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The Grain of Dust by David Graham Phillips
page 11 of 394 (02%)
capacities. We cannot live and act without doing mischief, as well as
that which most of us would rather do, provided that in the doing we are
not ourselves undone. Probably in no direction did Norman do so much
mischief as in unconsciously leading men of his sets down town and up to
imitate his colossal dissipations--which were not dissipation for him
who was abnormal.

Withal, he was a monster for work. There is not much truth in men's
unending talk of how hard they work or are worked. The ravages from
their indulgences in smoking, drinking, gallantry, eating too much and
too fast and too often, have to be explained away creditably, to
themselves and to others--notably to the wives or mothers who nurse them
and suffer from their diminishing incomes. Hence the wailing about work.
But once in a while a real worker appears--a man with enormous ingenuity
at devising difficult tasks for himself and with enormous persistence in
doing them. Frederick Norman was one of these blue-moon prodigies.

Obviously, such a man could not but be observed and talked about.
Endless stories, some of them more or less true, most of them
apocryphal, were told of him--stories of his shrewd, unexpected moves in
big cases, of his witty retorts, of his generosities, of his
peculiarities of dress, of eating and drinking; stories of his
adventures with women. Whatever he did, however trivial, took color and
charm from his personality, so easy yet so difficult, so simple yet so
complex, so baffling. Was he wholly selfish? Was he a friend to almost
anybody or to nobody? Did he ever love? No one knew, not even himself,
for life interested him too intensely and too incessantly to leave him
time for self-analysis. One thing he was certain of; he hated nobody,
envied nobody. He was too successful for that.

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