Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885

Carlyle saw affinities between the character of Cromwell and that of Bismarck, but the only resemblance between the two men is physical. One may question how far Cromwell was a believer: he certainly had as little respect for sacred words as he had for cathedrals and kings, and he juggled with texts of Scripture as it suited his purpose. Bismarck has never canted. His acknowledgments of Divine mercies have only been expressed where national triumphs were concerned – never where his own personal enterprises had to be lauded. On the other hand, he has evinced strong religious scruples under circumstances when few men would have credited him with such. He has spent more sleepless hours from thinking over the deposition of George V. of Hanover than Cromwell did from fretting over Charles I.'s execution. He reconciled that deposition with the dictates of his reason, but not with those of his faith in the inviolability of kings. When it had been decided to annex Hanover, the Crown lawyers were instructed to draw up a report of legal justifications for this measure; but when Bismarck had read half through this document, he threw it aside with irritation: “Better nothing than that – it reminds me of Teste's Memorandum on the confiscation of the estates of the Orleans family.”34

Again Bismarck, while making it the chief occupation of his life to study how the Plebs might be managed, has never stooped to such immoral means for this purpose as the French officials of the Second Empire employed. He was deeply interested in Napoleon III.'s experiments with universal suffrage. The whole system of plébiscites, official candidatures, prefectoral newspapers, and electoral districts, so arranged that peasant votes should neutralise those of Radical working-men, seemed to him “very pretty,” as he once told a disgusted Republican refugee. But the encouragement given by De Morny, De Persigny, and others to every kind of immorality that could amuse the people – frivolous newspapers, improper novels and plays, gambling clubs, and outrageous fashions in dress – this was a very different affair. De Morny was fond of quoting the anecdote about Alcibiades having cut off the tail of his dog to give the Athenians something to talk about, and during Bismarck's short stay in Paris as Ambassador in 1862, he and the Prussian statesman had more than one conversation about the art of ruling. Bismarck had the frankness to say that he looked upon the comedies of Dumas the younger, and indeed on most French plays of the lighter sort, as grossly corrupting to the public morals. “Panem et circenses,” smiled De Morny. “Panem et saturnalia,” muttered Bismarck.

Another point upon which De Morny and Bismarck could not agree, was about the qualities that are requisite in a public servant. De Morny cared nothing for character. The men whom he recommended for prefectships or posts in the diplomatic service were, for the most part, adventurers – brilliant, witty, diseurs de rien and cajolers of the other sex. “A French Ambassador,” he maintained, “should always consider himself accredited auprès des reines.” Bismarck loathes ladies' men: and he had the poorest opinion of Napoleon III.'s diplomatists. His own ideal of a State functionary is the blameless man without debts or entanglements – laborious, but not pushing, well-educated but not abounding in ideas, a man in all things obedient. His sneering judgment on plenipotentiaries like M. Benedetti and the Duc de Gramont is well known. He called them “dancing dogs without collars.” They never seemed to have a master, he complained, “but stood up on their hind legs and performed their antics without authority from man alive. If they barked, you were sure to hear a voice from Paris crying to them to be quiet. If they fawned you might expect to see them receive some sly kick, warning them that they ought to be up and biting.” Bismarck conceived some liking and respect for Napoleon III., whom he saw to be better than his entourage. Had the Emperor's health remained good, the war of 1870 would doubtless never have taken place; but so early as 1862 Bismarck perceived that Napoleon III.'s bodily ailments were causing an indolence of mind that left the Emperor at the mercy of intriguing counsellors; and what he observed in his subsequent visits to Paris in 1867 and to Plombières in 1868, confirmed these impressions. His ceaseless study of France as the great enemy that would have to be coped with soon, moreover added to his deep and moody detestation of that country. When the formal declaration of war by France reached Berlin in July 1870, Count Bismarck was staying for a few days at Varzin. The news was communicated to him by a telegram which was put into his hands just as he was returning from a drive. He at once sprang into his carriage, to go to the railway station, and on his way through the village of Wussow, he saw the parish minister standing at the door of his manse. “I said nothing to him,” ejaculated Bismarck, in relating the story long afterwards to some friends, “but I just made a sign as of two sabre-cuts crosswise, and he quite understood.”

The pastor of Wussow understood the sign of the cross in sword-cuts to mean crusade, and as such the war against France was viewed by all good Prussians. Bismarck and the village clergyman were at one in regarding the French people as the Beast of the Apocalypse, and Paris as Babylon. Such sentiments are not incompatible with Christian piety, for there must be militants in the Church. But where Bismarck ceases to be a Christian in the common acceptance of that term, is in his exaggerated contempt for almost all men as individuals.35

His want of charity – we do not of course mean in almsgiving, for in this respect he is as generous as the Princess, his wife, allows him to be – is the most unamiable and disconcerting trait in his nature. Disconcerting because misanthrophy is an evidence of moral short-sightedness, begetting timidity and rendering a man incapable of forming disciples to carry on his work. Without trustfulness, a statesman can make no real friends. It may be said that uncharitableness like Bismarck's must be the result of many disenchantments; but a man who only keeps rooks and ravens must not complain that all birds are black. The men who were at different times Bismarck's most zealous helpmates – Count Harry Arnim, Herr Delbrück, Count Stolberg and Count Eulenborg – were all discarded as soon as they gave the smallest sign, not of mutiny, but of independence. Bismarck would not accept advice or remonstrance from them; he required on all occasions that blind obedience which is not loyal service, but servility. For the same cause he would never employ Herr Edward Lasker, whose great talents as a financier and parliamentary debater would have been of immense value to the monarchy. He has rejected the advances of Herr Bennigsen, the Hanoverian founder of the Nationalverein, who is now leader of the National Liberals; and those of Dr. Rudolph Gneist, who is one of the ablest politicians in Germany, but who had the misfortune to take the wrong side during the Conflikt-Zeit. Opposition, as Bismarck has often taken care to impress upon his hearers, shall never be regierungsfähig so long as he holds office. He abominates the Parliamentary system which brings to power men who have begun life as demagogues agitating for the abolition of this and that, and who, afterwards, are obliged to make shameless recantations, or to quibble away their words. The contrary system of selecting for his assistants only men who have never sown political wild oats is, however, compelling Bismarck to rely now on such henchmen as Herr Von Puttkamer and Herr Hofmann. The former is the Chancellor's brother-in-law, an excellent subordinate, supple as a glove, but with no originality of mind or firmness that could enable him to remain Home Minister if he were not propped up in this post. Herr Hofmann is also a mere painstaking bureaucrat, who, if he did not hear the voice of command, would be quite inapt to think for himself. Of late Prince Bismarck is said to have been training his son, Count Herbert to act as his Secretary and to take his place by-and-by. Count Herbert is a clever man, but dynasties of maires du palais have never succeeded in any country, and it is strange Bismarck should have forgotten that the Hohenzollern dynasty has owed its rapid rise to a respect for that principle which he is now ignoring, namely the selection of the best men without favoritism. If independence of mind and character have been eyed with suspicion by the Prussian kings, as they now are by the Chancellor, Germany would have had no Bismarck.

The popular idea of a genial, soldierly, blunt-spoken Bismarck is a wrong one. Bismarck can be jovial among friends and good-humoredly affable with strangers; but genial he is not. There is a sarcastic tone in his voice which grates on the ears of all who are brought in contact with him for the first time, and his unconcealed mistrust for the rectitude of all public men, of no matter what country, who do not happen to be in his good graces at the time, is too often offensive. It must be remembered that when Bismarck has quarrelled with public men, it has generally been because, having changed an opinion himself, he has been unable to persuade men to do the same at a moment's notice. Turn by turn, Free-trader and Protectionist, inclining one day to the Russian, another to the Austrian alliance, coquetting at one time with England, then with Italy, and even with France, he has ever been actuated by the sole desire to use every passing wind which might push the interest of his Government. He has declined to formulate any policy in details, because against such a policy parties might coalesce, whereas by veering and tacking often, he throws disunion among his opponents. He appropriates what is best in the new designs of this or that party, takes for his Sovereign and himself the credit of carrying them into execution, and then leaves the original promoters with a sense that power has gone out of them – that they have been played with, but that they have nothing to complain of.

This policy of variations, however, has exposed Bismarck to some cutting rebukes from loyal Prussians whose consciences were not acrobatic. The trouble with Count Harry Arnim began when this diplomatist – “Der Affe,” as he was nicknamed by his familiars – said to Countess Von Redern, at one of the Empress Augusta's private parties, that he had hitherto been trying to walk on his feet in Paris, but that from “his latest instructions he gathered that he was expected until further notice to walk on his hands.” The saying was reported to Bismarck and made “his three hairs bristle.” “The 'Ape' has only been employed, because we thought him quadrumanous,“ he exclaimed, and from that moment there was war between the two men.

Another time Bismarck had to bear a snub from a young nobleman of the House of Hatzfelt. This gentleman, being left in charge of a Legation during the absence of the Minister, sent home a despatch embodying views favorable to the policy which the Chancellor had, until then, been pursuing towards the country where the attaché was residing. But it so chanced that the Chief of the Legation had been summoned to Berlin on purpose to receive instructions for a change of policy; so that when the attaché's despatch arrived, it gave no pleasure in Wilhelmstrasse, and the Chancellor spoke testily of its writer as a ”Schafsköpf.” Hearing this, the attaché resigned. He was a young man of high spirit, who had many friends at Court, and it was pointed out to the Chancellor by an august peacemaker, that the young fellow had not been very well-treated. Somewhat grudgingly – for he does not like to make amends – the Chancellor was induced to send his Secretary to the ex-attaché offering to reinstate him. But the recipient of this dubious favor drew himself up stiffly and said: “Germany has not fallen to so low a point that she needs to be served by Schafsköpf; and for the rest, you may tell the Chancellor that I have not been trained to turn somersaults.”36

It has been mentioned that Bismarck has had to contend with many a boudoir cabal. The Empress Augusta's long antipathy to him is no secret, and the Chancellor has never had to congratulate himself much on the friendliness of the Crown Prince's and Princess's circle. The ill-will of royal ladies enlists that of many other persons influential in society; but it stands to Bismarck's honor that he has never used newspapers to combat these drawing-room foes. The revelations made to the public some years since by an ex-member of the “Reptile's Bureau” were no doubt in the main true, and they showed that the Chancellor had raised the art of “nobbling” the Press to a high pitch of perfection. Not only had he, all over Germany, newspapers supported in part out of the Secret Service Fund and inspired wholly by the Press Bureau, but he has been accused of employing hirelings on the staffs of newspapers reputed as independent, and through these he was in a position to procure the insertion of articles in foreign journals, these effusions being afterwards reprinted in German papers as genuine expressions of foreign opinion.

All this constituted a very powerful organization, which the Chancellor might have used with telling effect in fighting society caballers. But while he has not scrupled to direct the heaviest artillery of his newspapers and not unfrequently torpedo attacks against open political opponents, he would never let his difficulties with “die Wespen” as he called society aggressors, be made the subjects of Press comments. Newspapers, guilty of assailing members of the Imperial family or of the Court household, have been unsparingly prosecuted by his orders. “Er is kein Journaliste!” exclaimed a too zealous partisan-writer, who had gone to the Chancellerie with a proposal for creating in Berlin a newspaper like the Paris Figaro, “er könne sich nicht auf die feine Malice zu verstehen.” This may be rendered as, “He won't throw mud;” and it is no small compliment to the integrity of a statesman, whom his enemies are wont to describe as more astute than Machiavelli, and more unscrupulous than Richelieu.37

In the autumn of the present year the Pope gave a commission to the painter Lenbach to paint a portrait of Prince Bismarck. The Chancellor agreed to sit; the artist went several times to Varzin, and people have been asking ever since what is the meaning of this strange fancy of Leo XIII.'s to have a portrait of the arch-enemy of Rome, the formidable champion of the Kulturkampf. A French journalist has suggested that there is at the Vatican an artistic Index Expurgatorius – a Galerie des Réprouvés– and that Bismarck's portrait is to hang there in the place of honor, between that of Dositheus the Samaritan, and Isaac Laquedem the Wandering Jew.

It is more likely that the Pope aspires to some political rapprochement with Germany, and if he have such a hope it must have come to him from the knowledge that the Chancellor would not object to a reconciliation. But if Bismarck consents to make peace with the Vatican, and to find some official post for Herr Windhorst, it would not be that any of his own private Lutheran prejudices against Rome have vanished. He is a doughty Protestant in whose religion there is no variableness, but he may veer on the Kulturkampf as he did on that of free trade, simply because, having failed, after doing his best, to crush the Catholics, he will see no use in recommencing the struggle. And whatever is useless seems to Bismarck a thing which should not be attempted, indeed, many of his great triumphs hitherto have been won by shaking hands with yesterday's enemy, and saying “Let us two stand together.” Before long the world may see Prince Bismarck recognise the Roman Catholic Church as one of the greatest living forces of Continental Conservatism, and enlist its services in the work of “dishing” both Liberals and Socialists. It is significant that in one of his few autumn speeches, Bismarck was heard quoting Joseph De Maistre's dictum about the Soldier and the Priest being the sentries of civilisation. —Temple Bar.

A FEW NOTES ON PERSIAN ART

The limner's art in Persia has few patrons, and the professional draughtsman of the present day in that country must needs be an enthusiast, and an art-lover for art's sake, as his remuneration is so small as to be a mere pittance; and the man who can live by his brush must be clever indeed. The Persians are an eminently practical people, and buy nothing unless it be of actual utility; hence the artist has generally to sink to the mere decorator; and as all, even the very rich, expect a great deal for a little money, the work must be scamped in order to produce a great effect for a paltry reward. The artists, moreover, are all self-taught, or nearly so, pupilage merely consisting of the drudgery of preparing the canvas, panel, or other material for the master, mixing the colors, filling in backgrounds, varnishing, &c. There are no schools of art, no lectures, no museums of old or contemporary masters, no canons of taste, no drawing from nature or the model, no graduated studies, or system of any kind. There is, however, a certain custom of adhering to tradition and the conventional; and most of the art workmen of Iran, save the select few, are mere reproducers of the ideas of their predecessors.

The system of perspective is erroneous; but neither example nor argument can alter the views of a Persian artist on this subject. Leaving aside the wonderful blending of colors in native carpets, tapestries, and embroideries, all of which improve by the toning influence of age, the modern Persian colorist is remarkable for his skill in the constant use of numerous gaudy and incongruous colors, yet making one harmonious and effective whole, which surprises us by its daring, but compels our reluctant admiration.

Persian pictorial art is original, and it is cheap; the wages of a clever artist are about one shilling and sixpence a day. In fact, he is a mere day-laborer, and his terms are, so many days' pay for a certain picture. In this pernicious system of time-work lies the cause of the scamping of many really ingenious pieces of work.

As a copyist the Persian is unrivalled; he has a more than Chinese accuracy of reproduction; every copy is a fac-simile of its original, the detail being scamped, or the reverse, according to the scale of payment. In unoriginal work, such as the multiplication of some popular design, a man will pass a lifetime, because he finds it pay better to do this than to originate. This kind of unoriginal decoration is most frequent in the painted mirror cases and book-covers, the designs of which are ancient; and the painter merely reproduces the successful and popular work of some old and forgotten master.

But where the Persian artist shines is in his readiness to undertake any style or subject; geometrical patterns – and they are very clever in originating these; scroll-work scenes from the poets; likenesses, miniatures, paintings of flowers or birds; in any media, on any substance, oils, water, or enamel, and painting on porcelain; all are produced with rapidity, wonderful spirit, and striking originality. In landscape, the Persian is very weak; and his attempts at presenting the nude, of which he is particularly fond, are mostly beneath contempt. A street scene will be painted in oils and varnished to order “in a week” on a canvas a yard square, the details of the painting desired being furnished in conversation. While the patron is speaking, the artist rapidly makes an outline sketch in white paint; and any suggested alterations are made in a few seconds by the facile hand of the ustad nakosh (master-painter), a term used to distinguish the artist from the mere portrait-painter or akkas, a branch of the profession much despised by the artists, a body of men who consider their art a mechanical one, and their guild no more distinguished than those of other handicraftsmen.

A Persian artist will always prefer to reproduce rather than originate, because, as a copy will sell for the same price as an original, by multiplication more money can be earned in a certain time, than by the exercise of originality. Rarely, among the better class of artists, is anything actually out of drawing; the perspective is of course faulty, and resembles that of early specimens of Byzantine art. Such monstrosities as the making the principal personages giants, and the subsidiaries dwarfs, are common; while the beauties are represented as much bejewelled; but this is done to please the buyer's taste, and the artist knows its absurdity. There is often considerable weakness as to the rendering of the extremities; but as the Persian artist never draws, save in portraiture, from the life, this is not to be wondered at.

The writer has before him a fair instance of the native artist's rendering of the scene at the administration of the bastinado. This picture is an original painting in oils, twenty-four inches by sixteen on papier-mâché. The details were given to the artist by the writer in conversation, sketched by him in white paint on the papier mâché during the giving of the order, in the course of half an hour; and the finished picture was completed, varnished, and delivered in a week. The price paid for this original work in oils in 1880 was seven shillings and sixpence. The costumes are quite accurate in the minutest detail; the many and staring colors employed are such as are in actual use; while the general mise en scène is very correct.

Many similar oil-paintings were executed for the writer by Persian artists, giving graphic renderings of the manners and customs of this little-known country. They were always equally spirited, and minutely correct as to costume and detail, at the same low price; a small present for an extraordinarily successful performance gladdening the heart of the artist beyond his expectations.

As to original work by Persian artists in water-color, remuneration is the same – so much per diem. A series of water-colors giving minute details of Persian life were wished; and a clever artist was found as anxious to proceed as the writer was to obtain the sketches. The commission was given, and the subjects desired carefully indicated to the artist, who, by a rapid outline sketch in pencil, showed his intelligence and grasp of the subject. The writer, delighted at the thought of securing a correct and permanent record of the manners and customs of a little-known people, congratulated himself. But, alas! he counted his chickens before hatching; for the artist, on coming with his next water-color, demanded, and received, a double wage. A similar result followed the finishing of each drawing; and though the first only cost three shillings, and the second six, the writer was reluctantly compelled to stop his commissions, after paying four times the price of the first for his third water-color, on the artist demanding twenty-four shillings for a fourth – not that the work was more, but as he found himself appreciated, the wily painter kept to arithmetical progression as his scale of charge; a very simple principle, which all artists must devoutly wish they could insist on.

For a reduced copy of a rather celebrated painting, of which the figures were life-size, of what might be called, comparatively speaking, a Persian old master – for this reduction, in oils, fourteen inches by eight, and fairly well done, the charge was a sovereign. The piece was painted on a panel. The subject is a royal banqueting scene in Ispahan – the date a century and a half ago. The dresses are those of the time – the ancient court costume of Persia. The king in a brocaded robe is represented seated on a carpet at the head of a room, his drinking-cup in his hand; while his courtiers are squatted in two rows at the sides of the room, and are also carousing. Minstrels and singers occupy the foreground of the picture; and a row of handsome dancing-girls form the central group. All the figures are portraits of historical personages; and, in the copy, the likenesses are faithfully retained.

The palaces of Ispahan are decorated with large oil paintings by the most eminent Persian artists of their day. All are life-size, and none are devoid of merit. Some are very clever, particularly the likenesses of Futteh Ali Shah and his sons, several of whom were strikingly like their father. As Futteh Ali Shah had an acknowledged family of seventy-two, this latter fact is curious. These paintings are without frames, spaces having been made in the walls to receive them. The Virgin Mary is frequently represented in these mural paintings; also a Mr. Strachey, a young diplomate who accompanied the English mission to Persia in the reign of our Queen Elizabeth, is still admired as a type of adolescent beauty. He is represented with auburn hair in the correct costume of the period; and copies of his portrait are still often painted on the pen-cases of amateurs. These pen-cases, or kalamdans, are the principal occupation of the miniature-painter. As one-fourth of the male population of Persia can write, and as each man has one or more pen-cases, the artist finds a constant market for his wares in their adornment. The pen-case is a box of papier-mâché eight inches long, an inch and a half broad, and the same deep. Some of them, painted by artists of renown, are of great value, forty pounds being a common price to pay for such a work of art by a rich amateur. Several fine specimens may be seen in the Persian Collection at the South Kensington Museum. It is possible to spend a year's hard work on the miniatures painted on a pen-case. These are very minute and beautiful. The writer possesses a pen-case, painted during the lifetime of Futteh Ali Shah, a king of Persia who reigned long and well. All the faces – none more than a quarter of an inch in diameter – are likenesses; and the long black beard of the king reaching to his waist, is not exaggerated, for such beards are common in Persia.