¶ It is a wonderful story of human nature, this story of how the German people rallied to Bismarck’s side; a story that reaffirms how slender after all is the space between the pomp of kings and the obscure destiny of the shepherd on the hills.
The proud figure of the grand old man who was not too high to fall from power stands side by side with Marius at the ruins of Carthage.
¶ Finally, as between the kings whom Bismarck served so faithfully and who abandoned him at last, and the people whom he despised but who rallied to his side and bound up his wounds, this courageous giant, who during the long years in which he fronted the seemingly forlorn struggle for United Germany, had been so conscientious in the discharge of his unpleasant duties, came at last to his peculiar eminence as one of the world’s greatest characters.
¶ When he came to die, full of years and honors, although he had no National funeral like the magnificent outpouring that marked the return of Napoleon’s body to the banks of the River Seine, yet in the hearts of the German people Otto von Bismarck was accorded the grandest funeral of modern times, if not of all time.
That was many years ago; but his unapproachable memory still lives, as Father of United Germany—and his fame goes marching on.
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The old man’s strange fancies as he passes the time awaiting his final call.
¶ Behold our old master in retirement, as obscure as a simple country squire; and he reads again—what do you think? The Book of Job, Bismarck’s last reading, reminds him of the evanescence of all earthly glory, which passes away like the grass that is cut down by the mower.
¶ Brave old fighter, with your show of dauntless spirit, down to the very end, we know that you are grown weary of it all, and in truth, in silent moments of self-communion, you do not care when the end may come, nor may it come too soon for you.
¶ He is worried all the time, now; worried about his son’s health; worried about the death of his brother; broken over the death of his wife; distressed by the death of favorite dogs and horses. Also, he recalls a gypsy saying having to do with the end of the Bismarck family, under strange conditions, in these mystical words: