cooled. My answer was simply this: I should try to give him what I
constantly and without much effort gave most men--_A new sensation_.
After all it is not such a hard thing to do. Blase men are my especial
prey; they can always be reached; their vulnerable points are many, but
generally well concealed.

I have lost my early enthusiasms, but my enthusiastic _manner_
still remains. A genuine, cynical touch has, here of late, fallen into
my life. It is not an affectation. I am all the better for that touch;
it makes me more of a power among my subjects. For they are in reality
my subjects. In the main they are loyal. They are ready to fight for me
and my cause--if I had one.

I have divided my subjects--and other men--into:

I. Platitudes,
II. Pleasures.

Platitudes are men who lead an honest, stupid existence. They are
contented with their lot--because ignorant of any other. They are
resentful of all innovations--because they are narrow-minded and full
of deep ruts; they are guiltless of one clever thought; they sometimes
stumble into somewhat of a clever action, but humbly deprecate the move,
unconscious of having done a clever thing. Such men used to float about
me in shoals of delicious stupidity. I was such a new creature! I was so
different from the women they had met and always known. They were the
foolish moths, I the candle-flame. They dashed blindly into danger; they
fluttered about in ungraceful, ungracious misery. Finally, they would
fly out and go on their little commonplace ways full of scars and petty
burns, but not altogether marred--all the better for their uncomfortable
but harmless burning. But nowadays it is quality not numbers which I
desire, so they let me alone and are indeed astonished, bewildered, to
find that I can go on, quite successfully too, and _without them_.
Poor little fools; they are not an absolute necessity to any one--hardly
to themselves.

A Platitude is a selfish creature, and never very grateful unless he
expects a continuance of past favors. With him a cessation of favors
means a cessation of gratitude. A limited number of the Platitude class
still linger about me--principally on account of a long-contracted
habit. They are content with whatever they get; they are entirely
harmless, always useful in some way, and occasionally quite interesting.

* * * * *

A Pleasure is the direct opposite of a Platitude.

He is a clever man--clever