THE REAL MAN: by H. Coryn, M. D., M. R. C. S.
"NOW we know the real man," is the usual comment when some heretofore respectable citizen is convicted of forgery and sent to jail: "Now we know his real character."
Do we?
A fire breaks out in the prison and the forger reveals himself a hero, risking life without a second's hesitation for the rescue of his jailer or fellow-prisoners.
Do we now know his "real character"?
Later on, his confinement, throwing him in upon himself, provides opportunity for the manifestation of a marked vein of poetry, and from his prison he issues a volume which at once takes high rank in the literature of the day.
Some will now put away their moral standard of measurement, produce another, and remark that the "real man" after all turns out to have been a poet.
You can photograph half of a man's face, right or left, throw the picture over upon itself and get a whole face composed of two lefts, and another of two rights—often quite different.
We judge character in that way, taking any one aspect of it upon which we choose to dwell or which alone we see, and of that one constructing a whole. Thus the same man viewed by various knowers of him is a philosopher, a sharp lawyer, a skilful amateur actor, or an ever-ready helper and friend in times of trouble or perplexity. To his cook he may be solely a grumbler, and to his son at school a supply-machine whose crank is not always easy to turn.