He
merely knows that he is right, and he has no interest whatever in
convincing other people; when they know better, when they get rid of
their emotional prejudices, they will feel, he is sure, as he does.
In discussing matters he is not at all a doctrinaire; he deals with any
objections that one makes courteously and frankly, and even covers his
opponent's retreat with a polite quoting of possible precedents.
Without being a well-bred man, he is so entirely unpretentious that he
could hold his own in any company. He would sit next a commercial
traveller and talk to him pleasantly, just as he would sit next the
King, if it fell to his lot to do so, and talk without any
embarrassment.
I find it hard to say why it is that a man who is so admirable in his
conduct of life and in his relations with others inspires me at times
with so strange a mixture of anger and terror. I am angry because I
feel that he takes no account of many of the best things in the world;
I am frightened because he is so extraordinarily strong and complete.
If he were to be given absolute and despotic power, he would arrange
the government of a State on just and equable lines; the only tyranny
that he would originate would be the tyranny of common-sense. The only
thing which he would be hard on would be unreasonableness in any form.
I am very fond of reasonableness myself; I think it a very fine and
beautiful quality, and I think that it wins probably the best victories
of the world.
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