ttle vanity.

In truth, however, the charge is mistaken, for at bottom I believe him
to be a very humble-minded man, and one who does not in the least
overrate himself. This may be gathered, indeed, from the tenor of his
remarks on the subject of his personal value to the Army, that I have
recorded at the beginning of this book.

What people of slower mind and narrower views may mistake for pride,
in his case, I am sure, is but the impatient and unconscious
assertiveness of superior power, based upon vision and accumulated
knowledge. Also, as a general proposition, I believe vanity to be
almost impossible to such a man. So far as my experience of life goes,
that scarce creature, the innately, as distinguished from the
accidentally eminent man, he who is fashioned from Nature's gold, not
merely gilded by circumstance, is never vain.

Such a man knows but too well how poor is the fruit of his supremest
effort, how marred by secret weakness is what the world calls his
strength, and when his gifts are in the balance, how hard it would be
for any seeing judge to distinguish his success from common failure.
It is the little pinchbeck man, whom wealth, accident, or cheap
cleverness has thrust forward, who grows vain over triumphs that are
not worth having, not the great doer of deeds, or the seer whose
imagination is wide enough to enable him to understand his own utter
insignificance in the scale of things.

But to return to General Booth. Again I hear him explaining to me vast
schemes, as yet unrealized, that lurk at the back of his vivid,
practical, organizing brain. Schemes for settling tens of thousands of
the city poor upon unoccupied lands in sundry portions of the earth.
Schemes for great universities or training colleges, in which men and
women might be educated to deal with the social problems of our age on
a scientific basis. Schemes for obtaining Government assistance to
enable the Army to raise up the countless mass of criminals in many
lands, taking charge of them as they leave the jail, and by
regenerating their fallen natures, saving them soul and body.

In the last interview I had with him, I read to him a note I had made
of a conversation which had taken place a few days before between Mr.
Roosevelt and myself on the subject of the Salvation Army. Here is the
note, or part of it.

MR. ROOSEVELT: 'Why not make use of all this charitable energy, now
often misdirected, for national ends?'

MYSELF: 'What