implicated. He is the compend of time; he is also the
correlative of nature. His power consists in the
multitude of his affinities, in the fact that his life
is intertwined with the whole chain of organic and
inorganic being. In old Rome the public roads
beginning at the Forum proceeded north, south, east,
west, to the centre of every province of the empire,
making each market-town of Persia, Spain and Britain
pervious to the soldiers of the capital: so out of the
human heart go as it were highways to the heart of
every object in nature, to reduce it under the
dominion of man. A man is a bundle of relations, a
knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world.
His faculties refer to natures out of him and predict
the world he is to inhabit, as the fins of the fish
foreshow that water exists, or the wings of an eagle
in the egg presuppose air. He cannot live without a
world. Put Napoleon in an island prison, let his
faculties find no men to act on, no Alps to climb, no
stake to play for, and he would beat the air, and
appear stupid. Transport him to large countries, dense
population, complex interests and antagonist power,
and you shall see that the man Napoleon, bounded that
is by such a profile and outline, is not the virtual
Napoleon. This is but Talbot's shadow;--

"His substance is not here.
For what you see is but the smallest part
And least proportion of humanity;
But were the whole frame here,