He had become
hard and old on the battlefield of parliamentary controversy. He stood
in awe of nothing and nobody--and he was true as gold. Fourthly, this
upright man was one of the few who openly told the Emperor the truth,
and the Emperor made use of this, as we all did.

I was, therefore, convinced beforehand that a change would not improve
the situation for me. Esterhazy, who succeeded Tisza, certainly never
put obstacles in the way of my policy. At the same time, I missed the
strong hand that had kept order in Hungary, and the stern voice that
warned the Emperor, and I did not place the same reliance on Wekerle
as on Tisza, perhaps because I was not on the same terms of friendship
with him as with Tisza.

Although I had many disputes with Tisza, it is one of the dearest
reminiscences of my time of office that, up to the death of this
remarkable man, our friendship remained unchanged. For many years
Hungary and Stephen Tisza were as one. Tisza was a man whose brave and
manly character, stern and resolute nature, fearlessness and integrity
raised him high above the average man. He was a thorough man, with
brilliant qualities and great faults; a man whose like is rare in
Europe, in spite of those faults. Great bodies cast long shadows; and
he was great, and modelled out of the stuff from which the heroes of
old were made--heroes who understood how to fight and die. How often
did I reproach him with his unhappy "_puszta_" patriotism, that was
digging a grave for him and all of us. It was impossible to change
him; he was obstinate and unbending, and his greatest fault was that,
all his life, he was under the ban of a petty ecclesiastical policy.
Not a single square metre would he yield either to Roumania in her
day, nor to the Czechs or the Southern Slavs. The career of this
wonderful man contains a terrible tragedy. He fought and strove like
none other for his people and his country; for years he filled the
breach and protected his people and his Hungary with his powerful
personality, and yet it was his obstinate, unyielding policy that was
one of the chief reasons of Hungary's fall; the Hungary he so dearly
loved; the fall that he saw when he died, killed by the accursed hand
of some cowardly assassin.

Tisza once told me, with a laugh, that someone had said to him that
his greatest fault was that he had come into the world as a Hungarian.

I consider this a most pertinent remark. As a human being and as a
man,