he was telling me of the effect of his uncle's broken promise to educate
him. He had suffered deeply for this; and he was sure his whole life
would be influenced by it. It had stirred all the reserve ambition and
power of his nature. It had thrown him forward in a redoubled
determination to overcome the default, to succeed in spite of the lost
opportunity.

Hence he had read many books. He had studied the history of America, and
other countries as well. His mind ran to statecraft. He thought of
nothing else. He sensed men as groups--thinking, desiring, trading,
building--and for these ends organized into neighborhoods, villages,
cities, and states. His genius, even then, was interested in using these
groups for progressive ends, such as he had in view. He was a super-man
who sees empires of progress and achievement for the race through the
haze of the unformed future, and who takes the responsibility of carving
that future out and of forcing history into the segment that his
creative imagination has opened. He would guide and make the future,
while serving men.

Here he was then just past twenty-one, born on April 23d, the reputed
birthday of Shakespeare; young, and yet old with a maturity with which
he was invested at his entrance into the world. He was in every way a
new type to me. We were mutually drawn to each other. I knew that his
courage could never stoop to littleness. His integrity, even when his
judgment might err, seemed to me an assured quality of nature. As for
me, he doubtless thought that I was one of the coming men of the
community. Whatever I was, I was dependable. If I should become attached
to him he could rely upon me in case of need. This, I think, made him
regard me at this early stage of our friendship as a person not to be
neglected in his business of creating adherents. When I spoke to him in