Bismarck’s most famous words against mere eloquence were uttered in the Reichstag on April 29, 1881:  “You must be something of a poet if you wish to be a good orator, and you must possess the gift of improvisation.  When I was younger there were public entertainments in which music alternated with oratorical improvisations.  The improvisator was given a theme of which he knew nothing, and on which he discoursed, often brilliantly.  It even happened that he was altogether convincing until we remembered where we were.  I am merely saying this to show that we should not entrust the direction of big affairs to the mere masters of eloquence any more than to the improvisators.  Least of all should these people be placed in charge of bureaus, or be given a minister’s portfolio.  I only wish to prove that eloquence is a gift which exerts today an influence out of proportion to its worth.  It is overestimated.  A good orator must be something of a poet, which means that he cannot be a stickler for truth and mathematical accuracy.  He must be inspiring, quick, and excitable, able himself to kindle the enthusiasm of others.  But a good orator I fear will rarely play a good game of whist or of chess, and will be even less satisfactory as a statesman.  The emotional element and not cool reason must predominate in his make-up.  Physiologically, I believe, the same man cannot be a good orator and a calm judge.  I am reminded of the list of qualities enumerated by Mephisto in Goethe’s Faust:  ‘The lion’s strength, the deer’s celerity.’  Such things are never found united in one human body.  And thus we often find eloquence overtopping and dangerously controlling reason, to the complete satisfaction of thoughtless multitudes.  But a man of discretion, cool and accurate in his deliberations, to whom we are glad to entrust the direction of big and weighty matters, can scarcely ever be a perfect orator.”

In this last sentence Bismarck apparently wished to draw a line of distinction between himself and some of his parliamentary opponents whom he admired as fluent orators, but whose leadership he deemed to be unsafe.  If he considered himself a poor public speaker he was greatly mistaken.  His contemporaries held different views, and several of them fortunately were so deeply impressed by his power that they analyzed the means with which he won his great parliamentary victories.  His bitter political opponent, Ludwig Bamberger, for instance, said: 

“Bismarck controls his audience by the noticeable force and the exhaustiveness of his mental labor.  He has improved with practice, and the description of him given in 1866 is no longer quite fair—­’No charm of voice, no sonorous phrases, nothing to captivate an audience.  His voice while clear and distinct, is dry and unsympathetic.  He speaks monotonously, with many pauses, at times he almost stutters, as if an obstinate tongue refused to obey orders, and as if he had to wrestle for the adequate expression