He wants
really, under his guise as the most far-seeing news man of his time, to
call sinners against society to repentance, or to force repentance down
their throats. There's a good deal of the stern evangelist about you,
you know, Pop."
"And you?" The other's smile seemed enmeshed in the dainty spiral of
smoke brooding above his pursed lips.
"Oh, I'm more the pedagogue. With me, too, the game is a vocation. But
it's a different one. I'd like to marshal men's minds as a generalissimo
marshals armies."
"In the bonds of your own discipline?" asked Miss Van Arsdale.
"If I could chain a mind I'd be the most splendid tyrant of history. No.
Free leadership of the free is good enough."
"If Marrineal will leave you free," commented the veteran. "What's your
diagnosis of Marrineal, then?"
"A priest of Baal."
"With The Patriot in the part of Baal?"
"Not precisely The Patriot. Publicity, rather, of which The Patriot is
merely the instrument. Marrineal's theory of publicity is interesting.
It may even be true. Substantially it is this: All civilized Americans
fear and love print; that is to say, Publicity, for which read Baal.
They fear it for what it may do to them. They love and fawn on it for
what it may do for them.
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