh was not there, but as a Landrath he was “exempt.”
“But,” whispered a pale assessor, who has been guilty of innumerable verses, “Bismarck is deficient in æsthetic culture; I have heard from the best authority, that once at Frankfurt, when Goethe’s pearl, ‘Happy he who closes up his door without hatred of the world!’ was performed on the piano, Bismarck burst out with, ‘What a tailor’s soul this Goethe had!’”
The pale assessor looked as if such barbarism froze him; some laughed, others shrugged their shoulders.