Sublime

Back at the office, Max managed to dictate the rest of his letters just before the tennis champion Helen Wills Moody strode in.

As Harrison said, his basic view didn’t change during the decades he ran railroads—service customers, control costs, utilize assets, don’t get anybody hurt, and recognize and develop people—and over time, he gained more confidence.

With the help of the Carnegie trustees, one of whom was President Franklin Roosevelt’s uncle, Bush put together a plan. “I knew that you couldn’t get anything done in that damn town,” he recalled, “unless you organized under the wing of the President.”

Calvert readjusted his will so that Wordsworth would get £900 on the event of his death. Calvert serves as the patron saint of a rare sort of social type: the person who can see a gift in others, push that person toward their vocation, and provide practical assistance to make it happen.

Wright did not see himself as a washed-up case. He must have looked and sounded like the past, the shadow of Grosvenor Cleveland’s America. But he was vital, energetic. He had long believed that an honest arrogance was preferable to a hypocritical modesty. From criticism, he took combative inspiration.