Recently, in a sort of Proust Questionnaire mood, I told a friend that the masculine virtue I admired most was energy, mostly because I don't seem to have a lot of it. I'm only good at doing one thing at a time. (For example, I seem to be incapable of working at a full-time job and writing a novel simultaneously.) This is probably why I tend to be fascinated by historical prodigies of energy, even if their ends aren't always admirable, like Napoleon, Goethe, and Ryan Seacrest.