not walk in another world? Are not generals,
ministers, and artists carried, more or less, towards destruction by
the need of violent distractions in an existence so remote from ordinary
life as theirs?

"War, after all, is the Excess of bloodshed, as the Excess of
self-interest produces Politics. Excesses of every sort are brothers.
These social enormities possess the attraction of the abyss; they draw
towards themselves as St. Helena beckoned Napoleon; we are fascinated,
our heads swim, we wish to sound their depths though we cannot
account for the wish. Perhaps the thought of Infinity dwells in these
precipices, perhaps they contain some colossal flattery for the soul of
man; for is he not, then, wholly absorbed in himself?

"The wearied artist needs a complete contrast to his paradise of
imaginings and of studious hours; he either craves, like God, the
seventh day of rest, or with Satan, the pleasures of hell; so that
his senses may have free play in opposition to the employment of his
faculties. Byron could never have taken for his relaxation to the
independent gentleman's delights of boston and gossip, for he was a
poet, and so must needs pit Greece against Mahmoud.

"In war, is not man an angel of extirpation, a sort of executioner on
a gigantic scale? Must not the spell be strong indeed that makes us
undergo such horrid sufferings so hostile to our weak frames, sufferings
that encircle every strong passion with a hedge of thorns? The tobacco
smoker is seized with convulsions, and goes through a kind of agony
consequent upon his excesses; but has he not borne a part in delightful
festivals in realms unknown? Has Europe ever ceased from wars? She
has never given herself time to wipe the stains from her feet that are
steeped in blood to the ankle. Mankind at large is carried away by fits
of intoxication, as nature has its accessions of love.

"For men in private life, for a vegetating Mirabeau dreaming of storms
in a time of calm, Excess comprises all things; it perpetually embraces
the whole sum of life; it is something better still--it is a duel with
an antagonist of unknown power, a monster, terrible at first sight, that
must be seized by the horns, a labor that cannot be imagined.

"Suppose that nature has endowed you with a feeble stomach or one of
limited capacity; you acquire a mastery over it and improve it; you
learn to carry your liquor; you grow accustomed to being drunk; you pass
whole nights witho