Bismarck

Before resuming the extracts from my diary I beg to be allowed to present the reader with a picture of the house in which the Chancellor resided during his stay in Berlin at the time when I had the honour of working under his instructions, and to add a few words upon the life of which that house was the centre.

I purpose to do this in some detail, not omitting even matters of secondary interest, and regardless of the question whether it may be to the taste of certain critics, as I hope the public will come to a very different conclusion, and will welcome my description.

In spite of the Radical newspapers of Berlin, and of the old women who write in the National Zeitung, and of the parliamentarian spirit which hovers over the turbid waters of the press, No. 76 Wilhelmstrasse is, in the highest sense of the word, a house of historic interest. Under its roof and in its rooms German history has been made, and--(as the new-born Germany, now raised to the position which is her due, may be regarded, without boastfulness, as one of the leading European Powers)--also a great, and perhaps the best part of the political history of the Continent. It has been the scene of great thoughts and deeds; and to give as precise an account of such a place as discretion will permit, enabling the reader to form a distinct picture of it in his mind’s eye, appears to me to be a praiseworthy undertaking, particularly when, as in the present instance, the house in question has already undergone important changes, and will in time altogether disappear.

What was the dwelling of the political regenerator of our people? how did he live at the time when he began his work and carried the most important part of it into execution? and what were the instruments which he employed? Our great-grandchildren and their grandchildren will ask these questions, and so will the following generations, as we now do respecting the heroes of the two preceding periods of regeneration in the life of the German people, respecting Luther, who liberated and rejuvenated our spiritual life, and respecting Goethe and Schiller, the two central suns of the days when, in the literary sphere, clear morning rose upon a world of night and twilight. The cell in which Brother Martin, the Augustinian monk of Wittenberg, in October, 1517, drew up the ninety-five Propositions with which he delivered the first powerful blow against the Papacy; the house and room where Faust and Gretchen and Wilhelm Meister’s apprenticeship were completed, and that in which the powerful tragedy of the “Friedlaender” sprang from the poet’s imagination, have been maintained by pious hands in the condition in which they were when occupied by those great spirits. That is also the case with Sans Souci, the château of the Great Frederick. No. 76 Wilhelmstrasse does not stand under such favourable auspices. During the lifetime of the former occupant of this house, and immediately after his removal into the neighbouring palace which had been built for him, the inner apartments underwent considerable alterations, as the upper floor was also to be used for offices. Later, however, and perhaps at no very distant date, workmen will come with pick and shovel to tear down and cart away these historic walls. The stones and woodwork which, as a house, once sheltered the greatest statesman of our time, the windows through which he saw the sun shine upon his most important labours, will be applied to vulgar uses. The wall papers which witnessed momentous councils and interviews will be scattered to the winds, and after the rubbish heaps have been cleared away, a pretentious palatial building of two or three stories will rise on the site, and cause the old house to be forgotten.

Reason says it must be so. The little house in which he lived may disappear, if only the great structure which he erected remains filled with his spirit. But for those to whom the house has become as closely identified with its occupants as the shell with its inlying mother-of-pearl, sentiment also has its claims, and if those claims are to be discharged, care must be taken that when destruction overtakes it, our hero’s dwelling place shall at least continue to live in the printed annals of our race.