To the mundane and unpoetic mind it would seem that there were several propositions, obvious or otherwise, which Napoleon was capable of comparing quite connectedly, and that his ruthless, luminous fashion of dealing with such made him more terrible than fate. As for pleasures, he knew how to read and relish “Clarissa Harlowe,” for which evidence of sound literary taste, one Englishman at least, Hazlitt, honored and loved him greatly. If we are seeking an embodiment of unrelieved excellence who will work up well into moral anecdotes and journalistic platitudes, the emperor is plainly not what we require. But when we have great men under consideration, let us at least think of their greatness. Let us permit our little hearts to expand, and our little eyes to sweep a broad horizon. There is nothing in the world I dislike so much as to be reminded of Napoleon’s rudeness to Madame de Staël, or of Cæsar’s vain attempt to hide his baldness. Cæsar was human; that is his charm; and Madame de Staël would have sorely strained the courtesy of good King Arthur. Had she attached herself unflinchingly to his court, it is probable he would have ended by requesting her to go elsewhere.
On the other hand, it is never worth while to assert that genius repeals the decalogue. We cannot believe with M. Waliszewski that because Catherine of Russia was a great ruler she was, even in the smallest degree, privileged to be an immoral woman, to give “free course to her senses imperially.” The same commandment binds with equal rigor both empress and costermonger. But it is the greatness of Catherine, and not her immorality, which concerns us deeply. It is the greatness of Marlborough, of Richelieu, and of Sir Robert Walpole which we do well to consider, and not their shortcomings, though from the tone assumed too often by critics and historians, one would imagine that duplicity, ambition and cynicism were the only attributes these men possessed; that they stood for their vices alone. One would imagine also that the same sins were quite unfamiliar in humble life, and had never been practised on a petty scale by lawyers and journalists and bank clerks. Yet vice, as Sir Thomas Browne reminds us, may be had at all prices. “Expensive and costly iniquities which make the noise cannot be every man’s sins; but the soul may be foully inquinated at a very low rate, and a man may be cheaply vicious to his own perdition.”