CHAPTER the Twelfth.
The Ideal in Public Life--Politicians, Statesmen and Philosophers--The Disputed Presidency in 1876--The Personality and Character of Mr.
Tilden--His Election and Exclusion by a Partisan Tribunal I The soul of journalism is disinterestedness.

But neither as a principle nor an asset had this been generally discovered fifty years ago.

Most of my younger life I was accused of ulterior motives of political ambition, whereas I had seen too much of preferment not to abhor it.

To me, as to my father, office has seemed ever a badge of servitude.

For a long time, indeed, I nursed the delusions of the ideal.