The only way of doing justice to a man of such commanding genius as Ballin is to try to discover first of all the one essential root principle of his personality. Having succeeded in that, we shall find no more difficulty in reconciling the great number of apparently mutually contradictory traits of his character. This principle is the focus where all the rays of light are collected from all directions, and which forms the source of light, warmth, and vital energy.
Albert Ballin was a born business man if ever there was one. To him the noble words of Schiller's lines apply: "The treasures which his ships carry across the oceans spell untold blessings to all who receive them." His whole mind was drawn towards the sea; his inborn inclinations and the surroundings amidst which he grew up had destined him to be a shipping man. To the boy Ballin the Hamburg harbour was the favourite playground; and the seven seas were just large enough to serve as a field of action for the youth and the man. There was his real home, and there he felt at rest. How often, indeed, has he assured us that the sleeplessness to which he fell an unfortunate victim whenever he was ashore left him as soon as he was on board ship, and that a miserable river barge was sufficient to have this effect on him. He was proof against sea-sickness, both bodily and mentally. Thus he became a shipping man, because it was his natural vocation; and in this chosen profession of his he became one of the greatest and most brilliantly gifted rulers the world has ever seen.
Whenever there was a problem to be solved he attacked it in a spirit of boldness, yet tempered by the utmost conscientiousness and caution. No task he encountered was so big that his daring could not tackle it and overcome its difficulties; nothing was so insignificant that he would not attend to it somehow. Whatever decision his infallible instinct intuitively recognized as right, and to whatever idea his impulsive nature had given practical shape, had to pass muster during the sleepless hours of the night before the tribunal of his restless mind when, as he used to say, "everything appears wrapt up in a grey mist." At such times his reason began to analyse and to criticize the decisions he had reached during the day. Then he would often shudder at his own boldness, and the torments of doubt would be aggravated by the thought of the enormous responsibility which he bore towards his company. For it must be understood that from the day he joined the Hamburg-Amerika Linie his interests and those of the company became parts of an inseparable whole.