The popular idea of a genial, soldierly, blunt-spoken Bismarck is a wrong one. Bismarck can be jovial among friends and good-humoredly affable with strangers; but genial he is not. There is a sarcastic tone in his voice which grates on the ears of all who are brought in contact with him for the first time, and his unconcealed mistrust for the rectitude of all public men, of no matter what country, who do not happen to be in his good graces at the time, is too often offensive. It must be remembered that when Bismarck has quarrelled with public men, it has generally been because, having changed an opinion himself, he has been unable to persuade men to do the same at a moment's notice. Turn by turn, Free-trader and Protectionist, inclining one day to the Russian, another to the Austrian alliance, coquetting at one time with England, then with Italy, and even with France, he has ever been actuated by the sole desire to use every passing wind which might push the interest of his Government. He has declined to formulate any policy in details, because against such a policy parties might coalesce, whereas by veering and tacking often, he throws disunion among his opponents. He appropriates what is best in the new designs of this or that party, takes for his Sovereign and himself the credit of carrying them into execution, and then leaves the original promoters with a sense that power has gone out of them—that they have been played with, but that they have nothing to complain of.
This policy of variations, however, has exposed Bismarck to some cutting rebukes from loyal Prussians whose consciences were not acrobatic. The trouble with Count Harry Arnim began when this diplomatist—“Der Affe,” as he was nicknamed by his familiars—said to Countess Von Redern, at one of the Empress Augusta's private parties, that he had hitherto been trying to walk on his feet in Paris, but that from “his latest instructions he gathered that he was expected until further notice to walk on his hands.” The saying was reported to Bismarck and made “his three hairs bristle.” “The 'Ape' has only been employed, because we thought him quadrumanous,“ he exclaimed, and from that moment there was war between the two men.
Another time Bismarck had to bear a snub from a young nobleman of the House of Hatzfelt. This gentleman, being left in charge of a Legation during the absence of the Minister, sent home a despatch embodying views favorable to the policy which the Chancellor had, until then, been pursuing towards the country where the attaché was residing. But it so chanced that the Chief of the Legation had been summoned to Berlin on purpose to receive instructions for a change of policy; so that when the attaché's despatch arrived, it gave no pleasure in Wilhelmstrasse, and the Chancellor spoke testily of its writer as a ”Schafsköpf.” Hearing this, the attaché resigned. He was a young man of high spirit, who had many friends at Court, and it was pointed out to the Chancellor by an august peacemaker, that the young fellow had not been very well-treated. Somewhat grudgingly—for he does not like to make amends—the Chancellor was induced to send his Secretary to the ex-attaché offering to reinstate him. But the recipient of this dubious favor drew himself up stiffly and said: “Germany has not fallen to so low a point that she needs to be served by Schafsköpf; and for the rest, you may tell the Chancellor that I have not been trained to turn somersaults.”[36]
It has been mentioned that Bismarck has had to contend with many a boudoir cabal. The Empress Augusta's long antipathy to him is no secret, and the Chancellor has never had to congratulate himself much on the friendliness of the Crown Prince's and Princess's circle. The ill-will of royal ladies enlists that of many other persons influential in society; but it stands to Bismarck's honor that he has never used newspapers to combat these drawing-room foes. The revelations made to the public some years since by an ex-member of the “Reptile's Bureau” were no doubt in the main true, and they showed that the Chancellor had raised the art of “nobbling” the Press to a high pitch of perfection. Not only had he, all over Germany, newspapers supported in part out of the Secret Service Fund and inspired wholly by the Press Bureau, but he has been accused of employing hirelings on the staffs of newspapers reputed as independent, and through these he was in a position to procure the insertion of articles in foreign journals, these effusions being afterwards reprinted in German papers as genuine expressions of foreign opinion.
All this constituted a very powerful organization, which the Chancellor might have used with telling effect in fighting society caballers. But while he has not scrupled to direct the heaviest artillery of his newspapers and not unfrequently torpedo attacks against open political opponents, he would never let his difficulties with “die Wespen” as he called society aggressors, be made the subjects of Press comments. Newspapers, guilty of assailing members of the Imperial family or of the Court household, have been unsparingly prosecuted by his orders. “Er is kein Journaliste!” exclaimed a too zealous partisan-writer, who had gone to the Chancellerie with a proposal for creating in Berlin a newspaper like the Paris Figaro, “er könne sich nicht auf die feine Malice zu verstehen.” This may be rendered as, “He won't throw mud;” and it is no small compliment to the integrity of a statesman, whom his enemies are wont to describe as more astute than Machiavelli, and more unscrupulous than Richelieu.[37]
In the autumn of the present year the Pope gave a commission to the painter Lenbach to paint a portrait of Prince Bismarck. The Chancellor agreed to sit; the artist went several times to Varzin, and people have been asking ever since what is the meaning of this strange fancy of Leo XIII.'s to have a portrait of the arch-enemy of Rome, the formidable champion of the Kulturkampf. A French journalist has suggested that there is at the Vatican an artistic Index Expurgatorius—a Galerie des Réprouvés—and that Bismarck's portrait is to hang there in the place of honor, between that of Dositheus the Samaritan, and Isaac Laquedem the Wandering Jew.
It is more likely that the Pope aspires to some political rapprochement with Germany, and if he have such a hope it must have come to him from the knowledge that the Chancellor would not object to a reconciliation. But if Bismarck consents to make peace with the Vatican, and to find some official post for Herr Windhorst, it would not be that any of his own private Lutheran prejudices against Rome have vanished. He is a doughty Protestant in whose religion there is no variableness, but he may veer on the Kulturkampf as he did on that of free trade, simply because, having failed, after doing his best, to crush the Catholics, he will see no use in recommencing the struggle. And whatever is useless seems to Bismarck a thing which should not be attempted, indeed, many of his great triumphs hitherto have been won by shaking hands with yesterday's enemy, and saying “Let us two stand together.” Before long the world may see Prince Bismarck recognise the Roman Catholic Church as one of the greatest living forces of Continental Conservatism, and enlist its services in the work of “dishing” both Liberals and Socialists. It is significant that in one of his few autumn speeches, Bismarck was heard quoting Joseph De Maistre's dictum about the Soldier and the Priest being the sentries of civilisation.—Temple Bar.
A FEW NOTES ON PERSIAN ART.
The limner's art in Persia has few patrons, and the professional draughtsman of the present day in that country must needs be an enthusiast, and an art-lover for art's sake, as his remuneration is so small as to be a mere pittance; and the man who can live by his brush must be clever indeed. The Persians are an eminently practical people, and buy nothing unless it be of actual utility; hence the artist has generally to sink to the mere decorator; and as all, even the very rich, expect a great deal for a little money, the work must be scamped in order to produce a great effect for a paltry reward. The artists, moreover, are all self-taught, or nearly so, pupilage merely consisting of the drudgery of preparing the canvas, panel, or other material for the master, mixing the colors, filling in backgrounds, varnishing, &c. There are no schools of art, no lectures, no museums of old or contemporary masters, no canons of taste, no drawing from nature or the model, no graduated studies, or system of any kind. There is, however, a certain custom of adhering to tradition and the conventional; and most of the art workmen of Iran, save the select few, are mere reproducers of the ideas of their predecessors.