CHAPTER XIX 



HIS PERSONALITY 



r ■ 1 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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