less capable men about him advanced from one post of distinction to another
he wondered why his turn proved so tardy in coming, and when it would come.
It did come with a rush. What more natural than that he should believe it
real instead of the empty pageant of a vision?

It had taken me but a day and a night to pull myself together after the
first shock and surprise and to plunge into the swim to help fetch the
waterlogged factions ashore. This was clearly indispensable to forcing
the Democratic organization to come to the rescue of what would have been
otherwise but a derelict upon a stormy sea. Schurz was deeply disgruntled.
Before he could be appeased a bridge, found in what was called the Fifth
Avenue Hotel Conference, had to be constructed in order to carry him across
the stream which flowed between his disappointed hopes and aims and what
appeared to him an illogical and repulsive alternative. He had taken to his
tent and sulked like another Achilles. He was harder to deal with than any
of the Democratic file leaders, but he finally yielded and did splendid
work in the campaign.

His was a stubborn spirit not readily adjustable. He was a nobly gifted
man, but from first to last an alien in an alien land. He once said to me,
"If I should live a thousand years they would still call me a Dutchman." No
man of his time spoke so well or wrote to better purpose. He was equally
skillful in debate, an overmatch for Conkling and Morton, whom--especially
in the French arms matter--he completely dominated and outshone. As sincere
and unselfish, as patriotic and as courageous as any of his contemporaries,
he could never attain the full measure of the popular heart and confidence,
albeit reaching its understanding directly and surely; within himself a man
of sentiment who was not the cause of sentiment in others. He knew this and
felt it.