Status Updates From The Autobiography of an Ex-...

I could see, in spite of the absolute selfishness upon which it was based, that there was reason and common sense in it. I began to analyse my own motives, and found that they, too, were very largely mixed with selfishness. Was it more a desire to help those I considered my people, or more a desire to distinguish myself, which which was leading me back to the United States?

There was one man, a minstrel, who, whenever he responded to a request to "do something," never essayed anything below a reading from Shakespeare . . . Here was a man who made people laugh at the size of his mouth, while he carried in his heart a burning ambition to be a tragedian; and so after all he did play a part in a tragedy.