>>12143399According to a biographer who rather admired him, he had a bit of Jekyll-Hyde personality, but I think he underestimates how much backstabbing bullshit one has to contend with in academia. In any case almost all of today's "public teacher" figures are a whole lot closer to P.T. Barnum in style & substance than he was, especially since the range of subjects over which they have even passing acquaintance is so much narrower. He wasn't a polymath, but about as close to being one as figures like him ever get.
