ck of the cliff.
His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. How head
is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder,
his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France.
Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear
stream trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base,
and in the smooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored,
among the water-lilies.

Around about are green trees and grass. The place is
a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise
and stir and confusion--and all this is fitting, for lions
do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals
in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings.
The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere,
but nowhere so impressive as where he is.

Martyrdom is the luckiest fate that can befall some people.
Louis XVI did not die in his bed, consequently history is
very gentle with him; she is charitable toward his failings,
and she finds in him high virtues which are not usually
considered to be virtues when they are lodged in kings.
She makes him out to be a person with a meek and modest
spirit, the heart of a female saint, and a wrong head.
None of these qualities are kingly but the last.
Taken together they make a character which would have fared
harshly at the hands of history if its owner had had the ill
luck to miss martyrdom. With the best intentions to do
the right thing, he always managed to do the wrong one.
Moreover, nothing could get the female saint out of him.
He knew, well enough, that in national emergencies he must
not consider how he ought to act, as a man, but how he
ought to act as a king; so he honestly tried to sink
the man and be the king--but it was a failure, he only
succeeded in being the female saint. He was not instant
in season, but out of season. He could not be persuaded
to do a thing while it could do any good--he was iron,
he was adamant in his stubbornness then--but as soon as
the thing had reached a point where it would be positively
harmful to do it, do it he would, and nothing could
stop him. He did not do it because it would be harmful,
but because he hoped it was not yet too late to achieve
by it the good which it would have done if applied earlier.
His comprehension was always a train or two behindhand.
If a national toe required amputating, he could not see
that it needed anything more than poulticing; when others
saw that the mortification had reached the knee, he first