US "biographer, essayist".
"His autobiography "Life With Father" was the longest running play in the U.S., 1940-50."
Creatures whose mainspring is curiosity enjoy the accumulating of facts far more than the pausing at times to reflect on those facts.
Reason is the servant of instinct.
"We talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourself, first, to her ways."
"The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed. A man must stay sober: not always, but most of the time."
You can't sweep people off their feet if you can't be swept off your own.