It led him far. It led him into
situations that bordered upon the fantastic, it made him ridiculous,
it came near to making him sublime. And this idea of his was of
such a nature that in several aspects he could document it. Its
logic forced him to introspection and to the making of a record.
An idea that can play so large a part in a life must necessarily
have something of the complication and protean quality of life
itself. It is not to be stated justly in any formula, it is not to
be rendered by an epigram. As well one might show a man's skeleton
for his portrait. Yet, essentially, Benham's idea was simple. He
had an incurable, an almost innate persuasion that he had to live
life nobly and thoroughly. His commoner expression for that
thorough living is "the aristocratic life." But by "aristocratic"
he meant something very different from the quality of a Russian
prince, let us say, or an English peer. He meant an intensity, a
clearness. . . . Nobility for him was to get something out of his
individual existence, a flame, a jewel, a splendour--it is a thing
easier to understand than to say.
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