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His industry were admirable if it did not attempt the greatest difficulties with the feeblest means; for he commonly slights anything that is plain and easy, how useful and ingenious soever, and bends all his forces against the hardest and most improbable, though to no purpose if attained to; for neither knowing how to measure his own abilities nor the weight of what he attempts, he spends his little strength in vain and grows only weaker by it; and as men use to blind horses that draw in a mill, his ignorance of himself and his undertakings makes him believe he has advanced when he is no nearer to his end than when he set out first.
Forgetting the two important undertakings in which he was at once engaged, the war with Rome, and the liberating of Greece, he banished every thought of business from his mind, and spent the remainder of winter in feasting and the pleasures connected with wine; and then in sleep, produced rather by fatigue than by satiety with these things.
We were wedged in between these two movements and unable to strike out for ourselves, because the Entente, bound by their promises to their Allies, had already disposed of us by the Pact of London and the undertakings to Roumania and Serbia. We therefore could not exercise extreme pressure on Germany, as we were unable to effect the annulment of those treaties.
Next to the men who are obliged to be absent from home at certain fixed hours, come the men whom vast and serious undertakings leave not one minute for love-making; their foreheads are always wrinkled with anxiety, their conversation is generally void of merriment.
We hope our reader will have reason justly to acquit us of any such confounding ideas in the following pages; in which, as we are to record the actions of a great man, so we have nowhere mentioned any spark of goodness which had discovered itself either faintly in him, or more glaringly in any other person, but as a meanness and imperfection, disqualifying them for undertakings which lead to honour and esteem among men.
He saw on every occasion combined armies of the allies put to flight before his own in every encounter; and this sight, while flattering his vanity exceedingly, also greatly strengthened him in the belief that he would soon find himself master of a rich and fertile country, where the abundant means of subsistence would be of much advantage in all his undertakings.
That, however, did not come between her and me, whom she often thought in the right. With regard to my newspaper activity, she merely urged the stereotyped but pertinent opinion, that I ought not to write so many small things; my nature could not stand this wasting, drop by drop. I had myself felt for a long time that I ought to concentrate my forces on larger undertakings.
Whilst the States individually, with a laudable enterprise and emulation, avail themselves of their local advantages by new roads, by navigable canals, and by improving the streams susceptible of navigation, the General Government is the more urged to similar undertakings, requiring a national jurisdiction and national means, by the prospect of thus systematically completing so inestimable a work; and it is a happy reflection that any defect of constitutional authority which may be encountered can be supplied in a mode which the Constitution itself has providently pointed out.
In what remote part of this great empire can he be lost to curious observation while employed in congenial work? To one who recommended certain hard work, but spoke of its perils, he replied: "Perilous undertakings shall have no terrors. Dangers will be welcomed as the spice of life. My restless energies crave occupation, but there must be no menial taint.
I have tow on the rock, and it must be spun off. Let us see our present undertakings. 1. Napoleon. 2. Review Home, Cranbourne Chase, and the Mysteries. 3. Something for that poor faineant Gillies. 4. Essay on Ballad and Song. 5. Something on the modern state of France. These two last for the Prose Works. But they may " do a little more, And produce a little ore." Come, we must up and be doing.
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