When Mr. Kennedy entered the Senate in 1962, he was aware that he might be seen as an upstart, with one brother in the White House and another in the cabinet.

Weariness, which seeketh to get to the ultimate with one leap, with a death-leap; a poor ignorant weariness, unwilling even to will any longer: that created all Gods and backworlds.

They personified a spreading everything-for-nothing culture—the corrosive idea that young men and women could take the elevator straight to the top, if only they were pretty or lucky enough.