In coasting along the shores of Italy, Napoleon, from the deck of the Orient descried, far away in the distant horizon, the snow-capped summits of the Alps. He called for a telescope, and gazed long and earnestly upon the scene of his early achievements. "I can not," said he, "behold without emotion, the land of Italy. These mountains command the plains where I have so often led the French to victory. Now I am bound to the East. With the same troops victory is still secure." [Illustration: THE DISTANT ALPS.] All were fascinated by the striking originality, animation, and eloquence of his conversation. Deeply read in all that is illustrious in the past, every island, every bay, every promontory, every headland recalled the heroic deeds of antiquity. In pleasant weather Napoleon passed nearly all the time upon deck, surrounded by a group never weary of listening to the freshness and the poetic vigor of his remarks. Upon all subjects he was alike at home, and the most distinguished philosophers, in their several branches of science, were amazed at the instinctive comprehensiveness with which every subject seemed to be familiar to his mind. He was never depressed and never mirthful. A calm and thoughtful energy inspired every moment. From all the ships the officers and distinguished men were in turn invited to dine with him. He displayed wonderful tact in drawing them out in conversation, forming with unerring skill an estimate of character, and thus preparing himself for the selection of suitable agents in all the emergencies which were to be encountered. In nothing was the genius of Napoleon more conspicuous, than in the lightning-like rapidity with which he detected any vein of genius in another. Not a moment of time was lost. Intellectual conversation, or reading or philosophical discussion caused the hours to fly on swiftest wing. Napoleon always, even in his most hurried campaigns, took a compact library with him. When driving in his carriage, from post to post of the army, he improved the moments in garnering up that knowledge, for the accumulation of which he ever manifested such an insatiable desire. _Words_ were with him nothing, _ideas_ every thing. He devoured biography, history, philosophy, treatises upon political economy and upon all the sciences. His contempt for works of fiction--the whole class of novels and romances--amounted almost to indignation. He could never endure to see one reading such a book or to have such a volume in his presence. Once, when Emperor, in passing through the saloons of his palace, he found one of the maids of honor with a novel in her hands. He took it from her, gave her a severe lecture for wasting her time in such frivolous reading, and cast the volume into the flames. When he had a few moments for diversion, he not unfrequently employed them in looking over a book of logarithms, in which he always found recreation.