Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/258

 232 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. CHAP, good for them, they were never vexed wantonly; . and in proportion as they grew in knowledge of their calling, they came to understand why it was that their chief compelled them to toil. A bodily ardour for fighting may be more or less masked and hidden ; but he to whom this great passion has not been vouchsafed by nature, is wanting in one of the qualities which go to make a general. For warfare is so anxious and complex a business, that against every vigorous movement heaps of reasons can for ever be found; and if a man is so cold a lover of battle as to have no stronger guide than the poor balance of the arguments and counter-arguments which he ad- dresses to his troubled spirit, his mind, driven first one way and then another, will oscillate, or even revolve, turning miserably on its own axis, and making no movement straight forward. Now, it is a characteristic still marking the Scottish blood, that often — and not the less so when it flows in the veins of a gentle-hearted being — it is seen to fire strangely and suddenly at the prospect of a fight. Campbell loved warfare with a deep passion ; and at the thought of battle his grand, rugged face used to kindle with un- controllable joy. ' The brigade of Guards will be destroyed ; ' ought it not to fall back ? ' * When Sir Colin Camjjbell heard this saying, his blood rose so high that the answer he gave — impassioned and whom this suggestion originated, see ante.
 * As to the comparatively subordinate rank of the o£!icer with