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From its first stories about young Theodore Roosevelt’s heroes to its last about his heroic struggle to maintain their heritage, Beneath the Surface to the Heart centers on TR’s heart. A man of ideals and strenuous action in pursuing them, he took to heart a biblical mandate to do God’s work: Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only. In his prime, physical energy and ambition impelled him to emulate the deeds of his heroes-an emulation that came to characterize him or, as he ultimately realized, caricature him.
Roosevelt wove his life from many strands that were already complexly woven: in the folklore of Brer Rabbit, sassy bossing of the whole gang was woven with conforming to society; in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, saintly service, with military courage; in Mayne Reed’s adventures, hunting, with preserving; in Dr. David Livingstone’s Missionary Travels, preaching the gospel, with encouraging commerce; and, in Roosevelt’s cherished ideal, his father’s thoroughly enjoying life as one of the Astors’ 400, with devotedly helping Lincoln’s plain people. He wove these strands together to construct an American life. Teddy was a great doer of deeds! And yet, his search, as he called it, beneath the surface to the general heart of things, has encouraged this biography to delve from the many faces of his actions to the heart of his simplicity.
Realizing that the better angels of human nature weave an angelic warp and that the devil slips in the woof, Theodore Roosevelt got down to the best balanced and practical action that he could manage. Having observed that most men failed to balance moral being with practical doing, he hoped in his autobiography to prove that he had gotten the right mix. Men typically fault others for what most bothers them in themselves. He could not have been the great American without profiting and suffering, as many Americans have, from mixing idealism with practicality and from disregarding the devil that lurks in the details. Beneath the Surface to the Heart starts with Roosevelt’s youthful ideal so that it may reveal his life in its heart; but in this heart, it ends with the youthful ideal that both makes and breaks the man.
