Austria, indeed, stood aloof; but both by reason of her geographical situation and the heterogeneous ancestry of her people that was a matter only of small account. Union was, for all practical purposes complete. And what made the achievement all the more marvellous was the fact, that the vision had been realised by methods which had no place in the gentle speculations of those, who had cherished the {90} hope of unity with the most fervent loyalty. It had been accomplished by the Prussians, who of all races between the Alps and the Baltic, between the mountain barriers of Burgundy and the Polish Marshes, are the least German in blood,[8] and who of all Germans dream the least. It had been carried through, not by peaceful persuasion, nor on any principles of Liberalism, nor in any of the ways foreseen by the philosophers and poets who had beheld visions of the millennium. Union was the triumph of craft and calculation, courage and resolve, 'blood and iron.' The world in general, whose thoughts at this time were much more congenially occupied with International Exhibitions, and Peace Societies, and the ideals of Manchester statesmanship, was inclined to regard the whole of this series of events as an anachronism--as the belated offspring of 'militarism' and 'feudalism.' These were well known to be both in their dotage; they could not possibly survive for many years. What had happened, therefore, did not startle mankind simply because the nature of it was not understood. The spirit of the age, wholly possessed, as it was, by an opposite set of ideas, was unable to comprehend, to believe in, or even to consider with patience, phenomena which, according to prevailing theories, had no reasonable basis of existence. In some quarters, indeed, efforts were made to gloss over the proceedings of Prince Bismarck, and to fit them into the fashionable theory of a universe, flowing with the milk of human kindness and the {91} honey of material prosperity. It was urged that the Germans were a people, pure in their morals, industrious in their habits, the pioneers of higher education and domestic economy. For the most part, British and American public opinion was inclined to regard these various occurrences and conquests as a mediaeval masquerade, in rather doubtful taste, but of no particular significance and involving no serious consequences. Even in that enlightened age, however, there were still a few superstitious persons who saw ghosts. To their eyes the shade of Richard Cobden seemed in some danger of being eclipsed in the near future by that of Niccolo Machiavelli; though the former had died in great honour and prestige only a few years earlier, while the latter had been dead, discredited, and disavowed for almost as many centuries. [Sidenote: GERMAN PROSPERITY AFTER UNION]