I am going to let myself go around, for a while now, at least until our present national crisis is over in business and in politics, like that boy.
There are millions of other men in this country who want to be like that boy. Nations may smile at us if they want to. We will smile too—rather stiffly and soberly, but for better or worse we propose from to-day on, to let people see what we are trying to be daily, grimly, right along side of what we are!
I have come to the conclusion that the only way, for me, at least, to keep modest and kind, is to have my ideals all on. When one is going around in sight of everybody with one's moral sleeves rolled up, and one's great wistful, broad trousers that do not look as if they would ever get filled out, it is awkward to find fault with other people for not filling out their moral clothes. It may be a severe measure to take with one's self hut the surest way to be kind is to live an exposed life.
I propose to live the next few years in a glass house. There are millions of other men who want to. We want to see if we cannot at last live confidentially with a world, live naïvely and simply with a world like boys and like great men and like dogs!
What I have written, I have written. I propose to run the risk of being good. When driven to it, I will run the risk of saying I am good.
My motives are fairly high. See! here is my scale of one hundred! I had rather stand forty-five on my scale than ninety-eight on yours!
If there is any discrepancy between my vision and my action, I am not going to be bullied out of my life and out of living my life the way I want to, by the way I look. Though it mock me, I will not haul down my flag. I will haul up my life!
Here it is right here in this paragraph, in black and white. I take it up and look at it, I read it once more and lay it down.
What I have written, I have written.
III