#james parton

His ignorance was as a wall round about him—high, impenetrable. He was imprisoned in his ignorance, and sometimes raged round his little dim inclosure like a tiger in his den.

Feisty Females: Sara Payson Willis, aka Fanny Fern

...if you trace up Masonry, through all its Orders, till you come to the grand tip-top, head Mason of the World, you will discover that the dread individual and the Chief of the Society of Jesus [i.e., the Black Pope, the Superior General of the Jesuits] are one and the same person.

That the competition between Hamilton and Burr originated in their early days in legal practice is confirmed by a tale told by James Parton, an early Burr biographer. The first time that the two men jointly defended a client, the question came up as to who would speak first and who would sum up. Protocol stipulated that the lead attorney would do the summation, and Hamilton wished to be the one. Burr was so offended by this patent vanity that in his opening speech he tried to anticipate all the points that Hamilton would likely make. Apparently, he was so effective at this that Hamilton, embarrassed, had nothing to say at the end. If the story is true, it was one of the few times that Alexander Hamilton was ever left speechless.