The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 4 (of 4) — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 4 (of 4)
John Stuart Mill · en
with impartiality; how they sinned against themselves is to be told as
an awful warning, and then to be left for the decision of the Great
Tribunal. Modern philosophy requires such complicated and yet such
minute knowledge in every department of science that the specialist
has supplanted the general scholar and the system-maker; the man who
aspires to create a plan displaying the unity of either the objective
or the subjective world, or any harmony of one with the other, is
generally regarded as either an antiquated imbecile or a charlatan.
Yet in the examination of historical characters a symmetrical
consistency capable of being grasped by the meanest intellect is
imperiously demanded by all readers and critics. This is natural, but
not altogether reasonable: symmetry cannot be found in the commonest
human being on our globe, much less in those who rise supereminent.
The greater the man, the more impossible to connect in a mathematical
diagram the different phases of his conduct. The search for mediocre
consistency in the character of Napoleon is like the Cynic
philosopher's quest for a man.
This personage strove, and with considerable success, to think and act
for an entire nation--ay, more, for western Europe. In order to render
this conceivable, he first took command of his own body--sleeping at
will, and never more than six hours; eating when and what he would,
but always with extreme moderation; waking from profound slumber and
rousing his mind instantaneously to the highest pitch, so that he then
composed as incisively as in the midst of active ratiocination. He was
able to train his secretaries and servants into instruments destitute
of personal volition--even his great generals, who were taught to act
for themselves within certain limits, never transcended the fixed
boundary, and grew inefficient when deprived of his impulse. He never
failed to reward merit or to gratify ambition for the sake of securing
an able lieutenant, and nascent devotion he quickened into passion by
the display of suitable familiarity. A thoughtful, self-contained,
self-sufficient worker, he was sometimes a trifle uneasy in social
intercourse, perhaps always so beneath his mask of good breeding, when
he wore one; but he played his various roles in public with consummate
skill, except that he made nervous movements with his eyes, hands, and
ears. His little tricks of rolling his right shoulder, tugging at his
cuffs, and the like; his inability to write, and his generally clumsy
movements when irritated, were due to deficient training in early
childhood. Forbidding in his intercourse with ambitious women and
other self-seekers, he was considerate with the suffering, and found
it difficult, if not impossible, to refuse the petitions of the needy.
Loving rough and ready ways in those busied about his person,--as, for
instance, when his valet rubbed him down in the morning with a coarse
towel,--he was yet so sensitive that he had to have his hats worn by