CHAPTER XIX 
HIS PERSONALITY 
HERE are certain men whose lives are 
so open and free that the innermost 
pages are disclosed at a glance. Certain others 
need only the lightning flash of circumstance 
or occasion to reveal phases of their life long 
hidden. Certain others remain the sphinx to 
the end. 
Luther Burbank belongs to no one of these 
classes, but rather to all of them. With noth- 
ing secretive in his nature, he yet has depths 
that his nearest friend does not fathom. Will- 
ing at all times to be himself precisely as he 
is, indeed, more, never playing the hypocrite 
by cloaking his own estimate of his own deeds, 
though absolutely unspoiled by praise and 
impregnable to flattery, he is yet constantly 
disclosing some new and striking character- 
istic. Clarity itself, and frankly unreserved 
when he meets those who understand, he con- 
stantly baffles understanding by the subtlety 
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