Without doubt many of those who read these lines will live to see the time when memoirs of Napoleon will be offered by ``a gentleman who purchased a collection of Napoleon spoons in 1899’’; doubtless, too, the book will be hailed with satisfaction, for this Napoleonic enthusiasm increases as time wears on.

Curious, is it not, that no calm, judicial study of this man’s character and exploits is received with favor?  He who treats of the subject must be either a hater or an adorer of Napoleon; his blood must be hot with the enthusiasm of rage or of love.

To the human eye there appears in space a luminous sphere that in its appointed path goes on unceasingly.  The wise men are not agreed whether this apparition is merely of gaseous composition or is a solid body supplied extraneously with heat and luminosity, inexhaustibly; some argue that its existence will be limited to the period of one thousand, or five hundred thousand, or one million years; others declare that it will roll on until the end of time.  Perhaps the nature of that luminous sphere will never be truly known to mankind; yet with calm dignity it moves in its appointed path among the planets and the stars of the universe, its fires unabated, its luminosity undimmed.

Even so the great Corsican, scrutinized of all human eyes, passes along the aisle of Time enveloped in the impenetrable mystery of enthusiasm, genius, and splendor.

XVIII

MY WORKSHOP AND OTHERS

  The women-folk are few up there,
      For ’t were not fair, you know,
  That they our heavenly bliss should share
      Who vex us here below! 
  The few are those who have been kind
      To husbands such as we: 
  They knew our fads and didn’t mind—­
      Says Dibdin’s ghost to me.

It has never been explained to my satisfaction why women, as a class, are the enemies of books, and are particularly hostile to bibliomania.  The exceptions met with now and then simply prove the rule.  Judge Methuen declares that bibliophobia is but one phase of jealousy; that one’s wife hates one’s books because she fears that her husband is in love, or is going to be in love, with those companions of his student hours.  If, instead of being folios, quartos, octavos, and the like, the Judge’s books were buxom, blithe maidens, his wife could hardly be more jealous of the Judge’s attentions to them than she is under existing circumstances.  On one occasion, having found the Judge on two successive afternoons sitting alone in the library with Pliny in his lap, this spirited lady snatched the insidious volume from her husband’s embraces and locked it up in one of the kitchen pantries; nor did she release the object of her displeasure until the Judge had promised solemnly to be more circumspect in the future, and had further mollified his wife’s anger by bringing home a new silk dress and a bonnet of exceptional loveliness.