GREAT MEN'S BODIES
"A bête noire of his was the making of difficulties. 'Never let me hear of them about anything.' He wished to banish such words as 'difficult,' 'responsibility,' from his vocabulary. He was so full of ingenuity and resource himself that he expected others to be the same. He conquered everything by his ready adaptability of the circumstances as he found them to the ends he had in view.
"Few could tell a good story better; few enjoyed one more. Rogers, in his Recollections, records that the Duke had great gayety of mind. 'He laughs at almost everything, if it serves to divert him.… His laugh is easily excited, and it is very loud and long, like the whoop of a whooping-cough often repeated. He did not care for the show and glitter, the pomp and circumstance of his rank. He was not without a certain amount of personal vanity. Although by no means a handsome man, he thought a good deal of his outward appearance, and was always extremely natty and particular about his dress.' Larpent tells us of the chief's fondness for well-fitting breeches and well-made hessians, or hunting boots. Yet beyond liking his clothes well made, so as to show his then youthful figure to best appearance, it cannot be said that he cared for gaudy uniforms, and he was best known in the field by the plain blue coat, and sometimes a white overcoat and a cocked hat without feathers.
His speaking on one occasion of the quality of the horse which he had ridden will convey a notion of his staying powers as a horseman. "'Remember, gentlemen,' said the Duke, 'he had been out with me on his back for upwards of ten hours, and had carried me eight-and-twenty miles besides.' And he rode him all through the battle from dawn to dark next day.
"'I never was so pleased,' says Napoleon, at St. Helena, 'as when I saw Wellington intending to "fight" at Waterloo. I had not a doubt of annihilating his army.'
"The first gun was fired at twenty minutes past eleven.
"The greatest commander has been well defined as he who makes fewest mistakes. 'There can be no doubt,' says Shaw-Kennedy, 'that so long as history is read the battle of Waterloo will be much and eagerly discussed. The blunders and looseness of Napoleon's movements on the 16th, 17th, and 18th of June were surpassingly great and numerous, while Wellington acted with unerring energy, firmness, and decision.'
"'People ask me to describe Waterloo,' he said to Sir John Mal-317
