Brooks suggests that people should strive for a balance between external achievement and internal character. How do the people whom Brooks cites as examples support or undermine the idea that a balance of this kind is possible?

Taken together, why does Brooks choose Eisenhower, Day, Perkins, and Eliot as examples to support his argument? How are they similar? How are they different? How do these similarities and differences contribute to Brooks’s argument?

Brooks is an atheist, but some ideas central to Western monotheistic religions can be detected in his essay. How are Brooks’s ideas similar to or different from those of major Western religions?