Page:Life of Napoleon Buonaparte.pdf/24

This page has been validated.

24

desirous to relieve the victims,-issuing for the purpose directions, which too often were not, a could not be obeyed,-but showed himself subject to the influence of that more acute and imaginative species of sympathy which is termed sensibility He mentions a circumstance which indicates a dee sense of feeling. As he passed over a field battle in Italy, with some of his generals, he saw houseless dog lying on the body of his slain master The creature came towards them, then returned to the dead body, moaned over it pitifully, an seemed to ask their assistance. "Whether it we the feeling of the moment," continued Napoleon "the scene, the hour, or the circumstance itself, was never so deeply affected by anything which I have seen upon a field of battle. That man, thought, has perhaps had a house, friends, comrades, and here he lies deserted by every one but his dog. How mysterious are the impressions: which we are subject! I was in the habit, without emotion, of ordering battles which must decide the fate of a campaign, and could look with a dry eye on the execution of manoeuvres which must b attended with much loss, and here I was move -nay painfully affected-by the cries and the grief of a dog. It is certain that at that moment should have been more accessible to a suppliant enemy, and could better understand the conduct of Achilles in restoring the body of Hector to the tears of Priam." The anecdote at once shows the Napoleon possessed a heart amenable to human feeling, and that they were usually in total subjection to the stern precepts of military stoicism It was his common and expressive phrase, that the heart of a politician should be in his head but his feelings sometimes surprised him in gentler mood.