l standing, of those that surrounded him, it was difficult to be
honest, and impossible to be independent. By a sort of law of nature,
too, his tarred repute attracted to it every floating feather of
suspicion, no less than of guilt, as to its natural seat; and thus it
happened that the lofty genius of Mirabeau, under the "grand hests" of a
hateful necessity, like the "too delicate spirit," Ariel, tasked to the
"strong biddings" of the "foul witch Sycorax," was condemned for a while
to pander rather than teach, to follow rather than lead, to please
rather than patronize, and to halloo others' opinions rather than
vindicate his own!

No man could appreciate the misfortune more fully or sensitively than
himself. Dumont tells us that, taught by events that a good character
would have placed France at his feet, "he would have passed seven times
through the fiery furnace to purify his name;" and that, "weeping and
sobbing, he was accustomed to exclaim, 'Cruelly do I expiate the errors
of my youth!'" And, indeed, the more sensible his heart, the more rich
and elevated his soul, the more must his torments have been bitter and
redoubled; for the very preciousness of the gifts of nature, the charms
of society, even the friendship of those that surrounded him, must have
turned but to the increase of his wretchedness!

It is easy to understand, then, that the tactics of Mirabeau, in the
first days of the revolution, were those of a man outside "a swelling
scene,"

"A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold,"

which he could only occupy by rudely breaking through a thousand
circumvallations of usage, propriety, and public opinion. As it was the
boast of Luther, that he, an obscure monk, stood alone for some time
against respectable Europe, so Mirabeau, on the eve of his public
greatness, was the most isolated politician of his age. "Mean men, in
their rising," says Lord Bacon, "most adhere; but great men, that have
strength in themselves, were better to maintain themselves indifferent
and neutral." Instinctively feeling that this was the policy of his
position, when repelled by both sides, he haughtily repelled them in
return, and the more he was despised the more inevitable did he make the
establishment of his importance. As, without a party, he became one
himself, so without a plan he took that of events, and without a policy
was content with that of display. In these early days, indeed, his whole