. The life of Bismarck, private and political;. of , a few moments before, with a swift pen, he has writtena few notes on a narrow slip of paper, which looks like a recipe,over which he, while turning his thumbs one over the other, bal-ancing the upper part of his body backwards and forwards, andspeaking to the House, occasionally casts a glance ; but, neverthe-less, he stops, and hesitates, even sometimes stammers and repeatshimself; he appears to struggle with his thoughts, and the wordsclamber over his lips in a half-reluctant way. After two or threewords he continually pause
. The life of Bismarck, private and political;. of , a few moments before, with a swift pen, he has writtena few notes on a narrow slip of paper, which looks like a recipe,over which he, while turning his thumbs one over the other, bal-ancing the upper part of his body backwards and forwards, andspeaking to the House, occasionally casts a glance ; but, neverthe-less, he stops, and hesitates, even sometimes stammers and repeatshimself; he appears to struggle with his thoughts, and the wordsclamber over his lips in a half-reluctant way. After two or threewords he continually pauses, and one seems to hear an inarticu-late sob. He speaks without gestures, pathos, and intonation,without laying a stress on any particular word; sometimes heaccentuates the final syllable or the halting verb in a manner to-tally wrong. Can this be the man who has now a parliamentary * But not so in the English edition as quoted.—K. R. H. M. t See Buchmann, Gefliigelte Worter (Winged Words), 4th edition, p. 224. ADDRESSING THE REICHSTAG. 425. career of twenty years behind him ?—who already belonged inthe Diet of 1847, as Deputy of the Saxon chivalry, to the leadersand promptest speakers of the then exceeding extreme right;who set the liberal majority into excitement and rage in 1849and 1850, as a member of the Second Chamber and of the ErfurtUnion Parliament; who, finally, has, almost singly, opposed aclosed phalanx of progressists, as Minister-President, since 1862,repaying their emotional speeches, full of self-confidence and se-curity, in almost the same coin, replying to their mocking andmalicious attacks upon him on the spot, and with flashing pres-ence of mind even exciting them to the combat by witty im-promptus and cutting sarcasms, often wounding them to thesoul ? 426 GRADUAL WARMTH OF SPEECH. Yes, it is the same man ; and, when requisite, he is as acuteand biting as of yore, although, since his great victories, he hasadopted more of statesman-like earnestness, qui
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