DOI article:
Harland, Henry: The friend of man
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38746#0074
The Friend of Man
7°
You stood up, in front of him ; but you were invisible to him ; he
saw beyond you. And even when he spoke, he did not speak to
you, he spoke to the walls and ceiling—he thought aloud. He
took no account of his auditor’s capacities, of the subject that would
interest him, of the language he would understand. You asked
him to tell you about Mazzini, and he discoursed of Albigo and
the Unification of Mankind. And then, when he ceased to speak,
directly he fell silent and somebody else took the word, the gates
of his mind were shut; he withdrew behind them, returned to his
private meditations, and so remained, detached, solitary, preoccupied,
till the time came when he was moved to speak again. He was
the Friend of Man, but men did not exist for him. He was like
a mathematician busied with a calculation, eager for the sum-total,
but heedless of the separate integers. My father—my mother—
I—whosoever approached him—was a phantasm : a convenient
phantasm, possibly, a phantasm with a house where he might be
lodged and fed, with a purse whence might be supplied the funds
requisite for the publication of his works ; or possibly a trouble-
some phantasm, a phantasm that worried him by shouting at its
play : but a phantasm, none the less.
Years ago, my downright Aunt Elizabeth had disposed of him
with two words : a charlatan, an impostor. My Aunt Elizabeth
was utterly mistaken. Mr. Ambrose’s sincerity was absolute.
The one thing he professed belief in, he believed in with an
intensity that rendered him unconscious of all things else ; his one
conviction was so predominant as to exclude all other convictions.
What was the one thing he believed in, the one thing he was
convinced of ? It would be easy to reply, himself; to declare that,
at least, when she had called him an egotist, my Aunt Elizabeth
had been right. It would be easy, but I am sure it would be
untrue. The thing he believed in, the thing he was convinced of,
the
7°
You stood up, in front of him ; but you were invisible to him ; he
saw beyond you. And even when he spoke, he did not speak to
you, he spoke to the walls and ceiling—he thought aloud. He
took no account of his auditor’s capacities, of the subject that would
interest him, of the language he would understand. You asked
him to tell you about Mazzini, and he discoursed of Albigo and
the Unification of Mankind. And then, when he ceased to speak,
directly he fell silent and somebody else took the word, the gates
of his mind were shut; he withdrew behind them, returned to his
private meditations, and so remained, detached, solitary, preoccupied,
till the time came when he was moved to speak again. He was
the Friend of Man, but men did not exist for him. He was like
a mathematician busied with a calculation, eager for the sum-total,
but heedless of the separate integers. My father—my mother—
I—whosoever approached him—was a phantasm : a convenient
phantasm, possibly, a phantasm with a house where he might be
lodged and fed, with a purse whence might be supplied the funds
requisite for the publication of his works ; or possibly a trouble-
some phantasm, a phantasm that worried him by shouting at its
play : but a phantasm, none the less.
Years ago, my downright Aunt Elizabeth had disposed of him
with two words : a charlatan, an impostor. My Aunt Elizabeth
was utterly mistaken. Mr. Ambrose’s sincerity was absolute.
The one thing he professed belief in, he believed in with an
intensity that rendered him unconscious of all things else ; his one
conviction was so predominant as to exclude all other convictions.
What was the one thing he believed in, the one thing he was
convinced of ? It would be easy to reply, himself; to declare that,
at least, when she had called him an egotist, my Aunt Elizabeth
had been right. It would be easy, but I am sure it would be
untrue. The thing he believed in, the thing he was convinced of,
the