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While he was preparing for this great work, he visited the temple of Jupiter Ammon in the desert, and was addressed by the priests as the Son of God, not as a mortal, which flattery was agreeable to him, so that ever afterward he claimed divinity, in the arrogance of his character, and the splendor of his successes, and even slew the man who saved his life at the Granicus, because he denied his divine claims—the most signal instance of self-exaggeration and pride recorded in history, transcending both Nebuchadnezzar and Napoleon.
Prosperity and success led to boundless self-exaggeration and a depreciation of enemies, while the vices of self-interest undermined gradually all real strength. Society became utterly demoralized and weakened, and there were no conservative forces sufficiently, strong to hold it together.
Such views were grateful to his nation; and he, by continually flattering the national vanity, and ringing the changes on glory and patriotism, induced it to follow courses which may one day result in overwhelming calamities. Self-exaggeration is as fatal to a nation as it is to an individual, and constitutes that pride which precedes destruction.
"France!" asserted Turnbull with a sort of rollicking self-exaggeration, very unusual with him, "France, which is one torrent of splendid scepticism from Abelard to Anatole France." "France," said MacIan, "which is one cataract of clear faith from St. Louis to Our Lady of Lourdes."
If Rome, in the infancy of the republic, had resisted the invading Gauls, what was there to fear from the half-naked barbarians who lived beyond the boundaries of the empire? The long-continued peace and prosperity had engendered not merely the vices of self-interest, those destructive cankers which ever insure a ruin, but a general feeling of security and self-exaggeration.
There is no trait of character in a great man less understood than what we call pride, which often is not pride at all, but excessive shyness and reserve, based on sensitiveness and caution rather than self-exaggeration and egotism.
It was energy, patriotism, patience, and a genius for government which built up the empire. But prosperity led to luxury, self-exaggeration, and enervating vices. Society was steeped in sensuality, frivolity, and selfishness. The empire was rotten to the core, and must become the prey of barbarians, who had courage and vitality.
"An art which transgresses the laws and limits I have indicated is art no more. It is factory work, handicraft, and that is a thing art should never be. Under the often misused word 'freedom' and her flag one falls too readily into boundlessness, unrestraint, self-exaggeration.
The Colonists three thousand miles away from England had begun to feel their importance, and to realize the difficulty of their conquest by any forces that England could command. The self-exaggeration common to all new countries was universal. Few as the people were, compared with the population of the mother country, their imagination was boundless.
We palliate his self-exaggeration and pride, on account of the disgraceful flatteries he received on every hand. Never was a man more extravagantly lauded, even by the learned. But had he been half as great as his courtiers made him think, he would not have been so intoxicated; Caesar or Charlemagne would not thus have lost his intellectual balance.
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