Now, I will tell you a story whose moral is that, whose lesson is that,
whose lament is that.
I was in a village which is a suburb of New Bedford several years ago
--well, New Bedford is a suburb of Fair Haven, or perhaps it is the other
way; in any case, it took both of those towns to make a great centre of
the great whaling industry of the first half of the nineteenth century,
and I was up there at Fair Haven some years ago with a friend of mine.
There was a dedication of a great town-hall, a public building, and we
were there in the afternoon. This great building was filled, like this
great theatre, with rejoicing villagers, and my friend and I started down
the centre aisle. He saw a man standing in that aisle, and he said "Now,
look at that bronzed veteran--at that mahogany-faced man. Now, tell me,
do you see anything about that man's face that is emotional? Do you see
anything about it that suggests that inside that man anywhere there are
fires that can be started? Would you ever imagine that that is a human
volcano?"
"Why, no," I said, "I would not. He looks like a wooden Indian in front
of a cigar store.
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