PEN PORTRAIT OF BISMARCK.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5562, 25 January 1879, Page 3

PEN PORTRAIT OF BISMARCK.

(From Blackwood’s Magazine.) He is a powerful man. That is what strikes at once every one who sees him for the first time. He is very tall, and of enormous weight, but not ungainly. Every part of his gigantic frame is well proportioned—the large, round head, the massive neck, the broad shoulders, and the vigorous limbs. He is now more than 63, and the burden he has had to bear has been unusually heavy ; but though his step has become slow and ponderous, he carries his head high, looking down even on those who are as tall as himself, and his figure is still erect. During these latter years, he has suffered frequent and severe bodily pain, but no one could look upon him as an old man, or as one to be pitied. On the contrary, everybody who sees him feels that Prince Bismarck is still in possession of immense physical power. Photography has made his features known to all. It is a strange face, which would attract attention anywhere, even if we did not know that it belonged to a man whose doings have changed our modern world. It is a face never to be forgotten —by no means a handsome, but still less an ugly one. It was remarkably bright, full of humor, of merry mischief even, in days long gone by. It has now become serious—almost solemn—with an expression of unflinching energy _ and daring. The bald round forehead—an object of admiration for the phrenologist—is of quite extraordinary dimensions ; the large prominent blue eyes seem as it they could look into the sun without blinking. They are not quick—they wander slowly from one object to another; but when they rest on a human countenance they become so intensely inquiring that many people when they have to undergo this searching look feel uueasy; and all, even Bismarck’s equals and superiors, are made aware that they are in the presence of a man with whom it would be wise to play fair, as he would probably discover the most subtle tricks. His thick, well-set eyebrows are singularly long and shaggy, and they add not a little to the stern, and at times somewhat fierce expression of his countenance. The nose is of ordinary size—not as long perhaps as might be expected from the rest of the face; the chin is large and massive. Prince Bismarck has said of himself, that he was “the best hated man in Europe.” He has, indeed, many furious enemies in various parts of tho world ; in his own country, to begin with, among the Particularists, the Catholics, and the Socialists ; and, again, at Rome, in Austria, and in France. He has not often been heard to complain of this, still a bright intellect cannot possess the knowledge of such a fact without being saddened by it. Prince Bismarck is by no means a light-hearted man. Sorrow and care have taken up their abode with him. They throw a shadow on his brow, and make themselves felt in the sound of his voice, and in the frequent bitterness of his hesitating'speech. He is no longer young ; he fully realizes the fact that the best part of his life is gone, but the greatest battles have been fought; and maybe in his inner heart there is the feeling, that while he has achieved much for the greatness of his country, he has done hut little for his own happiness. Sometimes, when he is sitting among his personal and intimate friends—he has besides his family some five or six of these—free from all restraint, smoking his long pipe, patting the head of his huge dog, attending listlessly to a conversation going on around him in subdued tones, there passes over his cold face a something like a soft transparent veil, behind which his hard features relax and take an unlooked-for expression of wistful sadness. After all, Otto "Von Bismarck, a child of the Marches, where his family has been known since the thirteenth century, is a thoroughbred German. Though one of the most matter-of-fact men the world has ever known, he carries within his breast a hidden vein of deep feeling, and though that feeling is certainly not of the kind which gives birth to morbid sentimentality, and it is difficult to believe that young Bismarck ever addressed his complainings to the moon, still it enables him to feel keenly all that a sensitive heart has to endure daring the passage through life.