He went to the edge of his possibility. It is plain that in
Italy he did what he could, and all that he could. He came, several
times, within an inch of ruin; and his own person was all but lost.
He was flung into the marsh at Arcola. The Austrians were between him
and his troops, in the melee, and he was brought off with desperate
efforts. At Lonato, and at other places, he was on the point of being
taken prisoner. He fought sixty battles. He had never enough. Each
victory was a new weapon. "My power would fall, were I not to support
it by new achievements. Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest
must maintain me." He felt, with every wise man, that as much life is
needed for conservation as for creation. We are always in peril, always
in a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction, and only to be saved
by invention and courage.
This vigor was guarded and tempered by the coldest prudence and
punctuality. A thunderbolt in the attack, he was found invulnerable
in his intrenchments. His very attack was never the inspiration of
courage, but the result of calculation. His idea of the best defense
consists in being still the attacking party.
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