Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/72

to-morrow attack it, because his mind is utterly carried away by his adversary's observations and arguments. In just this way he generally comes nearer the truth than anyone else, and if he makes a mistake, he quickly corrects it himself. What is in reality an immovable conviction? Is it not one-sidedness, obstinacy, spiritual sluggishness, or a presumptuous belief in one's own judgment? What a great gift it is to be able to put oneself instantly into another's thoughts and ideas, what a nimbleness of soul! The fanatic, the opposite of the fickle man, lacks this power entirely; he sticks fast to an opinion and goes to death for it as if it were the greatest truth in the world, although often it proves in time to be the greatest falsehood in the world. His narrow one-sidedness reminds us of the sort of men whom we call wooden-headed. Why should one enclose only a single hardened thought, a single kernel, like the insignificant little plum, instead of a hundred seeds like the great splendid melon? The God of the Christians hides three persons in one, but the fickle man at least ten. To associate with him has therefore the same variety as to associate with several persons at once. If a man were constantly clever or constantly high-minded, he would easily be looked up to as more than a common man. It appears therefore as if cleverness and highmindedness by a sort of destiny more seldom belonged to the constant character than to the fickle—who, however, always brings himself down to the level