remembrance: I rely on him as on myself: if he did thus or thus, I know
it was right.

In all the superior people I have met, I notice directness, truth spoken
more truly, as if everything of obstruction, of malformation, had been
trained away. What have they to conceal? What have they to exhibit?
Between simple and noble persons, there is always a quick intelligence:
they recognize at sight, and meet on a better ground than the talents
and skills they may chance to possess, namely, on sincerity and
uprightness. For, it is not what talents or genius a man has, but how he
is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and character. The man
that stands by himself, the universe stands by him also. It is related
of the monk Basle, that, being excommunicated by the Pope, he was, at
his death, sent in charge of an angel to find a fit place of suffering
in hell; but, such was the eloquence and good-humor of the monk, that,
wherever he went, he was received gladly, and civilly treated, even by
the most uncivil angels: and, when he came to discourse with them,
instead of contradicting or forcing him, they took his part, and adopted
his manners: and even good angels came from far to see him, and take up
their abode with him. The angel that was sent to find a place of torment
for him, attempted to remove him to a worse pit, but with no better
success; for such was the contented spirit of the monk, that he found
something to praise in every place and company, though in hell, and made
a kind of heaven of it. At last the escorting angel returned with his
prisoner to them that sent him, saying, that no phlegethon could be
found that would burn him; for that, in whatever condition, Basle
remained incorrigibly Basle. The legend says, his sentence was remitted,
and he was allowed to go into heaven, and was canonized as a saint.

There is a stroke of magnanimity in the correspondence of Bonaparte with