Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-07-13
CHAPTER XIV, 4 "Boom-F actory,"


 year of his as governor, Buiba lk's wife died--a grim and unexpected ful- fillment of their pretended anxieties Of six months before.
 It was, in some respects, as great loss to me as to him-how great to us both did not-indeed, could not measure until several years passed. She was what I regard as typical American wife-devoted to her hus- band, jealously guarding his interests, yet as keen to see his shortcomings as she was to see her own And how much more persistent and intelligent in correcting her faults than he in cor recting his! Like most men, he was vain-that is. while he would probably have admitted in large, vague way that he wasn't perfect, when 1t came te details he would defend his worst fault against any and all criticism. Like most women, she, too, was vain. but an intelligent woman's vanity, in- stead of making her self-complacent somehow spurs her on to hide her weak points and to show her best points in the best light. For ex- ample, Mrs. Burbank a pretty wom- an and proud of it, was yet conscious of her deficiencies in dress and in manners through her plain and rural early surroundings. It was interest ing and instructive, too, to watch her studying and cleverly copying. or rath- CT, adapting Carlotta; for she took from Carletta only that which could be fitted without visible joint into her own pattern.
 Latterly, whenever I was urging upon Burbank line of action requir- ing courage or sacrifice of some one of his many insidious forms of per scnal vanity, I always arranged for her to be present at our conferences. And she would sit there. apparently absorbed in her sewing; but in reality she was seeing not only the surface reasons I gave him, but also those underlying and more powerful reasons which we do not utter, sometimes be. cause we like to play the hypocrite to ourselves, again because We must give the other person a chance to play the hypocrite himself-and us. And often I left him reluctant and try ing to muster courage to refuse or finesse to evade, only to find him the next day consenting, perhaps enthus- iastic Many's the time she spared me the disagreeable necessity of being peremptory-doubly disagreeable be- cause show of authority has ever been distasteful to me and because an or der can never be so heartily executed as is an assimilated suggestion.
 When I went to him a month after her death, expected he would still be crushed ais he was at the funeral. listened with feeling of revulsion to his stilted and, as it seemed to me, perfunctory platitudes on his ire reparable loss"--stale rhetoric about her, and to her most intimate friend and his! had thought he would be imagining himself done with ambition forever; I had feared his strongly re- ligious nature would lead him to see a judgment" upon him and her for having exaggerated her indisposition to gain a political point And I had mapped out what would say to induce him to go on. Instead. after a few of those stereotyped mortuary sen tences, he shifted to politics and was presently showing me that her death had hardly interrupted his plannings for the presidential nomination. As for the judgment" I had forgotten that in his religion his deity was al- ways on his side, and his misfortunes were always of the evil one. These deities of men of action. Man with his god a ventriloquist puppet in his pocket, and with his conscience an old dog Tray at his heels, needing TO lead ing string!
 However, it gave me a shock. this vivid reminder from Burbank of the slavery of ambisioz--ambition, the vice of vices. For # takes it's victims sll---moral, mental. physical Ant. while other vices rarely wreck any but small men or injure more than what is within their small circles of influence. ambition seiEes only the superior and sets them on 10 use their superior powers to blast communities. states, nations, continents. Yet it is called a virtue. And men who have sold themselves 10 it and for it 10 tho last shred of manhood are esteemed and, mystery Of mysteries. es.sem them selyesi
 I had como to Burbank 10 manuiac- ture him into a president His wife and I had together produced an eN- cellent raw material N0w. 70 make it up into the finished product,
 He pointed 10 the fillng-cases that . covered the vest wall of his library from floor to ceiling. from north win Gov to south. T base my hope on those-Dsrt tO you. of course. said ' he. Then zith his ~voeful widOWsr" pose. he added: They were her sug- gestions.-
 looked at the flingeases and wait cd for him to explain
 When we first married he vent oa presently. she said. 'It seems to . me. # I vere a public man. should keep everything relating to nayseif- every speech. all that tke uewsPapcrs said. every meeting and the lists of the important people who were there. notes of all the people ever met any where. every letter CT telegram or note | received IT you 5u. y0H may fna