Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/183

 a gentleman; he was received and entertained like one. His self-respecting manner, his stage-trained presence, his growing store of personal magnetism, his strong, interesting face, with the odd light of spiritual ardor in his eyes, and the little choke of enthusiasm that came into his voice, all helped to make his presence welcome and his canvass entertaining. He became an adept in reading character and in playing upon the springs of desire and resolution.

He discovered, too, something to interest and admire in nearly every one upon whom he called. He was surprised to find how nice people were generally. He had before known people mainly in the mass, as publics, as audiences, or congregations. Now he began to know them as individuals, and to like them, to conceive a sort of social passion for them, and to desire fervently to do all men good. With this went the knowledge that he was becoming socially very skillful, and a sense of still increasing personal power peppered his veins with the sparkle of new hopes. Ambition flamed once more. The king in his soul was alive again. He could not only meet people, but handle them. He felt that as a politician he could win votes, as a lawyer he could sway juries.

He might even turn again to the stage, with the prospect of swifter and surer success; but he had begun to discover that one cannot go back, that no life ever flows up-stream.

Yet the thing which really made the stage career no longer possible was this sense of new powers grown up within him that were not mimetic, but creative and constructive, and which would insistently demand some other form of expression.

Besides, the perspective of his life was now long enough for him to look back and see how all his experiences had enriched him. His very awkwardness, his temporary