The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10

And what man has been more truthful in intellectual and religious matters? He, the man of iron will, of ferocious temper, was at the same time the coolest reasoner, the most unbiased thinker. He willingly submitted to the judgment of experts, he cheerfully acknowledged intellectual talent in others, he took a pride in having remained a learner all his life, but he hated arrogant amateurishness. He was not a church-goer; he declined to be drawn into the circle of religious schemers and reactionary fanatics; he would occasionally speak in contemptuous terms of "the creed of court chaplains"; but, writing to his wife of that historic meeting with Napoleon in the lonely cottage near the battlefield of Sedan, he said: "A powerful contrast with our last meeting in the Tuileries in '67. Our conversation was a difficult thing, if I wanted to avoid touching on topics which could not but affect painfully the man whom God's mighty hand had cast down." And more than once has he given vent to reflections like these: "For him who does not believe—as I do from the bottom of my heart—that death is a transition from one existence to another, and that we are justified in holding out to the worst of criminals in his dying hour the comforting assurance, mors janua vitae—I say that for him who does not share that conviction the joys of this life must possess so high a value that I could almost envy him the sensations they must procure him." Or these: "Twenty years hence, or at most thirty, we shall be past the troubles of this life, whilst our children will have reached our present standpoint, and will discover with astonishment that their existence, but now so brightly begun, has turned the corner and is going down hill. Were that to be the end of it all, life would not be worth the trouble of dressing and undressing every day."

IV

We have considered a few traits of Bismarck's mental and moral make-up which seem to be closely allied with German national character and traditions. But, after all, the personality of a man like Bismarck is not exhausted by the qualities which he has in common with his people, however sublimated these qualities may be in him. His innermost life belongs to himself alone, or is shared, at most, by the few men of the world's history who, like him, tower in splendid solitude above the waste of the ages. In the Middle High German Alexanderlied there is an episode which most impressively brings out the impelling motive of such titanic lives. On one of his expeditions Alexander penetrates into the land of Scythian barbarians. These child-like people are so contented with their simple, primitive existence that they beseech Alexander to give them immortality. He answers that this is not in his power. Surprised, they ask why, then, if he is only a mortal, he is making such a stir in the world. Thereupon he answers: "The Supreme Power has ordained us to carry out what is in us. The sea is given over to the whirlwind to plough it up. As long as life lasts and I am master of my senses, I must bring forth what is in me. What would life be if all men in the world were like you?" These words might have been spoken by Bismarck. Every word, every act of his public career, gives us the impression of a man irresistibly driven on by some overwhelming, mysterious power. He was not an ambitious schemer, like Beaconsfield or Napoleon; he was not a moral enthusiast like Gladstone or Cavour. If he had consulted his private tastes and inclinations, he would never have wielded the destinies of an empire. Indeed, he often rebelled against his task; again and again he tried to shake it off; and the only thing which again and again brought him back to it was the feeling, "I must; I cannot do otherwise." If ever there was a man in whom Fate revealed its moral sovereignty, that man was Bismarck.

Whither has he gone now? Has he joined his compeers? Is he conversing in ethereal regions with Alexander, Caesar, Frederick? Is he sweeping over land and sea in the whirlwind and the thunder-cloud? Or may we hope that he is still working out the task which, in spite of all the imperiousness of his nature, was the essence of his earthly life—the task of making the Germans a nation of true freemen?

* * * * *

THE LOVE LETTERS OF BISMARCK2 TRANSLATED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHARLTON T. LEWIS

Hôtel de Prusse, Stettin, (Not dated: Written about the end of December, 1846.)

TO HERR VON PUTTKAMER:

Most Honored Sir.—I begin this communication by indicating its content in the first sentence—it is a request for the highest thing you can dispose of in this world, the hand of your daughter. I do not conceal from myself the fact that I appear presumptuous when I, whom you have come to know only recently and through a few meetings, claim the strongest proof of confidence which you can give to any man. I know, however, that even irrespective of all obstacles in space and time which can increase your difficulty in forming an opinion of me, through my own efforts I can never be in a position to give you such guaranties for the future that they would, from your point of view, justify intrusting me with an object so precious, unless you supplement by trust in God that which trust in human beings cannot supply. All that I can do is to give you information about myself with absolute candor, so far as I have come to understand myself. It will be easy for you to get reports from others in regard to my public conduct; I content myself, therefore, with an account of what underlay that—my inner life, and especially my relations to Christianity. To do that I must take a start far back.

In earliest childhood I was estranged from my parents' house, and at no time became entirely at home there again; and my education from the beginning was conducted on the assumption that everything is subordinate to the cultivation of the intelligence and the early acquisition of positive sciences.

After a course of religious teaching, irregularly attended and not comprehended, I had at the time of my confirmation by Schleiermacher, on my sixteenth birthday no belief other than a bare deism, which was not long free from pantheistic elements. It was at about this time that I, not through indifference, but after mature consideration, ceased to pray every evening, as I had been in the habit of doing since childhood; because prayer seemed inconsistent with my view of God's nature; saying to myself: either God himself, being omnipresent, is the cause of everything—even of every thought and volition of mine—and so in a sense offers prayers to himself through me, or, if my will is independent of God's will, it implies arrogance and a doubt as to the inflexibility as well as the perfection of the divine determination to believe that it can be influenced by human appeals. When not quite seventeen years old I went to Göttingen University. During the next eight years I seldom saw the home of my parents; my father indulgently refrained from interference; my mother censured me from far away when I neglected my studies and professional work, probably in the conviction that she must leave the rest to guidance from above: with this exception I was literally cut off from the counsel and instruction of others. In this period, when studies which ambition at times led me to prosecute zealously—or emptiness and satiety, the inevitable companions of my way of living—brought me nearer to the real meaning of life and eternity, it was in old-world philosophies, uncomprehended writings of Hegel, and particularly in Spinoza's seeming mathematical clearness, that I sought for peace of mind in that which the human understanding cannot comprehend. But it was loneliness that first led me to reflect on these things persistently, when I went to Kniephof, after my mother's death, five or six years ago. Though at first my views did not materially change at Kniephof, yet conscience began to be more audible in the solitude, and to represent that many a thing was wrong which I had before regarded as permissible. Yet my struggle for insight was still confined to the circle of the understanding, and led me, while reading such writings as those of Strauss, Feuerbach, and Bruno Bauer, only deeper into the blind alley of doubt.

I was firmly convinced that God has denied to man the possibility of true knowledge; that it is presumption to claim to understand the will and plans of the Lord of the World; that the individual must await in submission the judgment that his Creator will pass upon him in death, and that the will of God becomes known to us on earth solely through conscience, which He has given us as a special organ for feeling our way through the gloom of the world. That I found no peace in these views I need not say. Many an hour have I spent in disconsolate depression, thinking that my existence and that of others is purposeless and unprofitable—perchance only a casual product of creation, coming and going like dust from rolling wheels.

About four years ago I came into close companionship, for the first time since my school-days, with Moritz Blankenburg, and found in him, what I had never had till then in my life, a friend; but the warm zeal of his love strove in vain to give me by persuasion and discussion what I lacked—faith. But through Moritz I made acquaintance with the Triglaf family and the social circle around it, and found in it people who made me ashamed that, with the scanty light of my understanding, I had undertaken to investigate things which such superior intellects accepted as true and holy with childlike trust. I saw that the members of this circle were, in their outward life, almost perfect models of what I wished to be. That confidence and peace dwelt in them did not surprise me, for I had never doubted that these were companions of belief; but belief cannot be had for the asking, and I thought I must wait submissively to see whether it would come to me. I soon felt at home in that circle, and was conscious of a satisfaction that I had not before experienced—a family life that included me, almost a home.

I was meanwhile brought into contact with certain events in which I was not an active participant, and which, as other people's secrets, I cannot communicate to you, but which stirred me deeply. Their practical result was that the consciousness of the shallowness and worthlessness of my aim in life became more vivid than ever. Through the advice of others, and through my own impulse, I was brought to the point of reading the Scriptures more consecutively and with resolute restraint, sometimes, of my own judgment. That which stirred within me came to life when the news of the fatal illness of our late friend in Cardemin tore the first ardent prayer from my heart, without subtle questionings as to its reasonableness. God did not grant my prayer on that occasion; neither did He utterly reject it, for I have never again lost the capacity to bring my requests to Him, and I feel within me, if not peace, at least confidence and courage such as I never knew before.

I do not know what value you will attach to this emotion, which my heart has felt for only two months; I only hope that it may not be lost, whatever your decision in regard to me may be—a hope of which I could give you no better assurance than by undeviating frankness and loyalty in that which I have now disclosed to you, and to no one else hitherto, with the conviction that God favors the sincere.

I refrain from any assurance of my feelings and purposes with reference to your daughter, for the step I am taking speaks of them louder and more eloquently than words can. So, too, no promises for the future would be of service to you, since you know the untrustworthiness of the human heart better than I, and the only security I offer for the welfare of your daughter lies in my prayer for God's blessing. As a matter of history I would only observe that, after I had seen fräulein Johanna repeatedly in Cardemin, after the trip we made together this summer, I have only been in doubt as to whether the attainment of my desires would be reconcilable with the happiness and peace of your daughter, and whether my self-confidence was not greater than my ability when I believed that she could find in me what she would have a right to look for in her husband. Very recently, however, together with my reliance on God's grace, the resolution which I now carry out has also become fixed in me, and I kept silent when I saw you in Zimmerhausen only because I had more to say than I could express in conversation. In view of the importance of the matter and the great sacrifice which it will involve for you and your wife in separation from your daughter, I can scarcely hope that you will give a favorable decision at once, and only beg that you will not refuse me an opportunity for explanation upon any considerations which might dispose you to reject my suit, before you utter a positive refusal.

There is doubtless a great deal that I have not said, or not said fully enough, in this letter, and I am, of course, ready to give you exact and faithful information as to everything you may desire to know; I think I have told what is most important.

I beg you to convey to your wife my respectful compliments, and to accept kindly the assurance of my love and esteem.

BISMARCK.

Schönhausen, February 1, '47.

I had only waited for daylight to write you, my dear heart, and with the light came your little green spirit-lamp to make my lukewarm water seethe—though this time it found it ready to boil over. Your pity for my restless nights at present is premature, but I shall give you credit for it. The Elbe still lies turbid and growling in her ice-bonds: the spring's summons to burst them is not yet loud enough for her. I say to the weather: "If you would only be cold or warm! But you stay continually at freezing-point, and at this rate the matter may long drag on." For the present my activity is limited to sending out, far and wide, from the warm seat at the writing-table, diverse conjurations, whose magic starts quantities of fascines, boards, wheelbarrows, etc., from inland towards the Elbe, perchance to serve as a prosaic dam in restraint of the poetical foaming of the flood. After I had spent the morning in this useful rather than agreeable correspondence, my resolve was to chat away comfortably through the evening with you, beloved one, as though we were sitting on the sofa in the red drawing-room; and with sympathetic attention to my desire the mail kept for my enjoyment precisely at this gossiping hour your letter, which I should have received by good rights day before yesterday. You know, if you were able to decipher my inexcusably scrawled note3 from Schlawe, how I struck a half-drunken crowd of hussar officers there, who disturbed me in my writing. In the train I had, with my usual bad luck, a lady vis-à-vis, and beside me two very stout, heavily fur-clad passengers, the nearer of whom was a direct descendant of Abraham into the bargain, and put me in a bitter humor against all his race by a disagreeable movement of his left elbow.

I found my brother in his dressing-gown, and he employed the five minutes of our interview very completely, according to his habit, in emptying a woolsack full of vexatious news about Kniephof before me: disorderly inspectors, a lot of damaged sheep, distillers drunk every day, thoroughbred colts (the prettiest, of course) come to grief, and rotten potatoes, fell in a rolling torrent from his obligingly opened mouth upon my somewhat travel-worn self. On my brother's account I must affect and utter some exclamations of terror and complaint, for my indifferent manner on receiving news of misfortune vexes him, and as long as I do not express surprise he has ever new and still worse news in stock. This time he attained his object, at least in my inner man, and when I took my seat next to the Jewish elbow in green fur I was in a right bad humor; especially the colt distressed me—an animal as pretty as a picture and three years old.

Not before getting out of doors did I become conscious of the ingratitude of my heart, and the thought of the unmerited happiness that had become mine a fortnight earlier again won the mastery in me. In Stettin I found drinking, gambling friends. William Ramin took occasion to say, apropos of a remark about reading the Bible, "Tut! In Reinfeld I'd speak like that, too, if I were in your place, but to believe you can impose on your oldest acquaintances is amusing." I found my sister very well and full of joy about you and me. She wrote to you, I think, before she received your letter. Arnim is full of anxiety lest I become "pious." He kept looking at me all the time earnestly and thoughtfully, with sympathetic concern, as one looks at a dear friend whom one would like to save and yet almost gives up for lost. I have seldom seen him so tender. Very clever people have a curious manner of viewing the world. In the evening (I hope you did not write so late) I drank your health in the foaming grape-juice of Sillery, in company with half a dozen Silesian counts, Schaffgotsch and others, at the Hôtel de Rome, and convinced myself Friday morning that the ice on the Elbe was still strong enough to bear my horse's weight, and that, so far as the freshet was concerned, I might today be still at your blue or black side4 if other current official engagements had not also claimed my presence. Snow has fallen very industriously all day long, and the country is white once more, without severe cold. When I arrived it was all free from snow on this side of Brandenburg; the air was warm and the people were ploughing; it was as though I had traveled out of winter into opening spring, and yet within me the short springtime had changed to winter, for the nearer I came to Schönhausen the more oppressive I found the thought of entering upon the old loneliness once more, for who knows how long. Pictures of a wasted past arose in me as though they would banish me from you. I was on the verge of tears, as when, after a school vacation, I caught sight of Berlin's towers from the train.

The comparison of my situation with that in which I was on the 10th, when I traveled the same line in the opposite direction; the conviction that my solitude was, strictly speaking, voluntary, and that I could at any time, albeit through a resolve smacking of insubordination and a forty hours' journey, put an end to it, made me see once more that my heart is ungrateful, dismayed, and resentful; for soon I said to myself, in the comfortable fashion of the accepted lover, that even here I am no longer lonely, and I was happy in the consciousness of being loved by you, my angel, and, in return for the gift of your love, of belonging to you, not merely in vassalage, but with my inmost heart. On reaching the village I felt more distinctly than ever before what a beautiful thing it is to have a home—a home with which one is identified by birth, memory, and love. The sun shone bright on the stately houses of the villagers, and their portly inmates in long coats and the gayly dressed women in short skirts gave me a much more friendly greeting than usual; on every face there seemed to be a wish for my happiness, which I invariably converted into thanks to you. Gray-haired Bellin's5 fat face wore a broad smile, and the trusty old soul shed tears as he patted me paternally on the back and expressed his satisfaction; his wife, of course, wept most violently; even Odin was more demonstrative than usual, and his paw on my coat-collar proved incontestably that it was muddy weather. Half an hour later Miss Breeze was galloping with me on the Elbe, manifestly proud to carry your affianced, for never before did she so scornfully smite the earth with her hoof. Fortunately you cannot judge, my heart, in what a mood of dreary dulness I used to reenter my house after a journey; what depression overmastered me when the door of my room yawned at me and the mute furniture in the silent apartments confronted me, bored like myself. The emptiness of my existence was never clearer to me than in such moments, until I seized a book—though none of them was sad enough for me—or mechanically engaged in any routine work.

My preference was to come home at night, so that I could go to sleep immediately.6 Ach, Gott!—and now? What a different view I take of everything—not merely that which concerns you as well, and because it concerns you, or will concern you also (although I have been bothering myself for two days with the question where your writing-desk will stand), but my whole view of life is a new one, and I am cheerful and interested even in my work on the dike and police matters. This change, this new life, I owe, next to God, to you, ma très chère, mon adorée Jeanneton—to you who do not heat me occasionally, like an alcohol flame, but work in my heart like warming fire. Some one is knocking.

Visit from the co-director, who complains of the people who will not pay their school taxes. The man asks me whether my fiancée is tall.

"Oh yes; rather."

"Well, an acquaintance of mine saw you last summer with several ladies in the Harz Mountains, and you preferred to converse with the tallest, that must have been your fiancée."

The tallest woman in your party was, I fancy, Frau von Mittelstädt.

* * * The Harz! The Harz!

After a thorough consultation with Frau Bellin, I have decided to make no special changes here for the present, but to wait until we can hear the wishes of the lady of the house in the matter, so that we may have nothing to be sorry for. In six months I hope we shall know what we have to do.

It is impossible as yet to say anything definite about our next meeting. Just now it is raining; if that continues the Elbe may be played out in a week or two, and then. * * * Still no news whatever about the Landtag. Most cordial greetings and assurances of my love to your parents, and the former—the latter, too, if you like—to all your cousins, women friends, etc. What have you done with Aennchen?7 My forgetting the Versin letters disturbs me; I did not mean to make such a bad job of it. Have they been found Farewell, my treasure, my heart, consolation of my eyes.

Your faithful BISMARCK.

Another picture, a description of a storm in the Alps, which catches my eye as I turn over the pages of the book, and pleases me much:

"The sky is changed, and such a change! O night,And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,Yet lovely in your strength, as is the lightOf a dark eye in woman! Far alongFrom peak to peak, the rattling crags among,Leaps the live thunder; not from one lone cloud,But every mountain now has found a tongue,And Jura answers through her misty shroud—Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud.And this is in the night:—most glorious night!Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me beA sharer in thy fierce and fair delight—A portion of the tempest and of thee!How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!And now again 'tis black, and now the gleeOf the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth."

On such a night the suggestion comes uncommonly near to me that I wish to be a sharer in the delight, a portion of tempest, of night8; mounted on a runaway horse, to dash down the cliffs into the falls of the Rhine, or something similar. A pleasure of that kind, unfortunately, one can enjoy but once in this life. There is something intoxicating in nocturnal storms. Your nights, dearest, I hope you regard, however, as sent for slumber, not for writing.9 I see with regret that I write English still more illegibly than German. Once more, farewell, my heart. Tomorrow noon I am invited to be the guest of Frau Brauchitsch, presumably so that I may be duly and thoroughly questioned about you and yours. I'll tell them as much as I please. Je t'embrasse mille fois.

Your own

B.

Schönhausen, February 7, '47.

My Heart,—Just returned through a wild, drifting snow-storm from an appointment (which unfortunately was occasioned by the burning out of a poor family). I have warmed myself at your dear letter; in the twilight, even, I recognized your "Right honorable." All my limbs are twitching with eagerness to be off to Berlin again today, and to characterize the dikes and floods in terms of the unutterable Poberow10 dialect. The inexorable thermometer stands at 2 below freezing-point, accompanied with howling wind and large flakes, as though it would soon rain. What is duty! Compare Falstaff's expressions touching honor. At any rate, I shall write you straightway, even if I ruin myself in postage, and no sensible thoughts find their way through the débris of the fire that still has possession of my imagination. After reading your last remark I have just lit my cigar and stirred the ink. First, like a business-man, to answer your letter. I begin with a request smacking of the official desk—namely, that when you write you will, if you please, expressly state what letters you have received from me, giving their dates; otherwise one is uncertain as to the regular forwarding of them, as I am in doubt whether you have received my first letter, which I wrote the day of my arrival here, while on a business trip, in Jerichow, if I mistake not, on very bad paper, Friday, the 29th of January. I am very thankful that you do not write in the evening, my love, even if I am myself to suffer thereby. Every future glance into your gray-blue-black eye with its large pupil will compensate me for possibly delayed or shortened letters.