were abroad and active, and their mental states and points of view and
interests--and sincerities and insincerities--were the subject of his
wholly brilliant analysis. He rather admired the clever opportunist, I
think, so long as he was not mean in view or petty, yet he scorned and
even despised the commercial viewpoint or trade reactions of a man like
McKinley. Rulers ought to be above mere commercialism. Once when I asked
him why he disliked McKinley so much he replied laconically, "The voice
is the voice of McKinley, but the hands--are the hands of Hanna."
Roosevelt seemed to amuse him always, to be a delightful if ridiculous
and self-interested "grandstander," as he always said, "always looking
out for Teddy, you bet," but good for the country, inspiring it with
visions. Rockefeller was wholly admirable as a force driving the country
on to autocracy, oligarchy, possibly revolution. Ditto Hanna, ditto
Morgan, ditto Harriman, ditto Rogers, unless checked. Peary might have,
and again might not have, discovered the North Pole. He refused to
judge. Old "Doc" Cook, the pseudo discoverer, who appeared very shortly
before he died, only drew forth chuckles of delight. "My God, the gall,
the nerve! And that wreath of roses the Danes put around his neck! It's
colossal, Dreiser. It's grand. Munchausen, Cook, Gulliver, Marco
Polo--they'll live forever, or ought to!"

Some Saturday afternoons or Sundays, if he came to me or I to him in
time, we indulged in long idle rambles, anywhere, either going first by
streetcar, boat or train somewhere and then walking, or, if the mood was
not so, just walking on and on somewhere and talking. On such occasions
Peter was at his best and I could have listened forever, quite as the
disciples of Plato and Aristotle must have to them, to his discourses on
life, his broad and broadening conceptions of Nature--her cruelty,
beauty, mystery. Once, far out somewhere beyond Camden, we were idling
about an inlet where were boats and some fishermen and a trestle which