Otto von Bismarck was born in 1815, the year of the battle of Waterloo. When quite a little fellow he was sent away to boarding-school. The boys were badly fed and strictly ruled, and the lad who, many years afterward, was called "the man of blood and iron" was a "home boy," and did not like school. At the university, however, he seems to have overcome his gentleness in some degree, for he was always in mischief, and very popular.
It is not until he is thirty-three years old that we find him in public life as a member of the Prussian Diet, or parliament. His sympathies were with the King as against the people, because he thought that Germany could only exist as a kingdom. Of course his views on this subject brought him plenty of enemies. He complains in a letter to his wife that he is "famous, but not popular." On two occasions he has been shot at and wounded, and the first of these would-be assassins he seized with his own hands, gave him into charge of the police, and then returned home to a dinner party in his own house.
Though Bismarck is a statesman by profession, and not a soldier, he has seen much of war. The short but decisive campaign between Prussia and Austria in 1866 was Bismarck's doing, and his forethought hastened on the great war between France and Germany in 1870, for he knew that the Germans would win.
In 1871, Count von Bismarck was appointed Chancellor of the German Empire, and created a Prince. No man in Europe wields greater power than he, and yet in his tastes he is extremely simple, being fond of country life and sports.
THE MOTH DANCE.
Little moth maidens, stop in your flight:
Where did you come from out of the night?
Why do you never come in the day,
Like the dear butterflies? Where do you stay?
Little moth maidens, look to your wings:
Candles are pretty but dangerous things.
Waltzing so airily round and around,
Where could two daintier coquettes be found?
Silly moth maidens, why so unwise?
Have you no sense, then—nothing but eyes?
Beating the mirror, fanning the flame,
Blinded and dying, and—who is to blame?