¶ After Koeniggraetz, the growing sense of German nationality impressed itself in a thousand joyful ways.
In Spain, lucifer matches bore on the boxes this doggerel:
Als Wilhelm wirkt und Bismarck span
Gott hatte seine Freude dran.
Or, “As William worked and Bismarck spun, God had his joy thereon.”
The fashionable world dressed in Bismarck brown; ironclads bore his name; in Paraguay the “Citizen Bismarck” ran up and down the river; Bismarck, South Dakota; Bismarck and von Moltke streets; huge Bismarck strawberries—and what more you please.
¶ The Brandenburg Cuirassiers made him drink out of a silver tankard, holding a level quart of champagne; Bismarck, at the officers’ revel, put the goblet to his lips and drained the draught in a few long gulps.
¶ “Another!” cried the National hero.
¶ “Alas,” sighed a dyspeptic Frenchman, who heard of it, “champagne and smoke agree with him—happy man!”
¶ Whenever the Chancellor was out, on foot or on horseback, the news ran like wildfire through Berlin! Offices were emptied, clerks stood in windows, the public uncovered and cheered.
¶ The German colony of Constantinople sent him a sword of honor; thousands begged his photograph, autograph, or lock of his hair; brewer George Pschorr, at great cost, sent thirty-three gallons of beer in a carved cask weighing 500 pounds, with solid silver tankards—veritable gems of art.