4
THE BATTALION.
coverings and showy surface they are like the ermine when
robbed of its beautiful hide—nothing. For example: Have
you not conversed with those whose brilliant wit, pungent
sarcasm and well-framed sentences drew others to them and
attracted wide-spread attention? Yet, have you not felt that
behind it all there was something that made you doubt every
word they uttered? Have you not sat ’midst a mighty au
dience and listened to one whose eloquence dazzled, whose
pretended zeal seemed to inspire all who heard him, yet have
you not felt that behind it all was lurking a monster which
repelled the admiration that the genius attracted? That was
the want of character, or to speak more truly, the possession
of bad character, and it shows itelf alike in nations and indi
viduals.
iEschines was talented; his oration against the crowning
of Demosthenese was a masterly production, elegantly writ
ten, excellently arranged and efiectively delivered; but it fell
like a chilling blast upon his hearers at Athens, because he
was a ^hireling of Philip.”
Napoleon swept like “an angel of death” over almost the
entire Eastern world, evincing a military genius unsurpassed
—skill so marvelous that the world panted, gazed on in won
der, and shuddered at his very name. Although victorious
in almost ail of his campaigns, he could see but one road ta
glory; a road that led o'er battlefields strewn with human
corpses; across marshes w-et with human gore; over rivers of
blood, and streams of tears from widows and orphans, and
along the pathway of his journey the widow’s wail kept mu
sic for his marching host. But he is dead, and o’er his grave
no mourner w T eeps. Talent, genius, power—these he had.
Character, he had none.
To gain an undying name Caesar “crossed the Rubicon
and Rome was free no more.” He built a great name upon
the ruins of the “Eternal City;” but think you it gave him