The sentimentalist is a person who, in decisions, judgments, plans of action, and conduct of them, point of view in dealing with persons individually and collectively, has his conduct so colored by sentiment that his plan of action and ability and methods of its execution seem illogical and incapable of being subjected to the test of reason. Carlyle put it tersely when he said: "The barrenest of mortals is the sentimentalist."
The agonal struggle of the Great War was not necessary to convince us that very little is to be accomplished in the world single-handed. The individual can give birth to the idea, the plan, or possess the initiative which may revolutionize some phase of the activities of the world, but to carry out the idea he must have the co-operation of many. It is in securing such co-operation that he has a great opportunity to make a proper use of sentiment. There is nothing that an organizer or an administrator finds out earlier or surer than that loyalty is the cement that keeps his organization together, and the more it sets the more firm and invulnerable becomes his organization.
How to engender such loyalty is a problem that each person confronted with it must solve for himself. Some do it by meriting the respect and admiration of their coworkers and subordinates by display of such qualities as kindliness, justice, generosity, consideration of the welfare of their fellows, while others encompass it by the whole-hearted and unselfish way in which they give themselves to the work. Some do it quite impersonally and may possibly not be on terms of intimacy with any member of their organization. This does not necessarily mean that they hold themselves aloof from those with whom they come in contact; on the contrary, there may exist a genial comradeship from which mutual respect, admiration, and possibly even affection are developed. Some few develop loyalty from personal contact on the basis of sentimentality. They proceed upon the plan that if they cannot secure the personal admiration and affection of those associated with them, impelling them to do their best because of this relationship rather than for the good of the cause, they have not been completely successful in their accomplishment. To this end they not infrequently resort to a display of sentimentality which is distressing to the impartial onlooker. That great dissector of the morals and motives of men, Thackeray, said: "One tires of a sentimentalist who is always pumping the tears from his eyes or your own." They lavish praise upon those who have not merited it, substituting adulation for admonition; they profess a confidence that is not justified by results; they claim to see only virtues in every individual who is drawn into the sacred circle of their employment or association. Should they have suspicions that some in their circle are not deserving of confidence or do not have the qualities from which loyal, useful associates can be made, they delude themselves with the belief that they can engender a sufficient desire in the inadequate one to compel him to be loyal and efficient in order that the confidence and admiration of the chief may be requited.
People who work together should respect each other, and by it employer and employee should be linked together. If a more intimate relation flows naturally from this respect, well and good, but there should not be the slightest attempt made to engender it on a sentimental basis. The rugged mind of Carlyle eschewed the sentimental. He stated: "The sentimental by and by will have to give place to the practical."
Most men if they strive sufficiently to make others like them can succeed in their endeavor, but a man should be liked for the inherent virtues or laudable qualities that he possesses and not for the semblance of them which he assumes for a special purpose. We like a man because he is trustworthy, loyal, efficient, reliable, truthful, co-operative, sympathetic, understanding, but we do not necessarily like him because some one else tells us that we ought to like him, particularly if we have found that he does not possess any of the qualities we desire and which would have made him acceptable. The sentimentalist is often guided in his decisions and in his conduct relative to others by the fear that, if he apprises the individual of the reason why he no longer wishes to keep up business or professional relations with him, the individual thus treated will devote some time afterward to tarnishing the lustre of his halo.
The sentimentalist fears especially the criticism, disparagement, and possibly one might say the malignity of those from whom he chooses to separate after they have been weighed and found wanting. It is not that he fears that injury will be done him, because not infrequently his career is so successful that it can withstand an enormous amount of disparagement and criticism without detrimental impression. The disparagement of such individuals can do him no harm save in the humiliation to his pride when it is brought home to him that he has not been able to make the leopard change his spots. Self-interest is the subconscious motive that often leads to a display of sentimentality. The sentimentalist realizes that allegations of merit and of capacity are "things that are graceful in a friend's mouth but blushing in a man's own," and as such praise is the breath of his nostrils he will go to great lengths to achieve its accomplishment. But, though he may be deceived by flattery, there are others who know that "on ne trouve jamais l'expression d'un sentiment qui l'on n'a pas; l'esprit grimace et le style aussi." He is the easy prey for those who appeal to his vanity or to his susceptibility to flattery, to advance their own or others' projects and interests, and he may be led into doing things which his sober judgment tells him are not desirable, because he feels that he must not run the risk of lowering himself in the estimate of the individual from whom he has accepted adulation, reverence, or adoration.
When the male sentimentalist habituates himself to this worshipful attitude from the other sex he becomes covered with points which Achilles had only immediately above the heel. The sex which has long been popularly known as the weaker has an inherited or acquired code of morality which permits them to make demands of the sentimental man which a mere man, unless base, would scorn, and now that the sex has been emancipated we begin to feel that they should come out in the open and play fair. If they want to rely for their successes upon the weapons that have been vouchsafed them heretofore, they should not have the privileges which they are asking for and receiving to-day. Heaven knows no one is more desirous that they should have what they ask for in that direction than I am, but they should not use their sex quality to take an unfair advantage. Thus oftentimes one who merits the designation of "pillar of strength and tower of fire" becomes a reed in the emotional wind that blows from the designing woman. She may not be designing in a malignant sense; she may merely enjoy the display of power. It is remarkable what a sentimentalist will put up with in the shape of indignity and inefficiency rather than run the risk of being impaired in the esteem of one who has this kind of influence over him. Emerson, one of our deepest thinkers, said: "Man is the will and woman is the sentiment. In this ship of humanity will is the rudder and sentiment the sail; when woman affects to steer, the rudder is only the masked sail."
There is nothing more Jove-like than virility and continency, but a man saturated with sentimentality produces a sensation akin to that which the child experiences when she finds her doll is stuffed with sawdust.
Sentiment in a man is like scent in a rose. It is the finishing touch to perfection; when it is deficient it thrills one no more than the painted flower; when it is excessive the heaviness of its enervating odor is oppressive.