SEARCH
0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Prev | Current Page 126 | Next

Gilbert, Clinton W. (Clinton Wallace), 1871-1933

"The Mirrors of Washington"


Perhaps he is like Lloyd George, who is not logical but achieves
his successes through two or three senses which ordinary men have
not; however, unlike Lloyd George, he cannot simulate logic and,
after jumping to his conclusions, reduce them to the understanding
of the three-dimensional mind. It is a grief to him that he cannot;
for if he could make a speech, that is to say, translate himself,
that figure of Disraeli would, he thinks, be less remote. But when
your mental operations are a succession of miracles, you may have
brilliant intuitions and extraordinary prevision about the mineral
supplies necessary to win the war,--which he had--you may have
wonder, like the naive and the poets, about that extraordinary
thing yourself, or about that still more extraordinary thing which
is life or destiny, but you cannot move the masses.
Still there are compensations. A perfectly logical mind would have
explained all the wonder away, reduced the miracle of personality
to a stolid operation of cause and effect, quite self-approbatively
no doubt, and made Mr. Baruch talk of himself as the rest of the
great do, modestly, after this fashion: "Behold me! I am what I am
because when I was nine years old I saved nine cents and resolved
then and there always to save as many cents each year as I was
years old. Young man, SAVE!"
There is no fun in being not a wonder but a copy book.


Pages:
114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138