The truth is that what spoils these records is the desire on the
part of worthy and active people to appear more impressive in
ordinary life than they actually are; it is a well-meant sort of
hypocrisy, because it is intended, in a way, to influence other
people, and to make them think that celebrated people live
habitually on a higher tone of intellect and emotion than they do
actually live upon. My on experience of meeting great people is
that they are, as a rule, disappointingly like ordinary people,
both in their tastes and in their conversation. Very few men or
women, who are extremely effective in practical or artistic lines,
have the energy or the vitality to expend themselves very freely in
talk or social intercourse. They do not save themselves up for
their speeches or their books; but they give their best energies to
them, and have little current coin of high thought left for
ordinary life. The mischief is that these interviews are generally
conducted by inquisitive and rhetorical strangers, not distinguished
for social tact or overburdened with good taste; and so the whole
occasion tends to wear a melodramatic air, which is fatal both to
artistic effect as well as to simple propriety.
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