he world likes to be clapped on the shoulder, to be
rallied on its manifest inconsistencies, and to have its hand wrung with
a real heartiness. Also he believes that the heart of the world is
sentimental, and that an authentic appeal in that quarter may lead to
friendship--a friendship which, in its turn, may lead to business.
Business is the true end of all his heartiness.

It is in his business manner that one gets nearer to the innermost
secret of his nature. He is before everything else a superb man of
business, far-seeing, practical, hard-headed, an organiser of victory, a
statesman of the human soul. You cannot speak to him in this practical
sphere without feeling that he is a man of the most unusual ability.

He can outline a complicated scheme with a precision and an economy of
words which, he makes you feel, is a tribute to your perspicacity rather
than a demonstration of his own powers of exposition. He comes quicker
to the point than nine men of business out of ten. And he sticks to the
main point with a tenacity which might be envied by every industrial
magnate in the country.

Moreover, when it comes to your turn to speak he listens with the whole
of his attention strung up to its highest pitch, his eyes wide open
staring at you, his mouth pursed up into a little O of suction, his
fingers pressing to his ear the receiver of a machine which overcomes
his deafness, his whole body leaning half across the table in his
eagerness to hear every word you say.

No sentiment shows in his face, no emotion sounds in his voice. He is
pure mind, a practical mind taut with attention. If he have occasion in
these moments to ring the bell for an adjutant or a colonel, that
official is addressed with the brevity and directness of a manager
giving an order to his typist. Instead of a text over his mantelpiece
one might expect to find the commercial legend, "Business Is Business."

Here, as I have said, one is nearer to the truth of his nature, for
General Booth is an organiser who loves organisation, a diplomatist who
delights in measuring his intelligence against the recalcitrance of
mankind, a general who finds a deep satisfaction of soul in moving
masses of men to achieve the purpose of his own design.

But even here one is not at the innermost secret of this extraordinary
man's nature.

At the back of everything, I am convinced, is the cold and commanding
intensity of a really great fanatic. He believes as no littl