PARAGRAPH FOR PRECIS

What manner was Napoleon then? Was he one of the great ones of the earth, the Man of Destiny as he was called, a mighty hero and one who helped in freeing, humanity from its many burdens? Or was he, as H.G. Wells and some others say, a mere adventurer and a wrecker, who did great injury to Europe and civilisation? Probably both these views are exaggerated, and probably both contain some measure of the truth. All of us are curious mixtures of the good and the bad, the great and the little. He was such a mixture; but unlike most of us, extraordinary qualities went to make tip the mixture. He had courage, self-confidence, imagination, amazing energy and vast ambition. He was a very great general, a master of the art of war, comparable to the great captains of old — Alexander and Genghis. But he was petty and selfish and self-centered and the dominating impulse of his life was not the pursuit of an ideal, but the quest for personal power. “My mistress!”, he once said, “Power is my mistress! The conquest of that mistress has cost me so much that I will allow no one to rob me of her, or to share her with me”. Child of the Revolution he was, and yet be dreamt of a vast Empire and the conquests of Alexander filled his mind. Even Europe seemed small. The East lured him and especially Egypt and India. “Only in the East”, he said, early in his career when he was twenty-seven, “have there been great empires and mighty changes; in the east where six hundred million people dwell. Europe is a molehill”.

(274 words)

**(Note. This passage contains the character of Napolean. There are a couple of quotations from what Napolean said. In a precis nothing like these quotations are to be kept; only the main idea contained in them will be incorporated.

Further, the passage begins with interrogatory sentences. In a precis no such sentences in this form are to be put. The precis has to | be simply in the affirmative sentences).

SOLVED PRECIS 

Title: Character of Napolean-A Mixture of Opposites.

Napoleon’s character is a mixture of opposites. He was a great commander, and possessed great imagination, courage, and self-confidence. But he was too ambitious, power-hungry, and self-conceited. He wanted to conquer not only Europe but even the East; Egypt and India were on his plans of conquest. Europe alone appeared to him a tiny region for his vast conquests. He was a great conqueror but historians have also described him as a great wrecker who ruined the world and its civilisation.

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