Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/42

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Napoleon.

nor when angry. I never saw him diverted from one matter by another, turning from that under discussion to one he had just finished or was about to take up. The news, good or bad, he received from Egypt did not divert his mind from the civil code, nor the civil code from the combinations which the safety of Egypt required. Never did man more wholly devote himself to the work in hand, nor better devote his time to what he had to do; never did mind more inflexibly set aside the occupation or thought which did not come at the right day or hour; never was one more ardent in seeking it, more alert in its pursuit, more capable of fixing it when the time came to take it up.'"

The best description, after all, of the working of the mind is his own. "Various subjects," he said, "and affairs are stowed away in my brains, as in a chest of drawers. When I want to take up any special business, I shut one drawer and open another. None of them ever get mixed, and never does this incommode me or fatigue me. If I feel sleepy I shut the drawer and go to sleep."

XII.

THE POWER OF TAKING PAINS.

This genius has not only the power of constant work, but also of taking infinite pains. It will be seen that nothing in which he succeeds is in