But simplicity and modesty, at least, are very rare and
royal human virtues, not to be lightly talked about. Few human beings,
and at rare intervals, have really risen into being modest; not one man
in ten or in twenty has by long wars become simple, as an actual old
soldier does by long wars become simple. These virtues are not things to
fling about as mere flattery; many prophets and righteous men have
desired to see these things and have not seen them. But in the
description of the births, lives, and deaths of very luxurious men they
are used incessantly and quite without thought. If a journalist has to
describe a great politician or financier (the things are substantially
the same) entering a room or walking down a thoroughfare, he always
says, "Mr. Midas was quietly dressed in a black frock coat, a white
waistcoat, and light grey trousers, with a plain green tie and simple
flower in his button-hole." As if any one would expect him to have a
crimson frock coat or spangled trousers. As if any one would expect him
to have a burning Catherine wheel in his button-hole.
But this process, which is absurd enough when applied to the ordinary
and external lives of worldly people, becomes perfectly intolerable when
it is applied, as it always is applied, to the one episode which is
serious even in the lives of politicians.
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