Читать книгу Little Visits with Great Americans: Anecdotes, Life Lessons and Interviews - Эндрю Карнеги - Страница 19

Table of Contents

HIRAM STEVENS MAXIM is a gunmaker and peacemaker, and to-day the terms are synonymous.

Two armed men, although hostile, will hesitate to attack one another; each will be careful to make no false move, lest the other’s hand fly to his pistol pocket. Neither knows the other’s equipment for aggression or defense. So both will smile and smile, and continue to hate.

It is often thus with nations.

When I asked Mr. Maxim how one feels to be in the business of making machines of war—machines for killing men by the brigade, so to speak, he replied:—

“Men of my profession do more to keep peace on earth than all the churches of Christendom. They beg for peace—we compel it.”

Almost all famous men have two sides; the one is seen by the world, which never really sees the man at all, and is cold and glazed and more or less characterless—being wholly intellectual. The other is the warm human side, full of points of strength and lovable weaknesses.