It was this which
gave his arguments such cogency and made his discourse so fresh,
vigorous and original. Arguments, however, will only serve for
reasonable people. The ram that butted the locomotive had to learn from
experience.
His sincerity was absolute. A devoted friend says of him: "During twelve
years of familiar intercourse and eight more of less frequent
communication, I never knew him once to take on the slightest color of
insincerity. For it is not only in the use of words but in the tone of
voice, the expression of the face and the movement of the body that
duplicity can be detected." Like Sumner, he would rather lose a case
than make use of an unfair argument. This may seem to many a
super-sensitive morality, but it was not so for the work which these men
had to do. Wasson believed in telling lies; to save life, to protect
innocence, or even to prevent people from obtaining information which
they had no right to. He considered it justifiable not only to deceive
insane people, but also those demented creatures who do more mischief
than lunatics because they cannot be shut up.
The more honor to him therefore for his truthfulness. In the case of a
strong temperance woman who refused to allow a gentleman to marry her
daughter unless he took the pledge, which he did with the deliberate
intention of breaking it afterwards, he said, "I do not like to approve
of his action, but she might just as well have held a pistol to his
head.
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