Ordinary rules
did not apply to him. He even found excitement and motives in obstacles
before which other men would have wavered; for these would enhance the
glory of triumph, and give a new thrill to the admiration of the world.
To us there is something radically and increasingly shocking in the
thought of one man's will becoming a law to his race; in the thought of
multitudes, of vast communities, surrendering conscience, intellect,
their affections, their rights, their interests, to the stern mandate of
a fellow-creature. When we see one word of a frail man on the throne
of France, tearing a hundred thousand sons from their homes, breaking
asunder the sacred ties of domestic life, sentencing myriads of the
young to make murder their calling, and rapacity their means of support,
and extorting from nations their treasures to extend this ruinous sway,
we are ready to ask ourselves, Is not this a dream? and, when the sad
reality comes home to us, we blush for a race which can stoop to such an
abject lot. At length, indeed, we see the tyrant humbled, stripped of
power, but stripped by those who, in the main, are not unwilling to play
the despot on a narrower scale, and to break down the spirit of nations
under the same iron sway.
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