ity to the Tribuniciate of the two Americas.

The Pope had read rapidly through these objective facts, for He knew
them well enough already, and was now studying with close attention the
summary of his character, or rather, as the author rather sententiously
explained, the summary of his self-manifestation to the world. He read
the description of his two main characteristics, his grasp upon words
and facts; "words, the daughters of earth, were wedded in this man to
facts, the sons of heaven, and Superman was their offspring." His minor
characteristics, too, were noticed, his appetite for literature, his
astonishing memory, his linguistic powers. He possessed, it appeared,
both the telescopic and the microscopic eye--he discerned world-wide
tendencies and movements on the one hand; he had a passionate capacity
for detail on the other. Various anecdotes illustrated these remarks,
and a number of terse aphorisms of his were recorded. "No man forgives,"
he said; "he only understands." "It needs supreme faith to renounce a
transcendent God." "A man who believes in himself is almost capable of
believing in his neighbour." Here was a sentence that to the Pope's mind
was significant of that sublime egotism that is alone capable of
confronting the Christian spirit: and again, "To forgive a wrong is to
condone a crime," and "The strong man is accessible to no one, but all
are accessible to him."

There was a certain pompousness in this array of remarks, but it lay, as
the Pope saw very well, not in the speaker but in the scribe. To him who
had seen the speaker it was plain how they had been uttered--with no
pontifical solemnity, but whirled out in a fiery stream of eloquence, or
spoken with that strangely moving simplicity that had constituted his
first assault on London. It was possible to hate Felsenburgh, and to
fear him; but never to be amused at him.

But plainly the supreme pleasure of the writer was to trace the analogy
between his hero and nature. In both there was the same apparent
contradictoriness--the combination of utter tenderness and utter
ruthlessness. "The power that heals wounds also inflicts them: that
clothes the dungheap with sweet growths and grasses, breaks, too, into
fire and earthquake; that causes the partridge to die for her young,
also makes the shrike with his living larder." So, too, with
Felsenburgh; He who had wept over the Fall of Rome, a month later had
spoken of extermination as an instrument