the complete effect, the net product; never is he content with a superficial inspection; he penetrates into obscure corners and to the lowest depths, 'through the technical precision of his questions,' with the lucidity of a specialist."
XIV.
HIS GRASP OF CHARACTER.
An equally astonishing power of his is that of penetrating into the minds of men; he is, Taine says, "as great a psychologist as he is an accomplished strategist." "In fact, no one has surpassed him in the art of defining the various states and impulses of one or of many minds, either prolonged or for the time being, which impel or restrain men in general, or this or that individual in particular; what springs of action may be touched, and the kind and degree of pressure that may be applied to them. The central faculty rules all the others, and in the art of mastering man his genius is found supreme."
"Accordingly at the Council of State, while the others, either legislators or administrators, adduce abstractions, Articles of the Code, and precedents, he looks into natures as they are—the Frenchman's, the Italian's, the German's; that of the peasant, the workman, the noble, the returned émigré, the soldier, the officer, and the functionary—everywhere at the individual man as he is, the
