He had not acquired an old man's calm
poise--he was not entirely willing to put politics ahead of everything
else, now that he found there were so many other things in life. Was it
not true that the mass preferred to pay court to high ideals in the
abstract, and bitterly resented any attempt by sincere individuals to
enforce the actual? He understood rather vaguely that he would be
applauded by the radicals--he had met their leaders and did not like
them--he would get the applause the mob gives to "a well-meaning
fellow," but more than all he would be sneered at behind his back as "a
crank trying to reorganize human nature," and therefore to be shunned.
He had been mingling intimately with the chief men of the State; he knew
what kind of comment they had for others. Most of all, he knew that the
mild applause of the mob would not be loud enough to drown out those
familiar voices nearest him--he had heard those voices many times
before: there was his grandfather, there was Luke Presson, there were
the political associates with whom he had already begun to train on the
basis of compromise.
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