THE SCULPTURED FIGURES OF SOCIETY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2185, 14 September 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE SCULPTURED FIGURES OF SOCIETY.

(By William George Jordan.) Over the doorway of one of New York's sky-scraping office-buildings four great, sculptured figures iare posed in crouching attitudes. With bowed heads, tense features, and muscles strained lik e whip-cords they seem to carry on their broad shoulders the terrific weight of twenty or more storeys of masonry. Theirs is really only a pose, the pretence of the strenuous. They are really supporting no weight: they - were put in after the building was completed; they could he removed without affecting its safety in the slightest. They have no more real responsibility than a wandering fly, tarrying a moment on the flag-pole oil the roof. There are thousands of these sculptured figures in the world to-day—-men whose pretence is measured in tons and whose performance is counted in ounces. It is the colossal effort to seem rather than to be, the heroic never-ending attempt to appear important.

There are men who always seek to impress you with tllie idea that they are terrifically busy; if'they receive three letters in' a week they assure you they are “deluged” with correspondence; their social engagements are “positively tiresome”; prominent men of the day they refer ,to to show how close is their association with the great. These men are constantly polishing their own halos, hypnotising themselves info believing in their own importance. They assume the airs of an automobile life on a bicycle income.

Another type of the sculptured .figure is the ns m who poses as an intellectual Atlas holding up the firmament of thought. All the great -problems of life that have baffled the .sages for years are as lumin-ant to •him as an electric-light- oil a dnrk street. He has read, perhaps, partially through one volume of Spencer, Darwin, or Huxley, and. talks elaborately, with a heavy rotund voice ,of finality, on evolution. Every weak snot in religion is known to jhini, and where lie cannot find a leak lie makes one. Though he has never accomplished anything in life, ho feels absolutely sure that he could .run this mighty Government of ours and bring justice in on schedule time on every issue.

Tile man who talks as it the whole .responsibility of a great business rests on him and who keeps people waiting in bis outer office while he idly turns over the pages of the morning paper and performs similar petty artifices to intensify his importance is not the real brains of the .business. If lie were lie would hive no time for parade. The real inspiration is hidden away in some quiet office, known to but few, and saying little but doing much. True importance is always simple. The large duties, cares and responsibilities of the. men who do great things give them natural dignity and ease. They have the simple grace of the burden-hearers of India, .'ho carry heavy loads on their heads and in the carrying hum how to carry them -reel with fearless step. There •is in them no trace of the pose of the strenuous. Men of real importance think too much of their work to think much of themselves. ’J heir ■great interest, enthusiasm, and ah---,t io il in their world of effort Oe-•lip-je all pettiness. They ar e living ■■ • life, not playing a part. They ! urnng incense at the shrine of a gr.at purpose, not to their vanity. They ever have poise—liol pose.