Through his worth and capacity in other directions he would have this quality if he “had time” and seclusion for thought. But his life makes it possible for an explosive and heated talker, a mouther of platitudinous phrase, to stand cheek by jowl in his esteem with a seer of elevation and limpid thoughtfulness. His estimate of even lighter publicities is tinctured by this defect—the theatrical, for instance, where a verdant girl, lavishing upon her ambition for the stage the money she inherited from a father’s patent syrup or pills, and an actress of genius and experience fall in his mind in the same category because a theatrical syndicate has equally advertised each.
What the result to politics of this indiscriminating and non-sagacious judgment, this lack of feeling for finer lines in character—mark, peculiar nature, as Plato means when he uses the word in the Phædrus—would be hard to estimate.
Although for the most part a private citizen absorbed in his own affairs, the holder of an office has to him a peculiar glamour. He is apt to fall into the thinking lines of writers of nameless editorials, who, forgetful of their own hidden effulgence, fillip at quiet folk as “parochial celebrities” and “small deer.” And yet he knows that he lives in an age of réclame, and that by the expenditure of a few dollars in direct or indirect advertisement a name may be set before more people than our forefathers numbered on the first Independence Day.
In his midst is a certain publicity of spirit, and in his estimation work undertaken in the sight of men is of a higher order than that done in the privacy of one’s closet. The active life is everything; the contemplative, nothing. Talking is better than writing—it so easily gives opportunity for the aggressive personality. For a young woman looking to support herself he advocated type-writing in a public office in preference to the retirement of nursery governess. When the girl drew back with the dread of publicity which results from the retired life of women, he exclaimed, “It’s all a question of whether you’ve got the courage to take the higher thing.”
If he is a fruit of self-cultivation, he enjoys talking of the viridity of his growth as well as these now purpler days. During early struggles he may have undergone suffering and privation. In that event, if his nature is narrow and hard, he has become narrower and harder, and his presence, like Quilp’s, shrivels and deadens every accretion save his interest. But when he is of the better sort of soil, adversity discovers the true metal, and misfortune gives him a sympathy, depth, and tenderness that charm you to all defects. You would migrate to his neighborhood to live in the light of his genial warmth. You think of the beautiful encomium Menelaus pronounced upon Patroclus—“He knew how to be kind to all men.”
Beyond all, he is open-eyed and open-eared. And above all he is affirmative; never negative. His intuition tells him it is affirmation that builds, and that Bacon says right—“it is the peculiar trait of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives.”
“Why do people buy and read such fool stuff as ‘Treasure Island’? I can’t see.”
“They read it for its story of adventure, and for its rare way of telling the story,” I ventured, in answer. “They read it for its style.”
“Style! Gemini! Style! I should smile! I can write a better book than that myself!”
“Then it might pay you as a business venture to set yourself about it.”