... a gap-toothed and hoary ape, who now in his dotage spits and chatters from a dirtier perch of his own finding, and fouling; coryphaeus or choragus of his Bulgarian tribe of autocoprophagaus baboons.
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) on Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)
Did ol Ralph become a bitter old man in his waning years?