¶ Here is one thing that you must never forget in studying great men: That it is possible, nay inevitable, for a man to be at once very great and very small.
At the very beginning of his career, we find Bismarck ringing the solemn changes on “Christian,” and we behold him in a characteristically unamiable mood over “Jews.” Yet all the time he was endeavoring to lay down the dogma that the proper aim of the state is the realization of the Christian ideal!
¶ If now you can understand this mental contradiction, you are in a position to grasp one of the strange paradoxes with which Bismarck’s life is literally filled.
You see here, at once, why he has been so often accused of double-dealing, of stacking the cards, of changing his mind, of going ahead by going backwards, winning ultimately by fair means or by foul.
¶ And now for the sequel. Many years later, Bismarck was exceedingly glad to be guided by the advice of Jews, more especially the Jewish banker Bleichroder.
On one side of the table sits Bismarck, the Pomeranian Junker, and on the other side the sallow-faced, undersized Jew, Bleichroder.
Great friends they are today, to be sure; and between them is a mound of treasury reports, telling in minute detail the financial resources of Louis the Little, now a helpless prisoner of war. France is at the Prussian’s mercy, and a Jew is called in—a despised Jew!
Bleichroder and Bismarck coolly examined the balance sheets of France, the present state of her debts.