In a word... a man of his times. The epitome of a man's man, at least for his generation and not the least, had quite a way with words. A couple of quotes from Papa are instructive:
"Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. "
"Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts. "...