The man of action who, like Napoleon, can dominate the minds of others in a crisis, must have the general traits of leadership developed with special reference to the promptness of their action. His individual significance must take the form of a palpable decision and self-confidence; and breadth of sympathy becomes a quick tact to grasp the mental state of those with whom he deals, so that he may know how to plant the dominating suggestion. Into the vagueness and confusion that most of us feel in the face of a strange situation, such a man injects a clearcut idea. There is a definiteness about him which makes us feel that he will not leave us drifting, but will set a course, will substitute action for doubt, and give our energies an outlet. Again, his aggressive confidence is transmitted by suggestion, and acts directly upon our minds as a sanction of his leadership. And if he adds to this the tact to awaken no opposition, to make us feel that he is of our sort, that his suggestions are quite in our line, in a word that we are safe in his hands; he can hardly be resisted.
In face-to-face relations, then, the natural leader is one who always has the appearance of being master of the situation. He includes other people and extends beyond them, and so is in a position to point out what they must do next. Intellectually his suggestion seems to embrace what is best in the views of others, and to embody the inevitable conclusion; it is the timely, the fit, and so the prevalent. Emotionally his belief is the strongest force present, and so draws other beliefs into it. Yet, while he imposes himself upon others, he feels the other selves as part of the situation, and so adapts himself to them that no opposition is awakened; or possibly he may take the violent method, and browbeat and humiliate a weak mind: there are various ways of establishing superiority, but in one way or another the consummate leader always accomplishes it.
Take Bismarck as an example of almost irresistible personal ascendency in face-to-face relations. He had the advantage, which, however, many men of equal power have done without, of an imposing bulk and stature; but much more than this were the mental and moral traits which made him appear the natural master in an assembly of the chief diplomats of Europe. “No idea can be formed,” says M. de Blowitz,[[83]] “of the ascendency exercised by the German Chancellor over the eminent diplomatists attending the Congress. Prince Gortchakoff alone, eclipsed by his rival’s greatness, tried to struggle against him.” His “great and scornful pride,” the absolute, contemptuous assurance of superiority which was evident in every pose, tone, and gesture, accompanied, as is possible only to one perfectly sure of himself, by a frankness, good-humor, and cordial insight into others which seemed to make them one with himself, participators in his domination; together with a penetrating intelligence, a unique and striking way of expressing himself, and a perfect clearness of purpose at all times, were among the elements of the effect he produced. He conciliated those whom he thought it worth while to conciliate, and browbeat, ignored, or ridiculed the rest. There was nothing a rival could say or do but Bismarck, if he chose, would say or do something which made it appear a failure.
General Grant was a man whose personal presence had none of the splendor of Prince Bismarck, and who even appeared insignificant to the undiscerning. It is related that when he went to take command of his first regiment soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, the officer whom he was to succeed paid no attention to him at first, and would not believe that he was Grant until he showed his papers. An early acquaintance said of him, “He hadn’t the push of a business man.” “He was always a gentleman, and everybody loved him, for he was so gentle and considerate; but we didn’t see what he could do in the world.”[[84]] Yet over the finer sort of men he exercised a great ascendency, and no commander was more willingly obeyed by his subordinates, or inspired more general confidence. In his way he manifested the essential traits of decision, self-confidence, and tact in great measure. He never appeared dubious, nervous, or unsettled; and though he often talked over his plans with trusted officers, he only once, I believe, summoned a council of war, and then rejected its decision. He was nearly or quite alone in his faith in the plan by which Vicksburg was taken, and it is well known that General Sherman, convinced that it would fail, addressed him a formal remonstrance, which Grant quietly put in his pocket and later returned to its author. “His pride in his own mature opinion,” says General Schofield, “was very great; in that he was as far as possible from being a modest man. This absolute confidence in his own judgment upon any subject he had mastered, and the moral courage to take upon himself alone the highest responsibility, and to demand full authority and freedom to act according to his own judgment, without interference from anybody, added to his accurate estimate of his own ability, and his clear perception of the necessity for undivided authority and responsibility in the conduct of military operations, and in all that concerns the efficiency of armies in time of war, constituted the foundation of that very great character.”[[85]] He was also a man of great tact and insight. He always felt the personal situation; divining the character and aims of his antagonists, and making his own officers feel that he understood them and appreciated whatever in them was worthy.
In spite of the fact that a boastful spirit is attributed to Americans, the complete renunciation of external display so noticeable in General Grant is congenial to the American mind, and characteristic of a large proportion of our most successful and admired men. Undoubtedly our typical hero is the man who is capable of anything, but thinks it unbecoming to obtrude the fact. Possibly it is our self-reliant, democratic mode of life, which, since it offers a constant and varied test of the realities, as distinct from the appearances, gives rise to a contempt of the latter, and of those arts of pretence which impose upon a less sophisticated people. The truth about us is so accessible that cant becomes comparatively transparent and ridiculous.[[86]]
There is no better phenomenon in which to observe personal ascendency than public speaking. When a man takes the floor in an assembly, all eyes are fixed upon him, all imaginations set to work to divine his personality and significance. If he looks like a true and steadfast man, of a spirit kindred with our own, we incline to him before he speaks, and believe that what he says will be congenial and right. We have all, probably, seen one arise in the midst of an audience strange to him, and by his mere attitude and expression of countenance create a subtle sense of community and expectation of consent. Another, on the contrary, will at once impress us as self-conceited, insincere, over-excited, cold, narrow, or in some other way out of touch with us, and not likely to say anything that will suit us. As our first speaker proceeds, he continues to create a sense that he feels the situation; we are at home and comfortable with him, because he seems to be of our sort, having similar views and not likely to lead us wrong; it is like the ease and relaxation that one feels among old friends. There can be no perfect eloquence that does not create this sense of personal congeniality. But this deference to our character and mood is only the basis for exerting power over us; he is what we are, but is much more; is decided where we were vacillating, clear where we were vague, warm where we were cold. He offers something affirmative and onward, and gives it the momentum of his own belief. A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail. “Speak only what you do know and believe, and are personally in it, and are answerable for every word.” In comparison with these traits of mind and character, fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory, which is well enough in its subordinate place, but can easily be dispensed with. Bismarck was not the less a great orator because he spoke “with difficulty and an appearance of struggle,” and Cromwell’s rude eloquence would hardly have been improved by lessons in elocution.
Burke is an example of a man who appears to have had all the attributes of a great speaker except tact, and was conspicuously contrasted in this respect with Fox, whose genial nature never failed to keep touch with the situation. A man whose rising makes people think of going to dinner is not distinctively a great orator, even though his speeches are an immortal contribution to literature. The well-known anecdote of the dagger illustrates the unhappy results of losing touch with the situation. In the midst of one of his great discourses on the French Revolution, intending to impress upon his hearers the bloody character of that movement, Burke drew from his bosom a dagger and cast it on the floor. It so happened, however, that the Members of Parliament present were not just then in the mood to be duly impressed by this exhibition, which produced only astonishment and ridicule. Fox could never have done a thing of this sort. With all Burke’s greatness, it would seem that there must have been something narrow, strenuous, and at times even repellent, in his personality and manner, some lack of ready fellow-feeling, allowing him to lose that sense of the situation without which there can hardly be any face-to-face ascendency.
The ascendency which an author exercises over us by means of the written page is the same in essence as that of the man of action or the orator. The medium of communication is different; visible or audible traits give place to subtler indications. There is also more time for reflection, and reader or writer can choose the mood most fit to exert power or to feel it; so that there is no need for that constant preparedness and aggressiveness of voice and manner which the man of action requires. But these are, after all, incidental differences; and the underlying traits of personality, the essential relationship between leader and follower, are much the same as in the other cases. The reader should feel that the author’s mind and purpose are congenial with his own, though in the present direction they go farther, that the thought communicated is not at all alien, but so truly his that it offers an opportunity to expand to a wider circle, and become a completer edition of himself. In short, if an author is to establish and maintain the power to interest us and, in his province, to lead our thought, he must exhibit personal significance and tact, in a form appropriate to this mode of expression. He must have a humanity so broad that, in certain of our moods at least, it gives a sense of congeniality and at-homeness. He must also make a novel and characteristic impression of some sort, a fresh and authentic contribution to our life; and must, moreover, be wholly himself, “stand united with his thought,” have that “truth to its type of the given force” of which Walter Pater speaks. He must possess belief in something, and simplicity and boldness in expressing it.
Take Darwin again for example, all the better because it is sometimes imagined that personality is unimportant in scientific writing. Probably few thoughtful and open-minded persons can read the “Origin of Species” without becoming Darwinists, yielding willingly, for the time at least, to his ascendency, and feeling him as a master. If we consider the traits that give him this authority, it will be found that they are of the same general nature as those already pointed out. As we read his chapters, and begin to build him up in our imaginations out of the subtle suggestions of style, we find ourselves thinking of him as, first of all, a true and simple man, a patient, sagacious seeker after the real. This makes us, so far as we are also simple seekers after the real, feel at home with him, forget suspicion, and incline to believe as he believes, even if we fail to understand his reasons—though no man leaves us less excuse for such failure. His aim is our aim—the truth, and as he is far more competent to achieve it in this field than we are, both because of natural aptitude and a lifetime of special research, we readily yield him the reins, the more so because he never for an instant demands it, but seems to appeal solely to facts.
How many writers are there, even of much ability, who fail, primarily and irretrievably, because they do not make this favorable personal impression; because we divine something insincere, something impatient, some private aim that is not truth, which keeps us uncomfortably on our guard and makes us reluctant to follow them even when they appear most incontrovertible. Mr. Huxley suggested that Darwin harmed his case by excessive and unnecessary deference to the suggestions of his opponents; but it may well be that in the long run, and with the highest tribunal, this trait has added to his power. Many men have been convinced by the character of Darwin, by his obvious disinterestedness and lack of all controversial bias, who would never have followed Huxley. I have had occasion to notice that there is no way of making converts to the idea of evolution so effectual as to set people reading the “Origin of Species.” Spencerism comes and goes, but Darwinism is an abiding condition.