Show howe H owe about mr dick ones conscience nicholas murray butler by ED HOWE HE worlds noted are pretty gen THE brally bores but it must be ad bitted they are selected and rated with considerable d among warriors one hears most of napoleon bonaparte and fairness corn com the admission he was about the best of all of them of writing men perhaps the name of charles dickens la is printed most frequently again the world has judged fairly he was ably the best one english speaking people everywhere h have a v e pretty generally reid read david copperfield C 0 p per field and laughed at mr dick an agreeable sort of fellow ex capt that in his convers he soon drifted around to king charles R celebrity in whom he was specially interested and in talking of his fa evorite subject was very tiresome on all other subjects mr dick was dis posed to be pol te and reasonable rei but he could not talk long without king kin charles charl es wandering in and spoiling everything charles dickens created mr air dick as a warning against a very com common mon human weakness I 1 have not known know n anyone who did not constantly weaken himself with some sort of special folly I 1 often d lagree with philosophers one of them writes most lost persons who talk about their conscience hurt ing them are merely walling because they ve been found out in my life time I 1 ive ve known few men to be re pendant except when discovered doing things they t do I 1 am humiliated no more by faults in which I 1 have been found out than by faults unknown to the public some of my acts of which I 1 am ashamed are still per bonal secrets III never tell some are known to one other who will never tell at least so fir as I 1 know they never have told I 1 blame airn mv my self as much because of these secret faults as because of others which have been in print or on the I 1 ps of neigh bors my greatest wonder Is a proud man I 1 never hive bave been proud indeed I 1 believe my neighbors rate me rather higher than I 1 rate myself I 1 am not here confessing to any of the greater crimes but to petty faults so numerous they greatly ate me a nicholas murray butler president of columbia university sends me cir clr colars regularly without offense I 1 can say this of very few professors gentlemen of this trade employ a grandeur in thinking and expression which ces me against them while considering their product and their merit I 1 read everything pro fessor butler sends me and am in debated to him for this sentence the oldest lesson which mankind has had to learn and which mankind does not even now fully comprehend Is that the social order rests upon a foundation which Is not economic at all but moral I 1 have long be lieveld the greatest mistake of men Is that they do not behave better that they do not without fuss or feathers make behaviorism the basis of the universal religion we hae bane long need ed cd I 1 am obliged to doctor butler perhaps the most eminent of our professors for so simply restating my belief if a publisher should ask asif me to write in old age what I 1 think of life I 1 think I 1 should ask him to let me at tempt it in the manner in which I 1 cin write best all my thoughts are in paragraphs I 1 can write easiest in that way and best express my meaning and providing I 1 succeeded in confine ing the publisher I 1 should make sim liar appeal to readers I 1 am unable to connect easily long arguments it Is hard work and I 1 know I 1 am weak at it there has been no better than Freder frederich Pre derich leb but in trying m to connect them and make a book he made so poor a job of thus I 1 can not read it although I 1 deli delight glit in his exhibits of wit and intelligence after they have been collected and shortened by patient readers I 1 have never seen a book sufficiently brief and simple except the story of philosophy by will durant and this was a collection of the sayings of others had probes sor durant been writing his own ions of life perhaps he would have been less competent in selecting and exhibited more dullness in writing or speaking of others one Is usually an abler critic than when writing or speaking about himself I 1 often feel apologetic because I 1 so frequently write of subjects I 1 have written about before if other writers do not they are too b g feeling and perhaps exhibit the fault frequently in other ways a p somehow I 1 like the men who some how discover it is better to go straight than to go to the devil how these good men discover it does not much matter d sc it Is enough I 1 in I 1 ke most people I 1 somewhat some whit hit in anve e and hate everybody but the straight men I 1 find least troublesome a A fool here her a pauper there fre a reasonably good citizen who pays his debts and is respected by his neighbors say what you will about human nature we ye have gotten along rather well with it al we have been able to improve it a little when we are tried 0 1333 1933 bell syndicate service f f itt tk w w 4 e t |