elations with his opponents are illustrated by an
anecdote of which there are many versions. He found himself one day
while in the refreshment room standing side by side with d'Ester, one of
the most extreme of the Republican party. They fell into conversation,
and d'Ester suggested that they should make a compact and, whichever
party succeeded in the struggle for power, they should each agree to
spare the other. If the Republicans won, Bismarck should not be
guillotined; if the monarchists, d'Ester should not be hung. "No,"
answered Bismarck, "that is no use; if you come into power, life would
not be worth living. There must be hanging, but courtesy to the foot of
the gallows."

If he was in after years to become known as the great adversary of
Parliamentary government, this did not arise from any incapacity to
hold his own in Parliamentary debate. He did not indeed aim at oratory;
then, as in later years, he always spoke with great contempt of men who
depended for power on their rhetorical ability. He was himself deficient
in the physical gifts of a great speaker; powerful as was his frame, his
voice was thin and weak. He had nothing of the actor in him; he could
not command the deep voice, the solemn tones, the imposing gestures, the
Olympian mien by which men like Waldeck and Radowitz and Gagern
dominated and controlled their audience. His own mind was essentially
critical; he appealed more to the intellect than the emotions. His
speeches were always controversial, but he was an admirable debater. It
is curious to see how quickly he adopts the natural Parliamentary tone.
His speeches are all subdued in tone and conversational in manner. Many
of them were very carefully prepared, for though he did not generally
write them out, he said them over and over again to himself or to
Kleist, with whom he lived in Berlin. They are entirely unlike any other
speeches--he has, in fact, in them, as in his letters, added a new
chapter to the literature of his country, hitherto so poor in prose.

They shew a vivid imagination and an almost unequalled power of
illustration. The thought is always concrete, and he is never satisfied
with the vague ideas and abstract conceptions which so easily moved his
contemporaries. No speeches, either in English or in German, preserve so
much of their freshness. He is almost the only Parliamentary orator
whose speeches have become to some extent a popular book; no other
orator has enriched the la