What I need is rest, repose,
quiet, routine, understanding, sympathy, friendship, yes, my God! the
friendship of those around me. Mr. Ireland, I can do much, I can do
everything for a man who will be my friend. I can give him power, I can
give him wealth, I can give him reputation, the power, the wealth, the
reputation which come to a man who speaks to a million people a day in
the columns of a great paper. But how am I to do this? I am blind, I'm
an invalid; how am I to know whom I can trust? I don't mean in money
matters; money's nothing to me; it can do nothing for me; I mean
morally, intellectually. I've had scores of people pass through my hands
in the last fifteen years--Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Welshmen,
Germans, Frenchmen, Americans, men of so-called high family, men of
humble birth, men from a dozen universities, self-taught men, young men,
old men, and, my God! what have I found? Arrogance, stupidity,
ingratitude, loose thinking, conceit, ignorance, laziness, indifference;
absence of tact, discretion, courtesy, manners, consideration, sympathy,
devotion; no knowledge, no wisdom, no intelligence, no observation, no
memory, no insight, no understanding. My God! I can hardly believe my
own experience when I think of it.
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