CHAPTER VII.
TWO COFFINS.
"Where are the princes who held mightiest sway?
Where are the heroes all, the wise and bold?
The world endures when thou hast pass'd away,
And none has read its riddle deep and old.
The course of things is full of teachings wise,
But, reckless still, we close unheeding eyes."—Firdusi.
As I called up before my mind the history of Napoleon, his splendid empire, the peoples and princes that this headlong comet had drawn onward in his train, the flood of events he had thrown upon the world, the influence he had exercised over unnumbered human destinies—there came over me, in his now desolate and silent house, at once a sadness and its consolation.
All those boundless passions that devoured half the world and were not satisfied, where are they, and what power have they now? They are as a dream, as a great fable that Father Time tells his children. Our thanks are due to Time—the silent and mysterious power that again levels all, humbles heaven-aspiring potentates, checks unscrupulous self-aggrandizement, and effectually ostracizes over-grown ambition.