The American was about to take his leave, considerably disappointed with the Heads of Oxford colleges, but he suspected that American neutrality might be at the bottom of the Warden's reticence.
"I am not one of those Americans," he said, rising, "who regard President Woodrow Wilson as the only statesman in the world at this present moment."
The Warden threw his cigarette into the fire. "Wilson has one qualification for statesmanship," he said, rising and speaking as if he was suddenly roused to interest by this highly contentious subject.
The American was surprised. "I presume, coming from you, Professor, that you speak of the President's academic training?" he said.
"I am not a Professor," said the Warden, at last sufficiently awakened from his preoccupation to make a correction that he should have made before. "The University has not conferred that honour upon me. Yes, I mean an academic training. When a man who is trained to think meets a new problem in politics he pauses to consider it; he takes time; and for this the crowd jeer at him! The so-called practical man rarely pauses; he doesn't see, unless he has genius, that he mustn't treat a new problem as if it were an old one. He decides at once, and for this the crowd admire him. 'He knows his own mind,' they say!"
The Warden spoke with a ring of sarcasm in his voice. It was a sarcasm secretly directed against himself. That letter in his pocket was the cause.
He had been confronted in the small world of his own life with a new problem—marriage, and he ought to have understood that it was new, new to himself, complicated by his position and needing thought; and he had not thought, he had acted. He had belied the use and dignity of his training. Had he any excuse? There was the obligation to marry, and there was "pity." Were these excuses? They were miserable excuses.
But he had no time to argue further with himself, the inexorable voice of the man standing opposite to him broke in.
"In your view, Warden, the practical man is too previous?" said the American, making notes (in his own mind).
"He is too confident," said the Warden. "It is difficult enough to make an untrained man accept a new fact. It is still more difficult to make him think out a new method!"