best quality, that of always learning from the events which passed
under his eyes.

With this singular openness and flexibility of mind, there went a
not less remarkable ingenuity and resourcefulness. His mind was
fertile in expedients, and still more fertile in reasonings by which
to recommend the expedients. This gift was often dangerous, for he
was apt to be carried away by the dexterity of his own dialectic,
and to think schemes substantially good in whose support he could
muster so formidable an array of arguments. He never seemed to be
at a loss, in public or private, for a criticism, or for an answer
to the criticisms of others. If his power of adapting his own mind
to the minds of those whom he had to convince had been equal to the
skill and swiftness with which he accumulated a mass of matter
persuasive to those who looked at things in his own way, no one
would have exercised so complete a control over the political
opinion of his time. But his mind had not this power of adaptation.
It moved on its own lines--peculiar lines, which were often
misconceived, even by those who sought to follow him most loyally.
Thus it happened that he was blamed for two opposite faults. Some,
pointing to the fact that he had frequently altered his views,
denounced him as a demagogue profuse of promises, ready to propose
whatever he thought likely to catch the people's ear. Others
complained that there was no knowing where to have him; that he had
an erratic mind, whose currents ran underground and came to the
surface in unexpected places; that he did not consult his party, but
followed his own predilections; that his guidance was unsafe because
his decisions were unpredictable. Both these views were unfair, yet
the latter came nearer to the truth than the former. No great
popular leader had in him less of the true ring of the demagogue.