Wher I had thus become more intimate in the Bismarck circle heard more open talk about Herr von Holstein. I heard that he was very clever, a good worker, inordinately proud, an odd sort of man, who never showed himself anywhere, and had no social relations, full of distrust, much _influenced by whims, and, besides all this, a good hater, and, there-tore, dangerous. Prince Bismarck called him "The Man with the Hyena's Eyes,'' and told me that it would be well for me to keep away from him. It was quite apparent that the bitter attitude which the Prince showed later toward Holstein, his former collaborator, was forming even at that time.
The Foreign Office was conducted with the strictest discipline by Count Herbert, whose rudeness toward his employees particularly struck me. The gentlemen there simply flew when they were summoned or dismissed by the Count, so much so that a joking saying arose at the time that "their coat-tails stood straight out behind them." The foreign policy was conducted and dictated by Prince Bismarck alone, after consultation with Count Herbert, who passed on the commands of the Chancellor and had them transformed into
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.