Once in a while there is born, in every State, a soul which is to be “like a star and dwell apart.”  It is to be gifted with qualities of an exalted character.  But it is also to be lashed with the scourge of ambition.  It is to stand, as William Penn said,

“THE TALLEST TREE,

therefore the most in the power of the blasts of fortune.”  How little should we desire the dizzy niche in which it seats itself.  Our little heads would swim in the sickness of our unfamiliarity.  We would fall.  “Remarkable places,” said Madame Necker, “are like the summits of rocks; eagles and reptiles only can get there.”  Napoleon, possibly, never had a true friend in his life.  He certainly never deserved one.  Each year saw him surrounded by new associates, whom he meant to sacrifice, if he could.

UPON THE BLOODY FIELD OF ASPERN AND ESSLING,

he offered up Marshal Lannes.  He was forced to stand by that brave dying man and listen to his awful reproaches.  So, again, in the terrible carnage of Spain at Eylau, at Borodino, Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Leipsic, Hanau, everywhere, he was compelled to hear the outspoken protests of the men who had held the ladder for him—­to stamp his foot at the constant declarations of “Dukes,” “Princes,” and “Kings,” that he was a monster whose thirst demanded only human blood.  At last, the whole world cried out that it had had

“ENOUGH OF BONAPARTE!”

The expression became a war-cry, and the world escaped from the baleful sceptre under whose shadow it had too long suspired.  “What millions died that Caesar might be great!” cries Campbell.  “None think the great unhappy but the great,” says Young.  They deserve their unhappiness.  It is the mess of pottage to obtain which they have sold everything.  Fame has always seemed to the philosopher like some mountain in a polar clime—­cold, lonesome, inhospitable.

     Tall mountains meet, and giddy greet
       The clouds in their exalted homes;
     What may they show, save ice and snow,
       Unto the fleets that pass their domes?

     Their crests are bold with solar gold: 
       Their charming cliffs enchant the eye;
     Yet earth shows not more dreary spot
       Than toilers in their heights descry.

     There points a peak which mortals seek—­
       Fraught are its crags with human woes;
     Shrill through its fasts shriek envy-blasts—­
       Forever drift hate’s blinding snows.

     Its towering height beams with a light—­
       The wondrous blaze of Glory’s orb;
     Still those who gaze feel most the rays,
       While they who climb no warmth absorb.

     Contentment creeps—­Renown climbs steeps
       Where consummations ne’er appease;
     Below, how oft, when Care’s aloft,
       Unhappiness, distrusting, flees.

[Illustration]