The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly
Magazine, May 1844, by Various

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Title: The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844
Volume 23, Number 5

Author: Various

Editor: Lewis Gaylord Clark

Release Date: July 30, 2007 [EBook #22172]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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T H E K N I C K E R B O C K E R.

VOL. XXIII. MAY, 1844. NO. 5.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

The following article has been compiled from the different works of THOMAS
CARLYLE, and embodies all he has written, or at least published, about
Napoleon Bonaparte. We offer it in the absence of a more elaborate work on
this subject, which we hope one day to see from the pen of this gifted and
earnest writer. It is a glimpse of the insight of the clearest-headed Seer
of our age, into the noisiest great man of the last, about whom we listen
with pleasure to each new voice, perhaps critically and doubtingly, yet
for our own part colored by that absorbing, painful interest, which
induced us when a boy to close the book which first told us of his doings,
after having traced his meteoric flight to the 'monster meeting' at
Moscow, unable to proceed to the catastrophe; and it was months before we
could bring ourselves to read on, of the heroism which charmed, or the
glitter which dazzled us, to its final chaos and night. On Napoleon's
right to the title great, the character of his greatness, and what would
be left if the smoke-clouds, battle-glory and so on were torn away, we
will offer but a few words. Of the title in its best sense but few now
believe him worthy, perhaps no thinker or reflecting man. He is a volcano
rather than a sun, a destroyer more than a creator; and our sympathy is
mingled with little of that which we feel for the martyr; who dies rather
than sell his birthright, heaven, for any mess of earth's pottage, or for
him who spends his life in the search for truth, and in speaking it to
mankind,