Cannonading is his technical
specialty; he has been trained in the artillery under the old
regime, and made perfect in the military arts of shirking his
duties, swindling the paymaster over travelling expenses, and
dignifying war with the noise and smoke of cannon, as depicted in
all military portraits. He is, however, an original observer, and
has perceived, for the first time since the invention of
gunpowder, that a cannon ball, if it strikes a man, will kill
him. To a thorough grasp of this remarkable discovery, he adds a
highly evolved faculty for physical geography and for the
calculation of times and distances. He has prodigious powers of
work, and a clear, realistic knowledge of human nature in public
affairs, having seen it exhaustively tested in that department
during the French Revolution. He is imaginative without
illusions, and creative without religion, loyalty, patriotism or
any of the common ideals. Not that he is incapable of these
ideals: on the contrary, he has swallowed them all in his
boyhood, and now, having a keen dramatic faculty, is extremely
clever at playing upon them by the arts of the actor and stage
manager.
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