Often devotion to principle is a mere prejudice. Often the crowd, the
mob, can be better controlled to right ends by conceding or seeming to
concede a principle for the time. Don't strike a mortal blow at your own
usefulness to good causes by making yourself a hasty martyr to some fancied
vital principle that will seem of no consequence the next morning but one
after the election."
"I know, Mr. Malcolm, judgment is all but impossible. And I have been
trying to learn what you have been teaching me with your blue pencil, what
you now put into words. But there is something in me--an instinct,
perhaps--that forces me on in spite of myself. I've learned to curb and
guide it to a certain extent, but as long as I am I, I shall never learn to
control it. Every man must work out his own salvation along his own lines.
And with my limitations of judgment, it would be fatal to me, I feel, to
study the art of compromise. Where another, broader, stronger, more master
of himself and of others, would succeed by compromising, I should fail
miserably. I should be lost, compassless, rudderless. I have often envied
you your calmness, your ability to see not only to-morrow but the day
after. But, if I ever try to imitate you, I shall make a sad mess of my
career.
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