Prince Bismarck finds it quite impossible to resist the temptation
of praising Particularism. (We shall have to change the epigram and make Particularism, not patriotism, the last refuge of hurried and irritable statesmen of mature years.) On Sunday last he told a deputation from Thiiringen : "To those Prussians who wish to put every one else in their pockets, I say, You are the real Particularists. You do not recognise Germany that is not Prussia.'" All the accusa- tions made against him, says Prince Bismarck, are pure in- vention. " If I wished to combat the present Government for the sake of personal power I should make a tour round Germany, call together popular assemblies everywhere, and thresh out all that 1 have in my heart against the Govern- ment." His diplomatic career did not, he added, teach him lying. It only remained for Prince Bismarck to assert that he had no connection with any newspaper. There is some- thing not a little humorous in Prince Bismarck thus painting himself as the injured innocent of German politics.
