That the strong should trample on the weak, that the wily should circumvent the innocent, that hypocrisy and fraud and dissimulation should triumph, seems to him but natural.

His whole theory of humanity is tinged with the sad gray colors of a stolid, cold-eyed, ill-contented, egotistical indifference.

He is not angry, desperate, indignant, but phlegmatically prudent, face to face with the ruin of his country.

For him the world was a game of intrigue, in which his friends, his enemies, and himself played parts, equally sordid, with grave faces and hearts bent only on the gratification of mean desires.

Accordingly, though his mastery of detail, his comprehension of personal motives, and his analysis of craft are alike incomparable, we find him incapable of forming general views with the breadth of philosophic insight or the sagacity of a frank and independent nature.