ither is he responsible for its acts. He cannot
change it, nothing can change it, nothing can modify it--except
temporarily. But it won't stay modified. It is permanent, like the
color of the man's eyes and the shape of his ears. Blue eyes are gray
in certain unusual lights; but they resume their natural color when that
stress is removed.

A Circumstance that will coerce one man will have no effect upon a man
of a different temperament. If Circumstance had thrown the bank-note
in Caesar's way, his temperament would not have made him start for the
Amazon. His temperament would have compelled him to do something with
the money, but not that. It might have made him advertise the note--and
WAIT. We can't tell. Also, it might have made him go to New York and
buy into the Government, with results that would leave Tweed nothing to
learn when it came his turn.

Very well, Circumstance furnished the capital, and my temperament told
me what to do with it. Sometimes a temperament is an ass. When that is
the case of the owner of it is an ass, too, and is going to remain
one. Training, experience, association, can temporarily so polish him,
improve him, exalt him that people will think he is a mule, but they
will be mistaken. Artificially he IS a mule, for the time being, but at
bottom he is an ass yet, and will remain one.

By temperament I was the kind of person that DOES things. Does them, and
reflects afterward. So I started for the Amazon without reflecting and
without asking any questions. That was more than fifty years ago. In all
that time my temperament has not changed, by even a shade. I have
been punished many and many a time, and bitterly, for doing things and
reflecting afterward, but these tortures have been of no value to me;
I still do the thing commanded by Circumstance and Temperament, and
reflect afterward. Always violently. When I am reflecting, on these
occasions, even deaf persons can hear me think.

I went by the way of Cincinnati, and down the Ohio and Mississippi.
My idea was to take ship, at New Orleans, for Para. In New Orleans I
inquired, and found there was no ship leaving for Para. Also, that there
never had BEEN one leaving for Para. I reflected. A policeman came and
asked me what I was doing, and I told him. He made me move on, and said
if he caught me reflecting in the public street again he would run me
in.

After a few days I was out of money. Then Circumstance arrived, with
another turning-p