Page:Vivian Grey, Volume 1.djvu/147

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VIVIAN GREY.
137

fail in life to be sure, and after all, very little was done by the generality; but still all these failures, and all this inefficiency might be traced to a want of physical and mental courage. Some men were bold in their conceptions, and splendid heads at a grand system, but then, when the day of battle came, they turned out very cowards; while others, who had nerve enough to stand the brunt of the hottest fire, were utterly ignorant of military tactics, and fell before the destroyer, like the brave untutored Indians, before the civilized European. Now Vivian Grey was conscious, that there was at least one person in the world, who was no craven either in body or in mind, and so he had long come to the comfortable conclusion, that it was impossible that his career could be any thing, but the most brilliant. And truly, employed as he now was, with a peer of the realm, in a solemn consultation on that realm's most important interests, at a time when crea-