He worked for
success; he assumed failure. He taught himself to care nothing
about success, but only about doing as intelligently and as
thoroughly as he could the thing next at hand.
What has all this to do with his infatuation for Jane? It serves
to show not only why the Workingmen's League was growing like a
plague of gypsy moth, but also why Victor Dorn was not the man to
be conquered by passion. Naturally, Jane, who had only the
vaguest conception of the size and power of Victor Dorn's mind,
could not comprehend wherein lay the difference between him and
the men she read about in novels or met in her wanderings among
the people of her own class in various parts of the earth. It is
possible for even the humblest of us to understand genius, just
as it is possible to view a mountain from all sides and get a
clear idea of it bulk and its dominion. But the hasty traveler
contents himself with a glance, a ``How superb,'' and a quick
passing on; and most of us are hasty travelers in the scenic land
of intellectuality. Jane saw that he was a great man. But she
was deceived by his frankness and his simplicity. She evoked in
him only the emotional side of his nature, only one part of that.
Because it--the only phase of him she attentively examined--was
so impressive, she assumed that it was the chief feature of the
man.
Also, young and inexperienced women--and women not so young, and
with opportunity to become less inexperienced but without the
ability to learn by experience--always exaggerate the importance
of passion.
Pages:
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286