The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-11-11

tiny. Until he had started from Kron-
stadt four years before on q. voyage
that had Inundated his proud spirit
more than once, and undermined as
splendid physique as ever was grant
ed to even a Russian, he had rolled
the world under his foot. With an APP
pearance and personal magnetism, gifts
OF mind and manner and character that
would have commanded attention
amidst the general facciditY Of his
race and conquered life without the
great social advantages he inherited,
he had enjoyed power and pleasure to
degree that would have spoiled a
coarser nature long since. True, the
time had come when he had cared little
for any of his endowments save as a
means to great ends, when all his ener-
gies had concentrated in the determine
ton to live life Of the highest posi-
span was but existence-his ambitions
cohered and been driven steadily to-
ward permanent niche in history;
then paled and dissolved for an hour
in the glorious vision Of human happi-
ness.
And finally as he might realize
mans insignificance among the blind
forces Of nature, he could accept it
philosophically and die with his soul
uncorroded by misanthropy, that final
and une 31 admission Of fail
preme failure of life because he had
not the intelligence to realize, or could
not reconcile himself to, the incom-
plete condition of human nature. Man
was made up of little qualities, and as
plratlons for great ones. Many yielded
in the struggle and sank into impotent
dlscontent among the small material
things of life, instead of uplifting
themselves with the picture of the in
evitable future when development had
run It's course, and indulgently pity
ing the children Of his own period who
so often made life hateful with their
tent obstacle to human endeavor- and
injustice. The, bad Judgment Of the
mass! How many careers it had
baked, if not ruined, with it's poor
ideals, It's mean heroes, its instructive
avoidance of superior qualities foreign
to itself, its contemplate desire to be
identified with a fashion. 1t was this
low standard of the crowd that in
duced mlsanthropy in many otherwise
brave spirits who lacked the insight
to discern the divine spark underneath,
the persistence, sure of reward, to fight
their way to this spark and reveal it
" oA-S S1HC VI dSCOulSu6u anu ndCCereQ
humanity: Rezanov's very arrogance
had led. him to regard the mass of
mankind as but one degree removed
from the nursery; his good nature and
philosophical spirit to treat them with
an Indulgence that kept sourness out
OF his cynicism and inevitably recur-
ring WEAKNESS and disgust; his ardent
imagination had consoled itself with
the vision of future when man
should live in a world made reasonable
by the triumph of ideals that now
lurked half ashamed in the high spaces
of the human mind. = - :.
He looked back in wonder at the mo-
ment OF wild regret and protest-the
bltterer In its silence-when they had
told him he must die; when in the last
rally Of the vital forces he had believed
his will was still strong enough to COM
mand his ravaged body, to propel his
braln,, still teeming with a vast and
complicated future, his heart, still
warm and insistent with the image it
cherished, on to the ultimates of ambi-
tlon and love. How brief it had been,
that last cry of mortality, with it's &C.
compartment Of furious wonder at his
unseemly and senseless cutting off. In
the adjustment and readiustment of
political and natural forces the world
ambled on philosophically, fulfilling its
inevitable destiny. If he had not been
beyond humor he would have smiled at
the idea that in the face Of all eternity
it mattered what nation on one little
planet eventually possessed fragment
called California. To him that fair
land was empty and purpose1ess save
for one figure, and even Of her he