Blood and Iron

nvil of destiny. Enter, thou massive figure, Bismarck,

with their monotony; they do not at all times march on; they drag, but the

our grim blacksmith, looming through the encir

brawny Prussian giant; magnificent in his Olympian mien; his bellows cracking, his shop aglow

Pomeranian smith with ponderous hammer beats and batters th

, we do not always s

h within and without the distracted German lands. Russia, Austria, Italy, Great Britain, France, Spain, have their spies engaged

down the book convinced that, in a welter

ultimately emerge triumphant, in spite of her

anhood-and thus the Bismarck

d to re-inspire the Germa

ient Teutons had to be aroused; for though

the town by the Tiber; and the fearsome struggle between the Romans and

he Germans as the brave

heroic pages of all history. It was a hand-to-hand contest, and torrents of human blood ran that day. Menzel tells us, (Germany, p. 85), that the place of battle enr

train fought with animal ferocity. The battle went against the Germans and the slaughter was frightful. When all was lost, the Germans killed their women and children, rather than see them fall into the hands of the Romans. German cou

ming lineal descendants of the Empire. And on the ruins were build

e battle-scenes to show you that Germans were ever

man oak died at the top. Along came Napoleon, hacking away the limbs and scarring the gnarled trunk with fire and sword. The ruin seemed complete. Dead at the top, dead at the root, men s

reciation of the ancient legend, to make the German oak green a

lds. Bismarck in the crudity of his early inspiration scarcely finds himself for years. But all the while he is holding fas

rking his own plans to be sure, but those plans in the end are to

ss and we hope with some of his str

im black, now and then, deliberately, that you may know how very small ofttimes are the very great; also to rea

belittled by the glamour of spur

eing in order to carry out his work. He remained, to