The name is absent

30 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
supineness; and they die like a flame unfed. Once they have
attained the tyrannical heights they seek, these men are
destined to look down thenceforward on the hate of those
below.

We trace this vein through the remainder of the poem.
Byron points out that a contributing factor to Napoleon’s
downfall was one weakest weakness—vanity. However, this
fault alone did not comprise the chief error or cause the fail-
ure of the emperor. One less sensitive than Byron to the
needs and desires of a suffering humanity would have failed
to see that, as the poet says in a note:

The great error of Napoleon, “if we have writ our annals
true,” was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of
all community of feeling for or with them; perhaps more
offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more
trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches to
public assemblies as well as individuals; and the single ex-
pression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris
after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his
hands over a fire, “This is pleasanter than Moscow,” would
probably alienate more favor from his cause than the de-
. Struction and reverses which led to tire remark.¹⁰

And what is the result of Napoleon’s lack of community of
feeling with mankind? What do we reap from this “barren
being”? The result is oppression of the worst kind. Men fear
lest their own judgments become too bright and their free
thoughts be crime. Thus, they plod in sluggish misery from
generation to generation, begetting inborn slaves, who wage
war for their chains rather than be free. They fall in the
same worn-out causes in which they have seen their fellows
fall and do not realize, as he indicates in many places, that
their hope lies within themselves.

The continuation of Childe Harold’s pilgrimage in the last
two cantos of the poem gives the poet more opportunities to
expound his favorite theme. For example, when he visits the

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