Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/46

 of conventionality itself. His unconventionality was innate. J. R. Macdonald has given us in his appreciation of Jaurès published in the Contemporary Review for September, 1914, a delightful picture of his careless ease. "I was once walking," he says, "through the streets of Stuttgart and saw a strange figure in front of me. It belonged to an order all by itself. Jauntily set upon its head was a straw hat, somewhat the worse for wear, its clothes were baggy and pitchforked upon its back, below its trouser-legs were folds of collapsed white stockings, under its arm it carried, or rather dragged an overcoat. It sauntered along looking at the shops and houses as it went, unconscious of everything except its own interest, like a youth looking upon a new world, or a strolling player who had mastered fate and had discovered how to fill the moments with happy unconcern. It was the happy-go-lucky Jaurès."

Add to this cheerful disregard for the smaller proprieties of dress and manner that Jaurès was unusual enough to live simply, and to die poor, and it becomes evident that in personal matters as well as in all else he was by no means one of the herd.

But with a nature so responsive, so sympathetic, so truly representative as his, and a mind so interested in the world around him, he could not be for long a voice crying in the wilderness.