At the entrance are the inevitable constables, saluting the guests as they arrive. Numerous lackeys in black and white livery hand the visitor up the broad flight of stairs into an elegantly furnished anteroom, where those who wait to see the Chancellor on business can, while in the midst of the most harmonious surroundings of rich carpets, silken hangings, and luxurious seats, speculate as to what possible connection the stuffed hare, standing so prominently forward on the sideboard, can have with the family of Bismarck. A more interesting sight, however, now greeted us. The Chancellor’s wife, a tall aristocratic-looking woman, with decided but pleasing features, and in an elegant though simple toilet, received each guest as he arrived with gracious affability. Standing close beside the open portières, past which the eye glanced into the family living-rooms, she was a true type of the position she holds both in home and public life. A noble wife and mother, she has faithfully stood by her husband’s side from the very commencement of his political career. A Chicago paper declares that Bismarck’s wife is her husband’s private secretary! How far this statement is true, we do not pretend to say; but an old friend of the family has repeatedly told us that during the saddest time that Germany has witnessed for the last fifty years, when Bismarck, disheartened and dispirited, retired to his small property of Schönhausen, there to vegetate as a small Prussian landowner, while brooding moodily over all his grand political schemes, his wife never for a moment lost heart, but was able to inspire her husband with ever fresh courage and hope.