Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/197

Rh he most undertake one of the most difficult of mental tasks, that of classifying and grouping the innumerable combinations to which either party may have recourse for purposes of attack or defence. Out of the multitude of such combinations, which might baffle by their simple enumeration the strongest memory, throwing aside the less important, he must be able to discover, to fix his attention, and to act upon the most favourable. Finally, when the course thus selected having been pursued, and perhaps partially carried out, is found to be entirely deranged by one of those many chances inseparable from such operations, then, in the midst of action, he must be able suddenly to organise a different system of operations, new to all other minds, yet possibly, although unconsciously, anticipated by his own.

"The genius that can meet and overcome such difficulties must be intellectual, and would, under different circumstances, have been distinguished in many a different career.

"Nor even would it be very surprising that such a commander, estimating justly the extent of his own powers, and conscious of having planned the best combinations of which his mind is capable, should, having issued his orders, calmly lie down on the eve of the approaching conflict, and find in sleep that bodily restoration so indispensable to the full exercise of his faculties in the mighty struggle about to ensue."

Soon after the Queen came to the throne, the two Universities presented addresses to her Majesty. I accompanied that of Cambridge. The deputation was very numerous, and much unseemly pushing took place. I recollect a very short dumpy fellow pushing much more energetically than any other, for whom I made way, as I retired from the strife in which I was unwillingly involved. He not only pushed, but was