He saw all the
kinds of people, from those who would read the Wainwright
chapters from day to day as a sort of sensational novel, to
those who would work up a gentle sympathy for the woe of
others around the table in the evenings. He saw bar keepers
and policemen taking a high gallery thrill out of this kind of
romance. He saw even the emotion among American colleges
over the tragedy of a professor and some students. It
certainly was a big affair. Marjory of course was everything in
one way, but that, to the world, was not a big affair. It was the
romance of the Wainwright party in its simplicity that to the
American world was arousing great sensation; one that in the
old days would have made his heart leap like a colt.
Still, when batteries had fought each other savagely, and
horse, foot and guns were now about to make a general
advance, it was difficult, he could see, to stir men to think and
feel out of the present zone of action; to adopt for a time in fact
the thoughts and feelings of the other side of the world. It made
Coleman dejected as he saw clearly that the task was wholly on
his own shoulders.
Of course they were men who when at home
manifested the most gentle and wide-reaching feelings; most of
them could not by any possibility have slapped a kitten merely
for the prank and yet all of them who had seen an unknown
man shot through the head in battle had little more to think of it
than if the man had been a rag-baby.
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