It is through
this quality that we get continuity in him; without it, we cannot evade
the insoluble problem of two men,--two lives,--one following the other
with no visible link of connection between them; without it we have
physically one creature, morally and mentally two beings. If we reject
this trait, we throw away the only key which unlocks the problem of the
most singular life, taken from end to end, which has ever been witnessed
among men, a life which many have been content to regard as an unsolved
enigma. But if we admit and really perceive and feel the full force of
this trait, developed in him in a degree probably unequaled in the
annals of men, then, besides the enlightenment which it brings, we have
the great satisfaction of eliminating much of the disagreeableness
attendant upon his youthful days. Even the commonness and painful
coarseness of his foolish written expressions become actually an
exponent of his chief and crowning quality, his receptiveness and his
expression of humanity,--that is to say, of all the humanity he then
knew. At first he expressed what he could discern with the limited,
inexperienced vision of the ignorant son of a wretched vagrant pioneer;
later he gave expression to the humanity of a people engaged in a
purpose physically and morally as vast and as grand as any enterprise
which the world has seen. Thus, with perfect fairness, without wrenching
or misrepresentation or sophistry, the ugliness of his youth ceases to
be his own and becomes only the presentation of a curious social
condition.
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