and Bible were borne before him,
without any chimera: were not these the _real_ emblems of Puritanism;
its true decoration and insignia? It had used them both in a very real
manner, and pretended to stand by them now! But this poor Napoleon
mistook: he believed too much in the _Dupability_ of men; saw no fact
deeper in man than Hunger and this! He was mistaken. Like a man that
should build upon cloud; his house and he fall down in confused wreck,
and depart out of the world.

Alas, in all of us this charlatan-element exists; and _might_ be
developed, were the temptation strong enough. "Lead us not into
temptation"! But it is fatal, I say, that it _be_ developed. The
thing into which it enters as a cognizable ingredient is doomed to be
altogether transitory; and, however huge it may _look_, is in itself
small. Napoleon's working, accordingly, what was it with all the noise
it made? A flash as of gunpowder wide-spread; a blazing-up as of dry
heath. For an hour the whole Universe seems wrapt in smoke and flame;
but only for an hour. It goes out: the Universe with its old mountains
and streams, its stars above and kind soil beneath, is still there.

The Duke of Weimar told his friends always, To be of courage; this
Napoleonism was _unjust_, a falsehood, and could not last. It is true
doctrine. The heavier this Napoleon trampled on the world, holding it
tyrannously down, the fiercer would the world's recoil against him be,
one day. Injustice pays itself with frightful compound-interest. I am
not sure but he had better have lost his best park of artillery, or
had his best regiment drowned in the sea, than shot that poor German
Bookseller, Palm! It was a palpable tyrannous murderous injustice, which
no man, let him paint an inch thick, could make out to be other. It
burnt deep into the hearts of men, it and the like of it; suppressed
fire flashed in the eyes of men, as they thought of it,--waiting their
day! Which day _came_: Germany rose round him.--What Napoleon _did_ will
in the long-run amount to what he did justly; what Nature with her laws
will sanction. To what of reality was in him; to that and nothing more.
The rest was all smoke and waste. _La carriere ouverte aux talens_:
that great true Message, which has yet to articulate and fulfil itself
everywhere, he left in a most inarticulate state. He was a great
_ebauche_, a rude-draught never completed; as indeed what great man is
other? Left in _too_ rude a state, alas!