¶ He had, as we have seen, thus far passed the time as a practical farmer; hale fellow well met, with upper-class leanings.
After taking his doctor’s degree at Goettingen, he had made a few journeys, one to Italy, another to the island of Heligoland, on a shooting trip; had crossed the English Channel, and had brought back with him a smattering of Shakespeare, which he afterwards improved by considerable study; and by the way throughout the crises in his career, Bismarck often found refuge in apt Shakespearian quotations.
Then he had done a little governmental clerical work in the lower courts of his country, but his peculiar ideas of independence and his abruptness in speaking his mind unfitted him for this work. Glad to be rid of his job, he returned to the country. He knew nothing of administrative or executive life, and aside from the fact that he was a student of history, with a penchant for making historical parallels, there was nothing to show the bent of his powerful mind.
¶ Yet, there is a great man before us! And since it is not based on his training, then it must come inherently from his natural endowment.
His master-mind was to unseat and seat princes, kings and emperors, in the fullness of time, rearranging the map of Germany to suit himself; engaging in three wars of ambition, signally victorious in each; and winning for himself imperishable fame during his active career of forty years.
¶ By a singular turn, Bismarck knew or cared so little for politics, at this time, that his very entry into the “White Saloon,” in which the Liberals decided to settle with this stubborn King Fr: Wm. IV, was wholly by accident.
The Saxon Provincial Diet at Meresburg had chosen Dyke Captain von Brauchitsch of Scharteuke, in the Circle of Jerichow, as Deputy at the United Diet, and had selected Dyke Captain von Bismarck of Schoenhausen as his proxy. As Herr von Brauchitsch was very ill, his substitute was summoned.
¶ Bismarck appeared as representative of the Knight’s Estate of Jerichow, and vassal and chivalric servitor of the King. How go the Fates! If the eminent von Brauchitsch had not had the toothache, that day, there might not have been a United Germany—is it not true?