inary. The newer and cleverer flatterer
takes for granted that he is extraordinary, and that therefore even
ordinary things about him will be of interest.

I have noticed one very amusing way in which this is done. I notice the
method applied to about six of the wealthiest men in England in a book
of interviews published by an able and well-known journalist. The
flatterer contrives to combine strict truth of fact with a vast
atmosphere of awe and mystery by the simple operation of dealing almost
entirely in negatives. Suppose you are writing a sympathetic study of
Mr. Pierpont Morgan. Perhaps there is not much to say about what he
does think, or like, or admire; but you can suggest whole vistas of his
taste and philosophy by talking a great deal about what he does not
think, or like, or admire. You say of him--"But little attracted to the
most recent schools of German philosophy, he stands almost as resolutely
aloof from the tendencies of transcendental Pantheism as from the
narrower ecstasies of Neo-Catholicism." Or suppose I am called upon to
praise the charwoman who has just come into my house, and who certainly
deserves it much more. I say--"It would be a mistake to class Mrs. Higgs
among the followers of Loisy; her position is in many ways different;
nor is she wholly to be identified with the concrete Hebraism of
Harnack." It is a splendid method, as it gives the flatterer an
opportunity of talking about something else besides the subject of the
flattery, and it gives the subject of the flattery a rich, if somewhat
bewildered, mental glow, as of one who has somehow gone through agonies
of philosophical choice of which he was previously unaware. It is a
splendid method; but I wish it were applied sometimes to charwomen
rather than only to millionaires.

There is another way of flattering important people which has become
very common, I notice, among writers in the newspapers and elsewhere. It
consists in applying to them the phrases "simple," or "quiet," or
"modest," without any sort of meaning or relation to the person to whom
they are applied. To be simple is the best thing in the world; to be
modest is the next best thing. I am not so sure about being quiet. I am
rather inclined to think that really modest people make a great deal of
noise. It is quite self-evident that really simple people make a great
deal of noise. But simplicity and modesty, at least, are very rare and
royal human virtues, not to be lightly