And Mr. Darrow's debates have been always
worth $1, $2 and even $5--for various reasons. It is worth at least $5 to
observe at first hand what a cheering and invigorating effect Mr. Darrow's
pessimism has had upon Mr. Darrow after these innumerable years.
* * * * *
The story concerns itself with a funeral Mr. Darrow attended a few years
ago. It is at funerals that Mr. Darrow's gentle malice finds itself
crowned by circumstances. For to this son of Schopenhauer death is a weary
smile that is proof of all his arguments.
This time, however, Mr. Darrow was curiously stirred. For there lay dead
in the coffin a man for whom he had held a deep affection. It was Prof.
George B. Foster, the brilliant theologian of the University of Chicago.
During his life Prof. Foster had been a man worthy the steel of Mr.
Darrow. Not that Prof. Foster was an unscrupulous optimist. He was merely
an intellectual whose congenital tendencies were idealistic, just as Mr.
Darrow's psychic and subconscious tendencies were anti-idealistic. And
apart from this divergence of congenital tendencies Mr. Darrow and Prof.
Foster had a great deal in common. They both loved argument. They both
doted upon seizing an idea and energizing it with their egoism.
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