Henry Watterson: “His purpose was to fill the scene and forget himself.”

Yet it is after all a figure of speech not a personality that appeals to our sense of duty without necessarily engaging our affection.

But my face in the glass I’ll serenely survey, And with smiles count each wrinkle and furrow— That this worn-out old stuff which is thread-bare to-day Shall become everlasting to-morrow.

In short he was an opportunist void of conviction and indifferent to consistency.

With a kind of education—most men taught to read, very few to think—the masses are likely to demand yet more and more for themselves.