The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 6 / August 1906
By ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a deity dead—and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.
I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon. I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris. I saw him at the head of the army in Italy. I saw him crossing the bridge at Lodi with the tricolor in his hand. I saw him in Egypt, in the shadow of the Pyramids. I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo, at Ulm, and at Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, when the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.
I thought of the widows and orphans he had made, of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun; I would rather have been that poor peasant, with my wife by my side knitting as the day died out of the sky, with my children upon my knees and their arms about me; I would rather have been this man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial personation of force and murder known as Napoleon the Great.
Various
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THE SCRAP BOOK.
WHAT THE SUPREME COURT STANDS FOR.
The Men and the Tradition.
The Nation Sound at Bottom.
THE GERMAN KAISER'S CAMPAIGN FOR AMITY.
THE GENIAL SPORT OF GENEALOGISTS.
TEACHING IS A VERY POPULAR PROFESSION.
Changes in Occupation.
Teaching Monopolizes the Increase.
MEN OF THE SOUTH WERE NEVER REBELS.
War Has Settled Great Questions.
General Lee's Rebuke.
PLACE IN PUBLIC LIFE ONLY FOR PICKED MEN.
Hard Time for the Poor Man.
Must Give More Than Money.
The Most Dangerous Men.
THEY WOULD KEEP THE PEACE-DOVE HOVERING.
The Hague Conference as a Basis.
The Limits of Hospitality.
LIQUOR DEALERS COME OUT FOR TEMPERANCE.
Prohibitory Laws Evaded.
Favor White Ribbon Movement.
Intoxication Should Be Crime.
MACAULAY'S PROPHECY OF DEMOCRACY'S DOOM.
An Early Victorian Mother Shipton.
Restraining the Discontented Majority.
Statesman and Demagogue.
AN OPEN ATTITUDE IN STUDYING THE OCCULT.
Science and Experience.
THAT GREAT MYSTERY, THE COMMON TABBY.
RUDYARD KIPLING'S LYRIC TO LIES.
SOME SNAKE STORIES.
DISCRIMINATING SPARROWS.
A GUN'S SELF-SACRIFICE.
A POWERFUL SALVE.
HOW THE PACK WAS PACKED.
A TALL TREE YARN.
REMARKABLE ECHOES.
Shopping.
Traveling.
Arrival at a Hotel.
Hotel Breakfast.
Hotel Dinner.
On Shipboard.
Things Not to Do.
Introductions.
HE "PEELED OFF HIS COAT."
MADE TRAVEL LUXURIOUS.
Pullman's First Sleeping-Car.
COLT AND HIS REVOLVER.
Investors Were Timorous.
THE FIRST EXPRESSMAN.
Carpetbags First Express Cars.
A Builder of the West.
TRIUMPHS OF A RUNAWAY.
ONE LEVIATHAN YIELDED $100,000.
LINES ON A SKELETON.
EVOLUTION OF THE PIANO.
THE FIRST LIGHTHOUSE.
ORIGIN OF THE TYPEWRITER.
THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK.
THE INVENTION OF MATCHES.
THE FIRST HORSE-CARS.
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
SHE BEGAN IN "1492."
At Fifteen Dollars a Week.
Those Elusive Sleepers.
HYMN GOT WOODRUFF ON.
Chorus Boy In "Pinafore."
How the Rungs Were Climbed.
SELWYN LOST JOB AS USHER.
How a Job Was Captured.
An Energetic Salesman.
A Series of Discouragements.
How Selwyn Held Up Gillette.
Selwyn's Varied Make-Ups.
The Turning of the Long Lane.
Stranded in Chicago.
Striking the Iron While It Was Hot.
A Staggering Blow.
The Visit of Louis Philippe.
The Brothers of Napoleon.
The Two Sons of Murat.
The Prince of Wales's Tour.
Kings and Princes From Many Lands.
THE FANTOM OF THE LINKS.
THE LOST BALL.
GOLF IN CACTUS CENTER.
WHEN MACLAREN FOOZLED OUT.
THE LOST GRIP.
Rienzi.
Wagner.
Argument.
The Parson's Suggestion.
Lamb's Unkind Thrust.
A Weighty Politician.
Religiously Personal.
A Beggar's Benison.
Hard Hit by Napoleon.
A Triumph for Billingsgate.
David vs. Goliath.
An American Woman's Retort.
Silencing the Surgeon.
Thomas Lawson's Sharp Tongue.
The Deacon Smelled Sulfur.
Laying Up Treasure for Heaven.
Tact of Disraeli.