An Adventure with a Genius: Recollections of Joseph PulitzerIreland, Alleyne
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An Adventure with a Genius: Recollections of Joseph Pulitzer
Ireland, Alleyne
Pulitzer, Joseph, 1847-1911
There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom
produces; and that cure is freedom.
The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations
which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze
on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to
reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides. Hostile theories
correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to contend,
and begin to coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order is
educed out of the chaos.
If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in
slavery, they may indeed wait forever.
I was surprised one day on returning to the villa after a walk in the
Kurhaus gardens with J. P. to find an addition to our company in the
person of the second gentleman who had examined me in London at the time
I had applied for the post of secretary to Mr. Pulitzer.
This gentleman occupied what I imagine must have been the only post of
its kind in the world. He was, in addition to whatever other duties he
performed, Mr. Pulitzer's villa-seeker.
It was Mr. Pulitzer's custom to talk a good deal about his future plans,
not those for the immediate future, in regard to which he was usually
very reticent, but those for the following year, or for a vague
"someday" when many things were to be done which as yet were nothing
more than the toys with which his imagination delighted to play.
As he always spent a great part of the year in Europe, a residence had
to be found for him, it might be in Vienna, or London, or Berlin, or
Mentone, or in any other place which emerged as a possibility out of the
long discussions of the next year's itinerary.
Whenever the arguments in favor of any place had so far prevailed that a
visit there had been accepted in principle as one of our future
movements it became the duty of the villa-seeker to go to the locality,
to gather a mass of information about its climate, its amenities, its
resident and floating population, its accessibility by sea and land, the
opportunities for hearing good music, and to report in the minutest
detail upon all available houses which appeared likely to suit Mr.
Pulitzer's needs.
These reports were accompanied by maps, plans, and photographs, and they
were considered by J. P. with the utmost care. Particular attention was
paid to the streets and to the country roads in the neighborhood, as it
was necessary to have facilities for motoring, for riding, and for
walking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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