Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/187

Rh sensitiveness was acute, and whatever breeze blew on the wires produced music. If these ideas had been a dominant passion in him, he would have found the patience and strength requisite for something like a real apprehension of the social problem. He would have illuminated it at least partially, and he has illuminated it in no wise. Nothing he said of it is of any importance; little of any interest. His sole contribution here is his complete fearlessness, the fearlessness of the dream-drugged fanatic who believes he cannot be killed by infidel bullets. 'Give us the truth, whatever it is,' he exclaims once, and it is usual to call this sort of thing the passion for truth. But it is not: it is the passion of the intoxication of courage. No one can deny Shelley courage. He would go anywhere, and face anything. You had only to persuade him that some of those horrid people who defiled and destroyed his dreams were in front of him, and he was ready to risk his life in trying to get at them; and nothing was easier than to persuade him. A little laudanum would do it; a little spiteful talk would do it. He was at the mercy of every fool or knave, male or female—and especially female. There was no calculating on him, and the worst feature of all in him was that he was always sincere, always in earnest. Some such character, perchance, was John, the beloved disciple,