f
Portugal, and providing for the protection of the Duke of Savoy.

[Sidenote: His temper.]

But his air showed no trace of fatigue or haste or vexation. He retained
to the last the indolent grace of his youth. His natural dignity was
never ruffled by an outbreak of temper. Amidst the storm of battle his
soldiers saw their leader "without fear of danger or in the least hurry
giving his orders with all the calmness imaginable." In the cabinet he
was as cool as on the battle-field. He met with the same equable
serenity the pettiness of the German princes, the phlegm of the Dutch,
the ignorant opposition of his officers, the libels of his political
opponents. There was a touch of irony in the simple expedients by which
he sometimes solved problems which had baffled cabinets. The touchy
pride of the king of Prussia in his new royal dignity, when he rose from
being a simple Elector of Brandenburg to a throne, made him one of the
most vexatious among the allies; but all difficulty with him ceased when
Marlborough rose at a state banquet and glutted his vanity by handing
him a napkin. Churchill's composure rested partly on a pride which could
not stoop to bare the real self within to the eyes of meaner men. In the
bitter moments before his fall he bade Godolphin burn some querulous
letters which the persecution of his opponents had wrung from him; "My
desire," he wrote, "is that the world may continue in their error of
thinking me a happy man, for I think it better to be envied than
pitied." But in great measure it sprang from the purely intellectual
temper of his mind. His passion for his wife was the one sentiment which
tinged the colourless light in which his understanding moved. In all
else he was without affection or resentment, he knew neither doubt nor
regret. In private life he was a humane and compassionate man; but if
his position required it he could betray Englishmen to death or lead his
army to a butchery such as that of Malplaquet. Of honour or the finer
sentiments of mankind he knew nothing; and he turned without a shock
from guiding Europe and winning great victories to heap up a matchless
fortune by peculation and greed. He is perhaps the only instance of a
man of real greatness who loved money for money's sake. No life indeed,
no temper ever stood more aloof from the common life and temper of
mankind. The passions which stirred the men around him, whether noble or
ignoble, were to Marlborough simply elements