Had his spirit been broken by his trials, had his intellectual power
weakened under the load of his affliction, had his burning interest in
affairs cooled to a point where he could have been content to turn his
back upon life's conflict, he might have found some happiness, or at
least some measure of repose akin to that with which age consoles us for
the loss of youth. But his greatest misfortune was that all the active
forces of his personality survived to the last in their full vigor,
inflicting upon him the curse of an impatience which nothing could
appease, of a discontent which knew no amelioration.
My first meeting with Mr. Pulitzer is indelibly fixed in my memory. As
we entered the dining-room the butler motioned to me to take a seat on
Mr. Pulitzer's right hand, and as I did so I glanced up and down the
table to find myself in the presence of half-a-dozen gentlemen in
evening dress, who bowed in a very friendly manner as Mr. Pulitzer said,
with a broad sweep of his hand, "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Alleyne Ireland;
you will be able to inform him later of my fads and crotchets; well,
don't be ungenerous with me, don't paint the devil as black as he is."
This was spoken in a tone of banter, and was cut short by a curious,
prolonged chuckle, which differed from laughter in the feeling it
produced in the hearer that the mirth did not spring from the open,
obvious humor of the situation, but from some whimsical thought which
was the more relished because its nature was concealed from us.
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