PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF BISMARCK.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1914, 20 February 1875, Page 2

PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF BISMARCK.

A tall square man, straight as a pine and rugged as a larch; a man in plain attire, with an ample brow, and grey retiring eyes, firm nose and chin, a hard coarse moustache, a strong knit, a self contained, a fro ward sort of man; apparently all nerve and brain, with ready word and open laughter on his lips, an 4 with a countenance so bold and frank that silence, if by chance he thould.be silent, might appear to hide some ominous thought—such was Bismarck yon ffchonhausen as he passed me under the linden an hour ago as hale and kindly as at winter frost. Gaze on that frame from head to foot, a frame erect and stiff as though the bones were steel, -the outer covering mail. The man is all of a piece, strong,: ready, blunt, aggressive, with a fixed belief in fact, m science, in the rule of three. No gleam of superstition lingers on the face 1 no doubt, no sentiment, no >eakness, no remorse. A rocky and unsympathising face it seems to casual lookers on. When laußhter passes from the ample brow to *!} c lip the radiance is more like the flash on burnished metal than the more poetic. play of flesh and blood There n nothing of German subtlety or German ideality about him; in' this respect Gladstone is much more a German than Bismarckj and Bismarck, as I have heard an intelligent German public man remark, has something

essentially English in his character and attitude. Ho is pre-eminently a man of deeds; a man of direct broad views, of f ractieal sagacity, of firm determination, mperial Council or Senate (Heichsrath) fits. On this bench the central seat belongs to the Chancellor, and it was empty when I entered the gallery. I had not.lMLphed long t however, before a tall, broaOTbrowed, broad-chested, truly Neptunian man, in a military dress, entered and took possession of the empty seat. I asked "Is that "Bismarck? " and received/Jje answer which I anticipated. I then set myself to watch and study him with as much scientific observation as I was capable of. I had read his life by Hezchief, and thought I understood something of the stuff of which he was made. He snt for an hour, the image of concentrated business and energy, signing papers, reading telegrams, giving intimations to attendants, now looking to the right hand, now to the left; again crossing his arms before his breast, as if buckling down his natural impatience of a sedentary position, altogether as if he preferred the rattling thunder car of Jove to the soft padded chair of the Chancellor. Such a man certainly will never fall asleep, nor allow any other person to fall asleep,, wherever you plant him. When he was a young man they called him der tolle Bismarck (mad Bismarck); .that mean? at an age when he had energy , without regulation, and without a suitable | field of action he did many strange and, it may be," someimprbper things; as young Clive, they tell us, distinguished his boyhood by climbing up to the top of Shrewsbury steeple.—Dark Blue.

A Scotchman is always afraid of expressing unqualified praise. If you remark that t It's a good day/ the usual remark is \Aweel, sir, Tvo seen waur/ If you say his wife is an excellent woman, he returns, * She is no a bad^ body.'.. A buxom lass/smartly dressed, is 'No sac yery unpnrpose like." The richeßt and rarest Viands are 'No sac bad/ The best acting and singing are designated as ' No bid/ A man noted for his benevolence is INo the warst man i' the worilt/ And, ■hould anybody make a remark* however novel, that squares with a Scotchman's ideal, he will at once say,' That's jist what I've often thocht!'

A religious body haying resolved to build a new church, the pastor went about begging most zealously, accepting not only the widow's but the children's mite. In the school one Sabbath, while instructing the children, he compared himself to a shepherd, and then inquired what the latter did with his flock. One bright-eyed little fellow promptly replied, "Be ihears them.''

" Them soldiers must be an awful dishonest get," said an old lady, " for not * night seems to pass that some sentry is not relieved of his watch./