f the military bent of German character,
and they are offset by such transcendent military virtues that we
would almost welcome them as bringing this colossal figure within the
reach of our own frailties and shortcomings.

Three of the military qualities that made Bismarck great seem to me to
stand out with particular distinctness: his readiness to take the most
tremendous responsibilities, if he could justify his action by the
worth of the cause for which he made himself responsible; his
moderation after success was assured; his unflinching submission to
the dictates of monarchical discipline.

Moritz Busch has recorded an occurrence, belonging to the autumn of
1877, which most impressively brings before us the tragic grandeur and
the portentous issues of Bismarck's career. It was twilight at Varzin,
and the Chancellor, as was his wont after dinner, was sitting by the
stove in the large back drawing-room. After having sat silent for a
while, gazing straight before him, and feeding the fire now and anon
with fir-cones, he suddenly began to complain that his political
activity had brought him but little satisfaction and few friends.
Nobody loved him for what he had done. He had never made anybody happy
thereby, he said, not himself, nor his family, nor any one else. Some
of those present would not admit this, and suggested "that he had made
a great nation happy." "But," he retorted, "how many have I made
unhappy! But for me three great wars would not have been fought;
eighty thousand men would not have perished; parents, brothers,
sisters, and wives would not have been bereaved and plunged into
mourning.... That matter, however, I have settled with God." "Settled
with God!"--an amazing statement, a statement which would seem the
height of blasphemy if it were not an expression of noblest manliness,
if it did not reveal the soul of a warrior dauntlessly fighting for a
great cause, risking for it the existence of a whole country as well
as his own happiness, peace, and salvation, and being ready to submit
the consequences, whatever they might be, to the tribunal of eternity.
To say that a man who is willing to take such responsibilities as
these makes himself thereby an offender against morality appears to me
tantamount to condemning the Alps as obstructions to traffic. A
people, at any rate, that glories in the achievements of a Luther has
no right to cast a slur upon the motives of a Bismarck.

Whatever one may think