BOOK II

"There were remarkable things about the stranger called the Man
--Mystery-things so very extraordinary that they monopolized attention
and made all of him seem extraordinary; but this was not so, the most of
his qualities being of the common, every-day size and like anybody
else's. It was curious. He was of the ordinary stature, and had the
ordinary aspects; yet in him were hidden such strange contradictions and
disproportions! He was majestically fearless and heroic; he had the
strength of thirty men and the daring of thirty thousand; handling
armies, organizing states, administering governments--these were pastimes
to him; he publicly and ostentatiously accepted the human race at its own
valuation--as demigods--and privately and successfully dealt with it at
quite another and juster valuation--as children and slaves; his ambitions
were stupendous, and his dreams had no commerce with the humble plain,
but moved with the cloud-rack among the snow-summits. These features of
him were, indeed, extraordinary, but the rest of him was ordinary and
usual. He was so mean-minded, in the matter of jealousy, that it was
thought he was descended from a god; he was vain in little ways, and had
a pride in trivialities; he doted on ballads about moonshine and bruised
hearts; in education he was deficient, he was indifferent to literature,
and knew nothing of art; he was dumb upon all subjects but one,
indifferent to all except that one--the Nebular Theory. Upon that one
his flow of words was full and free, he was a geyser. The official
astronomers disputed his facts and deeded his views, and said that he had
invented both, they not being findable in any of the books. But many of
the laity, who wanted their nebulosities fresh, admired his doctrine and
adopted it, and it attained to great prosperity in spite of the hostility
of the experts."--The Legend of the Man-Mystery, ch. i.