He seems deficient in resources. He had not that gusto which richly
endowed natures ordinarily have. He found no fun in measuring his
strength with other men's. There was a certain overstrain about
him, which made him cushion himself about with non-resistant
personalities. He lacked curiosity. His fine mind seemed to want
the energy to interest itself in the details of any subject that
filled it, and this was one of his fatal weaknesses at the Peace
Conference. Perhaps it was a deficiency of vital force. Moreover he
came to his great task tired. His life till he was past fifty was
one of defeat. There was the early disappointment and turning back
from law practice, the giving up of his youthful ambition for a
public career to which he had trained himself passionately by the
study of public speaking. Dr. Albert Shaw, who was his fellow
student at Johns Hopkins, says that in the University Mr. Wilson
was the finest speaker, except possibly the old President of the
College, Dr. Daniel Coit Gilman.

Then there were the long years of poverty as a college professor,
when he overworked at writing and university extension lectures, to
make his small salary as a teacher equal to the support of his
family, his three children and his aged parents. There was his
failure at literature, for his "History of the United States"
brought him neither fame nor money, the public finding it dull and
unreadable.

Then the crowning unsuccess as President of Princeton; for when his
luck changed and a political career opened to him as Governor of
New Jersey, with trustees and alumni against him, nothing seemed to
be before him but resignation and a small professorship in a
Southern College. It was a straightened life that he had led when