e would exclaim that he was as
other men were and would pathetically tell the world that he was
"misunderstood," that he was not cold and reserved but warm and
genial and kindly, only largely because the world would see him as
he was.

But always the one safe recourse, the one assurance of personal
stability was arrogance. Contempt was the most characteristic habit
of his mind. Out of office he is no sage looking charitably at the
fumbling of his successor.

A friend who has seen him since his retirement describes him as
watching "with supreme contempt" the executive efforts of Mr.
Harding. Washington gossip credits him with inventing the phrase,
"the bungalow mind," to describe the present occupant of the White
House. Another remark of his about the new President is said to
have been "I look forward to the new administration with no
unpleasant anticipations, except those caused by Mr. Harding's
literary style."

There is always his contrast of others with himself to their
disadvantage, mentally or morally, as writers, or leaders, or
statesmen. So full a life as Mr. Wilson led in the last dozen or
more years ought to have made him less self-conscious. A robuster
person would have hated with a certain zest, continued with a
certain gaiety, laughed as he fought, found something to respect in
his foes, seen the curtain fall upon his own activities with a
certain cheerfulness.

He seems deficient in resources. He had not that gusto which richly
endowed natures ordinarily have. He found no fun in measuring his
strength with other men's. There was a certain overstrain about
him, which made him cushion himself about with non-resistant
personalities. He lacked curiosity. His fine mind seemed to want
the energy to interest itself in the details of any subject that
filled it, and this was one of his fatal weaknesses at the Peace
Conference. Perhaps it was a deficiency of vital force. Moreover he
came to his great task tired. His life till he was past fifty was
one of defeat. There was the early disappointment and turning back
from law practice, the giving up of his youthful ambition for a
public career to which he had trained himself passionately by the
study of public speaking. Dr. Albert Shaw, who was his fellow
student at Johns Hopkins, says that in the University Mr. Wilson
was the finest speaker, except possibly the old President of the
College, Dr. Daniel Coit Gilman.

Then there were the long years of poverty as a