Doubtless the whole town helped to spoil him. Doubtless he has heard
all his life that the town was too small for him, and that a man like
himself ought to go to the city, where there would be a market for his
talents. Doubtless he has conquered the hearts of all the village
maidens; therefore he expects the same arts to win among city girls.
This system of easy victory and of yearning for other worlds to
conquer, instead of making him fit himself capably for a larger field,
has, on account of this absurd fault of irresistibleness, only made
him superficial. His crudeness is, to the uninitiated, almost pitiful.
Having never been obliged to work for pre-eminence, he descries
exertion, and never admits that he has to try hard to win anything.
His cheap little accomplishments of singing--badly--possibly even of
reciting dialect with realistic effects, he is accustomed to say he
"just picked up." I often have thought that he must have picked them
up after somebody else had thrown them away. But they have been
efficacious in his town, and in a larger field, with foemen more
worthy of his steel, they are intended to enslave.
The irresistible man is too pitiful to laugh at with any degree of
comfort. The pathos of the situation is almost too apparent.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118