Within the limits of his short tether he had tumbled about, annihilating the flowers of existence with greater singleness of purpose than many of the blatant personages whose company he kept.
"Dickens As an Educator"
James L. (James Laughlin) Hughes
But always, even from the beginning, beneath the blatant cleverness, the vulgar ingenuities of the showman, there had been something else; something that had ambition not wholly vulgar, that had ideals, furtive perhaps, but definite, that had aspirations.
"The Way of Ambition"
Robert Hichens
This is the darkest smear on Nelson's character, a smear that even his most blatant admirers have never been able to wipe away.
"Superwomen"
Albert Payson Terhune