Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/343

 one, he has no occasion for instruction; he is born the man for their purpose.

"Thus, the Duke of Wellington is not a general by trade—I mean by instruction; for, if examined before a court-martial on all the branches of military tactics, perhaps he would be found deficient. Hundreds may know more of them than he does: but he is a general by his star. He acts under a certain impulse, which makes him hit on the stratagem he ought to practise, and, without the help of previous study or even the suggestions of experience, he knows that his manuvre is right. It was thus with me when I was young. People might preach and talk; but, when I saw them doing things or reasoning about them, I could at once distinguish the things that were right from the things that were wrong; but I could not say why or wherefore. My father said I was the best logician he ever saw—I could split a hair. The last time he saw me, he repeated the same words, and said I had but one fault, which was being too fond of royalty."

I observed here to Lady Hester, that in many things she reminded me of the ancient philosophers, to whom she bore a strong resemblance on most points; but that in this one particular she differed from them widely, as most of them were strenuously opposed to royalty and monarchical power. "My