Not for a day had Napoleon neglected his books. To escape the household noises, he went to the attic, and there pursued his studies. Far and wide ranged his restless mind, from the exact sciences, dry and heavy, to Plato and Ossian, rich in suggestions to the most opulent imagination nature ever gave a practical man. To the very last, Napoleon remained half mystic; and when he stood in the storm the night before Waterloo, and cast into the darkness the words, “We are agreed”; or when he remained silent for hours at St. Helena watching the vast wings of the mist whirl, and turn, and soar around the summit of the bleak, barren mountain of rock, we feel that if pens were there to trace his thought, Ossian would seem to live again. From his youth up the most striking characteristic of his mind was its enormous range; its wide sweep from the pettiest, prosiest details of fact to the sublimest dreams and the most chimerical fancies. Not wholly satisfied with reading and commentary, he strove to compose. Under the Bourbons, his outlook in the army was not promising. He might hope, after many tedious years of garrison service, to become a captain; after that it would be a miracle if he rose higher. Hence his lack of interest in the routine work of a soldier, and hence his ambition to become an author. He wrote a story called _The Count of Essex_, also a novel founded on Corsican life, and pulsing with hatred of France. Another story which he called _The Masked Prophet_, is the same which Moore afterward used in _The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan_. His greatest exertions, however, were spent upon the _History of Corsica_. To this work he clung with a tenacity of purpose that is touching. All the long, tragic story of Corsica seems to have run like fire in the boy’s veins, and the heroes of his country--Paoli, Sampiero, Della Rocca--seemed to him to be as great as the men of antiquity, as perhaps they were. Therefore, the young man wrote and rewrote, trying to get the book properly written, his thoughts properly expressed. He had turned to Raynal, as we have seen, and the Abbé had kindly said, “Search further, and write it over.” And Napoleon had done so. At least three times he had recast the entire book. He sought the approval of a former teacher, Dupuy; he sent “copy” to Paoli. Dupuy had a poor opinion of the performance; and Paoli told him flatly he was too young to write history. But Napoleon persevered, finished the work, and eagerly sought publishers. Alas! the publishers shook their heads. Finally, at Paris was found a bold adventurer in the realm of book-making, who was willing to undertake half the cost if the author would furnish the other half. But for one reason or another the book was never published.