Crane was a 'natural psychologist'

 Another portrait of Stephen Crane, this one from Frederic M. Lawrence, who was Crane’s closest friend at Syracuse University in 1891:

He had a great capacity for friendship, though his circle was always somewhat restricted. His sympathy was felt rather than expressed. … In short, he was a keen natural psychologist, a reader of minds of men, and to this he owed his remarkable hold on all who got to know him well.

Lawrence became a doctor and wrote a memoir. Paul Auster quoted this excerpt in Burning Boy.

I have been reading Auster’s book trying to get at why Crane took such a hold on me when I first read him in high school.

I like Lawrence’s observation. Crane had empathy, the ability to get inside someone else’s head by getting inside his shoes and walking a mile. The empathy led to a kind of compassion that was remarkable and that didn’t evaporate when a character showed flaws. I think that must have been what I, at 15, so admired.

• Source: Paul Auster, Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane; New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2021, p. 113.