n his second term he entered the Corps of the Hanoverians
and was quickly noted for his power of drinking and fighting; he is
reported to have fought twenty-six duels and was only wounded once, and
that wound was caused by the breaking of his opponent's foil. He was
full of wild escapades, for which he was often subjected to the ordinary
punishments of the university.

To many Germans, their years at the university have been the
turning-point of their life; but it was not so with Bismarck. To those
who have been brought up in the narrow surroundings of civic life,
student days form the single breath of freedom between the discipline of
a school and the drudgery of an office. To a man who, like Bismarck, was
accustomed to the truer freedom of the country, it was only a passing
phase; as we shall see, it was not easy to tie him down to the drudgery
of an office. He did not even form many friendships which he continued
in later years; his associates in his corps must have been chiefly young
Hanoverians; few of his comrades in Prussia were to be found at
Goettingen; his knowledge of English enabled him to make the
acquaintance of the Americans and English with whom Goettingen has always
been a favourite university; among his fellow-students almost the only
one with whom in after life he continued the intimacy of younger days
was Motley. We hear little of his work; none of the professors seem to
have left any marked influence on his mind or character; indeed they had
little opportunity for doing so, for after the first term his attendance
at lectures almost entirely ceased. Though never a student, he must have
been at all times a considerable reader; he had a retentive memory and
quick understanding; he read what interested him; absorbed, understood,
and retained it. He left the university with his mind disciplined indeed
but not drilled; he had a considerable knowledge of languages, law,
literature, and history; he had not subjected his mind to the dominion
of the dominant Hegelian philosophy, and to this we must attribute that
freshness and energy which distinguishes him from so many of his ablest
contemporaries; his brain was strong, and it worked as easily and as
naturally as his body; his knowledge was more that of a man of the world
than of a student, but in later life he was always able to understand
the methods and to acquire the knowledge of the subjects he required in
his official career. History was his favourite s