I was just starting to remind myself how tiresome the war scenes are in nineteenth-century literature. Dragoons and flanks, musketeers and battery, Cossacks and campaigns- all so tiring. But then, Tolstoy, that timeless genius, throws these wise words across the page in War and Peace.
Prince Andrey listened carefully to Prince Bagration’s colloquies with the commanding offi-cers, and to the orders he gave them, and noticed, to his astonishment, that no orders were really given by him at all, but that Prince Bagration confined himself to trying to appear as though everything that was being done of necessity, by chance, or at the will of individual officers, was all done, it not by his order, at least in accordance with his intentions. Prince Andrey observed, however, that, thanks to the tact shown by Prince Bagration, notwithstanding that what was done was due to chance, and not dependent on the commander’s will, his presence was of the greatest value.
Sometimes you can see two structures melding in real time. On the one hand the underlings, those closest yo the knowledge, are given the right to choose; on the other hand a charade of power preserves the status of those in charge.
Sometimes, it’s best if public life is not too exacting.
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