The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-03-11
BISMARCK.
HOW IIE COMFORTS HIMSELF WHEN IN PARLIA-
MENT.

]
The first time tina. one hears this extraordi
nary man he is struck with establishment al
| the contrast which exists between his organ oil
speech and his physique. Out of his hercu-
| lean body and immense poitrine issues little
thread OF hoarse sound hardly perceptible.
The greatest silence must pervade the cham
Der in order to hear him, and no orator pre-
| sents in speaking a more curious spectacle.
| He seizas the nearest object with his right
hand, passes it over to his left one, manipu-
lates in nervous manner huge pencil or
swans quill, from which his pens are made.
| Formerly Bismarck had new pen for each
! day, but the porters of the Reichstag sold
them to English souvenir hunters, and when
| the prince found it out he put an end to that
species Of traffic. If he fails to find his pen
when he begins his discourse he seizes upon
his scissors or those OF his secretary, or he
grasps report or amendment, making it in
a roll which he brandishes like baton
After the work of hand begins that of his body
commences. He fairly putfs with heat, like a
steam engine. His head forms a curious
study. One fances, on looking at it. to be
able to follow the laborious working of his
brain. Every nerve is in action. Ills look
CLEANS with feverish brilliancy.
This man evidently takes into considera-
knows that each of his words will in few
moments be sent all over the world and
that peace or war lies in the province OF
his speech. Which may account for his total
lack of facility. He attacks phrase two or
three times, reattacking it, turns and returns
it, seeking and feeling about until he finds
the exact expression of his thoughts. BY
this means he says only just what he wishes
to say. He intersects his phrases, and some
times his words, with a sort of dsagreeable
hiccup. Yet, with all these defects no orator
in the world produces as great an effect as
does Bismarck. One quickly forgets his I'M
attractive appearance IN the keen desire to
hear what the orator has to say.
In thought and style he is always admirable
The German Parliament never hears anything
superior He is malicious and ill-natured as
one can be- and he possesses to a supreme de-
gree the accent of disdain; in that lies his
speciality. He is fertile in wit committing
even puns without winking. Sometimes he
evokes peals of laughter, such as one only
hears in the Nallner theater, when Helmer-
ding plays Usually, Bismarck delivers his
BON nlots with the most careless manner i'm
aglnable, his physiognomy more impossible
than ever He has an air as if not at all com
what he says He filings his |
words, so to speak, on the floor instead of in |
-he air to give the chamber the fun of pick
ing them up.
But the German deputies are not always
limble in doing that The most rogu,sh |
ones give the signal for laughter only after
some seconds; the others take it for granted |
hat something funny has happened, and the
liarity rises from bench to bench, even up |
0 the tribune of the journalists, who haven't
heard a word, and at Dice begin asking,
: What did he say 2"
The Chancellor's discourses are often
with quotations from French. Latin,
nd even Greek for he knows the classics.
ie has the reputation in Germany of putting
nto circulation quotations sometimes I'M
,nown to savants. Discussing, he drinks
Enormously OF su9ar-water-a least dozen
laSses an hour. On field days, when the
esslon IS unusually stormy, be drinks double
hat number