Then it stopped, still facing the shot. Then, at last,
the English troops rushed from the post from which no enemy had been
able to dislodge them, and the Guard turned and fled.
No more firing was heard at Brussels,---the pursuit rolled miles away.
Darkness came down on the field and city; and Amelia was praying for
George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart.
Who before ever began the description of a great victory by praising the
enemy! And yet when we consider it, there is no more artistically
powerful method than this, of showing how very great the enemy was,
and then saying simply, "The English defeated them."
But Thackeray wished to do more than this. He was preparing the reader
for the awful presence of death in a private affliction, Amelia's loss
of her husband George. To do this he lets his heart go out in sympathy
for the French, and by that sympathy he seems to rise above all race, to
a supreme height where exist the griefs of the human heart and God alone.
With all this careful preparation, the short, simple closing paragraph---
the barest possible statement of the facts---produces an effect unsurpassed
in literature.
Pages:
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241