They had left behind them with the artifice of civilisation that
subtle handicap of a woman's presence; and the little flotilla of
canoes that set sail from the terrace at Msala one morning in
November, not so many years ago, was essentially masculine in its
bearing. The four white men--quiet, self-contained, and intrepid--
seemed to work together with a perfect unity, a oneness of thought
and action which really lay in the brain of one of them. No man can
define a true leader; for one is too autocratic and the next too
easily led; one is too quick-tempered, another too reserved. It
would almost seem that the ideal leader is that man who knows how to
extract from the brains of his subordinates all that is best and
strongest therein--who knows how to suppress his own individuality,
and merge it for the time being into that of his fellow-worker--
whose influence is from within and not from without.
The most successful Presidents of Republics have been those who are,
or pretend to be, nonentities, content to be mere pegs, standing
still and lifeless, for things to be hung upon. Jack Meredith was,
or pretended to be, this. He never assumed the airs of a leader.
He never was a leader. He merely smoothed things over, suggested
here, laughed there, and seemed to stand by, indifferent all the
while.
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