SOME "OBITER DICTA."

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10146, 20 September 1898, Page 6

SOME "OBITER DICTA."

Bismarck was nevei intoxicated by success. Here are some remarkable words he once used:—"Nobody loves mc for 1 what I have done. I have never made anybody happy, not myself, nor my family, nor anybody else. But how many have I made unhappy I But for mc three great wars would act have been fought; eighty thousand men would not have perished. Parents, brothers, sisters, and widows would not be bereaved and plunged into mourning. . . Ti.-ui •natter, how_ver, I have settled with God. But I have had little or no joy from all my achievements; nothing but vex-lion. care and trouble."

He wa*. one day in a company where, among other things, the subject of how touch it cost to gain experience in life

cropped up. He kept silent for a time, but presently joined in the conversation, and said: "Fooh» pretend you can only gam experience at youi own expense, but I have always managed to learn at the expense of others." HIS EPITAPH. Bismarck himself drafted the inscription he wished to be placed on his tomb. It emphasised the fact that he never forgave the Kaiser for his action in dispensing with his sen-ices. The inscription ran: —"Here rests Prince Bismarck. Born Ist April, 1815. Died (date). A faithful German servant of Emperor William the First." BISMARCK'S BRAIN. Prince Bismarck's brain, according to the estimate of the anthropologist. Otto Amnion, was probably the heaviest known to anatomical science Herr Ammon, in consultation with Professor Schafei, the sculptor, concluded from the measurements taken for Schafer's bust, that the brain of the old statesman weighed 1867 grammes, and consequently exceeds in weight that of any known genius. Cuvier's brain weighed 1830 gramme., Byron's 1807, Kant's 1650, Schiller's 1680, and Dante's 1420. The average weight ot the brain of an intelligent European is only 1380 grammes.