In other times, and under other circumstances, he might have made what is generally termed a great man, a patriot, or a conqueror.

As it was, the very qualities which might then have pushed him on to fortune and renown were the cause of his ruin.

The war over, he fell into evil courses; for his wild heart and ambitious spirit could not brook the sober and quiet pursuits of honest industry.
'Can an Arabian steed submit to be a vile drudge ?' I cries the fatalist.
Nonsense! A man is not an irrational creature, but a reasoning being, and has something within him beyond mere brutal instinct.

The greatest victory which a man can achieve is over himself, by which is meant those unruly passions which are not convenient to the time and place.

David did not do this; he gave the reins to his wild heart, instead of curbing it, and became a robber, and, alas! alas! he shed blood--under peculiar circumstances, it is true, and without _malice prepense_--and for that blood he eventually died, and justly; for it was that of the warden of a prison from which he was escaping, and whom he slew with one blow of his stalwart arm.
Tamerlane and Haggart! Haggart and Tamerlane! Both these men were robbers, and of low birth, yet one perished on an ignoble scaffold, and the other died emperor of the world.