My first wild, aboriginal impulse with Upton Sinclair when I come up to him as I do sometimes—violent, vociferous roaring behind his bars, is to whisk him right over from being an Upton Sinclair into being me. I do not deny it.
Then I remember softly, suddenly, how I felt when I was watching the lions eat.
I remember the pelican.
Thus I save my soul in time.
Incidentally, of course, Upton Sinclair's insides are saved also.
It is beautiful the way the wild beasts in their cages persuade one almost to be a Christian!
Of course when one gets smoothed down one always sees people very differently. In being tolerant the rub comes usually (with me) in being tolerant in time. I am tempted at first, when I am with Upton Sinclair, to act as if he were a whole world of Upton Sinclairs and of course (anybody would admit it) if he really were a whole world of Upton Sinclairs he would have to be wiped out. There would be nothing else to do. But he is not and it is not fair to him or fair to the world to act as if he were.
The moment I see he is confining himself to just being Upton Sinclair I rather like him.
It is the same with Ella Wheeler Wilcox. It is when I fall to thinking of her as if she were, or were in danger of being, a whole world of Ella Wheeler Wilcoxes that I grow intolerant of her. Ella Wheeler Wilcox as a Tincture, which is what she really is, of course, is well enough. I do not mind.
The real truth about a man like Upton Sinclair, when one has worked down through to it, is that while from my point of view a class-war socialist—a man who proposes to put society together by keeping men apart—is wrong and is sure to do a great deal of harm to some people, there are other people to whom he does a great deal of good.