Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/54

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38
Napoleon.

oppresses, and the strongholds of which he still retains. Add to this a last mental tableau, representing the Northern Seas, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean, all the fleets of the Continent, at sea and in port, from Dantzic to Flessingen and Bayonne, from Cadiz to Toulon and Gaëta, from Tarentum to Venice, Corfu, and Constantinople."

And, finally, there is this fact to be considered: that all this did not only extend over a small portion of his lifetime. General Grant worked prodigiously, and had an extraordinarily close and intimate knowledge of all the details of his army; but then the Civil War of America lasted for but four years. But think of the duration of Napoleon's career―think how many there were of those days and nights packed full of feverish, incessant, wild work.

"The quantity of facts he is able to retain and store away, the quantity of ideas he elaborates and produces, seems to surpass human capacity, and this insatiable, inexhaustible, immoveable brain thus keeps on working uninterruptedly for thirty years."

XVI.

HIS IMAGINATIVENESS.

Now I take him on another side of his character―the side which ultimately led to his ruin―that is, his imaginativeness. He has accomplished a