Within the limit of my life in our own country two statesmen only, both now long since dead (I do not count Peel, for I was but a small boy when he died), yet stir the hearts of men—Disraeli and Gladstone, and even in the case of the latter the wick in the lamp is already beginning to flicker ominously. In America there has been one such man, Abraham Lincoln. In France not one. In Italy two, Cavour the great politician and schemer, Garibaldi the Paladin hero of romance. Here again, as in the case of our own two great men, we see a difference. The magic of Cavour’s name would not now raise a company of bersaglieri, whereas that of Garibaldi would carry the fiery cross through the remotest mountain districts of Italy. The glamour which still casts a halo round the memories of such men as Disraeli the mystic, and Garibaldi the great _condottiere_, lies in their appeal to the imagination. Admire Gladstone and Cavour as we may and must, we cannot but admit that it would have been impossible to create a flower league in honour of the one or to compose a patriotic hymn in celebration of the other. The one German hero of my time who “being dead yet liveth” is Bismarck. Nor, as I think, could a better example be found to illustrate what I mean by the appeal to the imagination. The idea which his brain evolved, a united Germany—his own creation—queening it among the nations of Europe, was not only a mighty conception, but it was also one which fitted into the poetry of the old Germanic mythology. Physically he himself, the great heavy-handed giant, had something of the characteristics of the God Thor—Buddhists might have said that he was a reincarnation of the Thunderer. When Jules Favre went to discuss terms of peace with him, had not the unhappy Frenchman to face an orgie of strong drinks that was a torture to him, topping up with a bowl of flaming brandy such as none but an old Norse God could swallow? That was the high-water mark of Kultur and that is why Bismarck lives and will never die to the end of time. He forged a terrific weapon, a Siegfried’s sword, and for the misfortune of the world it has fallen into hands directed by a brain ill-fitted to use it. Gamblers tell us that the cards never forgive a mistake. The same might be said almost—not quite—as truly of politics. Bismarck’s one colossal mistake was the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, creating in Germany that persistent nightmare, the dread of the _revanche_. But for that, the Germany of his dreams might still be a queen in commerce, in science, in literature, a bright beacon shedding its light over the world, gratefully admired and even loved. But now!