224 ORIGIN OF THE "WAR OF 18o3 chap, really trying sort, and involving instant physical • danger, that his boldness fell short. He had all the courage which would have enabled him in a private station of life to pass through the common trials of the world with honour un- questioned ; but he had besides, now and then, a factitious kind of audacity produced by long dreamy meditation ; and when he had wrought himself into this state, he was apt to expose his firmness to trials beyond his strength. The truth is, that his imagination had so great a sway over him as to make him love the idea of enterprises, but it had not strength enough to give him a foreknowledge of what his sensations would be in the hour of trial. So he was most venturesome in his schemes for action ; and yet, when at last he stood face to face with the very danger which he had long been courting, he was liable to be scared by it, as though it were something new and strange. He loved to contrive and brood over plots, and he had a great skill in making the preparatory arrangements for bringing his schemes to ripe- ness ; but his labours in this direction had a tendency to bring him into scenes for which by nature he was ill-fitted, because, like most of the common herd of men, he was unable to command the presence of mind and the flush of animal spirits which are needed for the critical moments of a daring adventure. In short he was a thoughtful literary man, deliberately tasking him- self to venture into a desperate path, and going
