about to take up. The news, good
or bad, he received from Egypt, did not divert his mind from the civil
code, nor the civil code from the combinations which the safety of Egypt
required. Never did a man more wholly devote himself to the work in
hand, nor better devote his time to what he had to do. Never did a mind
more inflexibly set aside the occupation or thought which did not come
at the right day or hour, never was one more ardent in seeking it, more
alert in its pursuit, more capable of fixing it when the time came to
take it up."

He himself said later on:[1146]

"Various subjects and affairs are stowed away in my brain as in a chest
of drawers. When I want to take up any special business I shut one
drawer and open another. None of them ever get mixed, and never does
this incommode me or fatigue me. If I feel sleepy I shut all the drawers
and go to sleep."

Never has brain so disciplined and under such control been seen, one so
ready at all times for any task, so capable of immediate and absolute
concentration. Its flexibility[1147] is wonderful, "in the instant
application of every faculty and energy, and bringing them all to bear
at once on any object that concerns him, on a mite as well as on an
elephant, on any given individual as well as on an enemy's army. ...
When specially occupied, other things do not exist for him; it is a sort
of chase from which nothing diverts him." And this hot pursuit, which
nothing arrests save capture, this tenacious hunt, this headlong course
by one to whom the goal is never other than a fresh starting-point, is
the spontaneous gait, the natural, even pace which his mind prefers.

"I am always at work," says he to Roederer.[1148] "I meditate a great
deal. If I seem always equal to the occasion, ready to face what
comes, it is because I have thought the matter over a long time before
undertaking it. I have anticipated whatever might happen. It is no
spirit which suddenly reveals to me what I ought to do or say in any
unlooked-for circumstance, but my own reflection, my own meditation. ...
I work all the time, at dinner, in the theatre. I wake up at night in
order to resume my work. I got up last night at two o'clock. I stretched
myself on my couch before the fire to examine the army reports sent to
me by the Minister of War. I found twenty mistakes in them, and made
notes which I have this morning sent to the minister, who is now engaged
with his clerks in rectifying them."-