"Little by little, self-command returned. He compared himself to a general who has just half won a great battle. The advantage is assured, he said to himself -- and is immense; but what will happen tomorrow? all could be lost in an instant.
With a passionate gesture he opened the Memoirs Dictated at St. Helena by Napoleon, and forced himself to read them for two long hours; his eyes alone were doing the reading -- but that did not signify; he compelled himself to go on. During this strange exercise, his heart and mind, soaring to the highest possible plane, worked on unconsciously. This is a heart altogether different from that of Mme de Rênal, he was saying to himself -- but got no further.
'Make her afraid,' he cried suddenly, flinging the book away. The enemy will obey me only so far as I frighten him, that's when he daren't despise me."
The Red and the Black, Stendhal (M-H B)