GLIMPSES OF NOTED PEOPLE FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L. EDITED BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, 1889.
[¹] Copyright, Harper & Bros.
HEN I called, Bismarck was at dinner, so I left my card and said I would come back in half an hour. As soon as my card had been carried to him (as I learned afterwards) he sent a servant after me to the hotel, but I had gone another way. When I came back I was received with open arms. I can’t express to you how cordially he received me. If I had been his brother, instead of an old friend, he could not have shown more warmth and affectionate delight in seeing me. I find I like him even better than I thought I did, and you know how high an opinion I always expressed of his talents and disposition. He is a man of very noble character and of very powerful mind. The prominent place which he now occupies as a statesman sought him. He did not seek it, or any other office. The stand which he took in the Assembly from conviction, on the occasion of the outbreak of 1848, marked him at once to all parties as one of the leading characters of Prussia. Of course, I don’t now go into the rights and wrongs of the matter, but I listened with great interest, as you may suppose, to his detailed history of the revolutionary events of that year, and his share in them, which he narrated to me in a long conversation which we had last night. He wanted me to stay entirely in his house, but as he has his wife’s father and mother with him, and as I saw that it was necessary to put up a bed in a room where there was none, I decidedly begged off. I breakfasted there this morning, and am to dine there, with a party, to-day. To-morrow, I suppose, I shall dine there en famille. I am only afraid that the landlord here will turn me into the streets for being such a poor consommateur for him, and all I can do is to order vast quantities of seltzer water.
The principal change in Bismarck is that he has grown stouter, but, being over six feet, this is an improvement. His voice and manner are singularly unchanged. His wife I like very much indeed; very friendly, intelligent and perfectly unaffected, and treats me like an old friend. In short, I can’t better describe the couple than by saying that they are as unlike M. and Mme. de —— as it is possible to be.
In the summer of 1851 he told me that the Minister, Manteuffel, asked him one day abruptly if he would accept the post of Ambassador at Frankfort, to which (although the proposition was as unexpected a one to him as if I should hear by the next mail that I had been chosen Governor of Massachusetts) he answered, after a moment’s deliberation, yes, without another word. The King, the same day, sent for him, and asked him if he would accept the place, to which he made the same brief answer, “Ja.” His Majesty expressed a little surprise that he made no queries or conditions, when Bismarck replied that anything the King felt strong enough to propose to him he felt strong enough to accept. I only write these details that you may have an idea of the man. Strict integrity and courage of character, a high sense of honor, a firm religious belief, united with remarkable talents, make up necessarily a combination which cannot be found any day in any court, and I have no doubt that he is destined to be Prime Minister, unless his obstinate truthfulness, which is apt to be a stumbling-block for politicians, stands in his way....
Well, he accepted the post, and wrote to his wife next day, who was preparing for a summer’s residence in a small house on the sea-coast, that he could not come because he was already Minister in Frankfort. The result, as he said, was three days of tears on her part. He had previously been leading the life of a plain country ’squire, with a moderate income, had never held any position in the government or in diplomacy, and had hardly ever been to court. He went into the office with a holy horror of the mysterious nothings of diplomacy, but soon found how little there was in the whole “galimatias.” Of course, my politics are very different from his, although not so antipodal as you might suppose, but I can talk with him as frankly as I could with you, and I am glad of an opportunity of hearing the other side put by a man whose talents and character I esteem, and who so well knows le dessous des cartes.
THE SIEGE OF LEYDEN.[¹]
[¹] Copyright, J. Lewis Stackpole.