Richard the Lion-hearted is in the prize-
ring, and coming into considerable favor. Henry the Eighth is a
tragedian, and the scenes where he kills people are done to the
very life. Henry the Sixth keeps a religious-book stand."
"Did you ever see Napoleon, Sandy?"
"Often--sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes in the French.
He always hunts up a conspicuous place, and goes frowning around
with his arms folded and his field-glass under his arm, looking as
grand, gloomy and peculiar as his reputation calls for, and very
much bothered because he don't stand as high, here, for a soldier,
as he expected to."
"Why, who stands higher?"
"Oh, a LOT of people WE never heard of before--the shoemaker and
horse-doctor and knife-grinder kind, you know--clodhoppers from
goodness knows where that never handled a sword or fired a shot in
their lives--but the soldiership was in them, though they never had
a chance to show it. But here they take their right place, and
Caesar and Napoleon and Alexander have to take a back seat. The
greatest military genius our world ever produced was a brick-layer
from somewhere back of Boston--died during the Revolution--by the
name of Absalom Jones. Wherever he goes, crowds flock to see him.
You see, everybody knows that if he had had a chance he would have
shown the world some generalship that would have made all
generalship before look like child's play and 'prentice work.
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