The quality of his mind is poetic, and his style is highly
figurative. There have been very few professors, lecturing on abstruse
subjects, such as economics, jurisprudence, and politics, who have dared
to give so free a rein to an instinct frankly artistic. In the early
days of his career, Mr. Wilson was invited to follow two courses which
were supposed to be inconsistent with each other. The so-called
"scientific" method, much admired at that time even when applied to
subjects in which philosophic insight or a sense for beauty are the
proper guides, was being urged upon the rising generation of scholars.
Perhaps the Johns Hopkins University was the center of this impulse in
America; at least it was thought to be, though the source was almost
wholly German. If he had had to be a dry-as-dust in order to be a writer
on politics and history, Mr. Wilson would have preferred to turn his
attention to biography and literary criticism. But he promptly resolved
to disregard the warnings of pedants and to be a man of letters
_though_ a professor of history and politics. I well remember the
irritation, sometimes amused and sometimes angry, with which he used to
speak of those who were persuaded that scholarship was in some way
contaminated by the touch of imagination or philosophy.
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