After that definite break with principle and
self-respect for the sake of his coal holdings, his Wall Street friends and
his newspaper career, the development of his character continued along
strictly logical lines with accelerating speed. And it was accompanied by
an ever franker, more cynical acceptance of the change.
He could not deceive himself, nor can any man with the clearness of
judgment necessary to great achievement--although many "successful" men,
for obvious reasons of self-interest, diligently encourage the popular
theory of warped conscience. He was well aware that he had shifted from the
ideal of use _to_ his fellow-beings to the ideal of use _of_ his
fellow-beings, from the ideal of character to the ideal of reputation. And
he knew that the two ideals can not be combined and that he not only was
not attempting to combine them but had no desire so to do. He despised his
former ideals; but also he despised himself for despising them.
His quarrel with himself was that he seemed to himself a rather vulgar sort
of hypocrite. This was highly disagreeable to him, as his whole nature
tended to make him wish to be himself, to make him shrink from the part of
the truckler and the sycophant which he was playing so haughtily and so
artistically.
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