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Goethe, or Byron, or Emerson, or their 

 likes, might find admirable or faulty in his 

 chatty remarks was of less moment than 

 the stories told him by his servant-man 

 who had been in America and knew some- 

 thinsf about the habits and customs of 

 savages. It was not much to him that 

 Calvin said this or that ; his tailor-boy was 

 a great liar, — would not tell the truth even 

 when truth would best serve his purpose, 

 — and there was matter for thought. The 

 tailor- boy was more like the average man 

 than John Calvin or Martin Luther. When 

 he quoted from Horace, or Plutarch, or 

 Plato, it was not to tickle the ears of schol- 

 ars ; the sayings of Aristotle or of Diogenes 

 were not stones to be flung at the head of 

 a king ; everything was offered to the bluff, 

 honest, average mind. " I should like to 

 die planting my cabbages." " I prefer sec- 

 ond or third place in Perigord to first 

 place in Paris." He liked to converse 

 with peasants, adventurers, country gen- 

 tlemen. It was thus he got close to real 

 life, and his philosophy was simply facts 

 followed by a question-mark. 

 286 



