On a splendid autumn day, Bogle visited Blair, where he spoke at a student assembly.
"I love Blair Academy," he declared. "Life is but a dream, but I can tell you my life has been better than any dream."
The students rose and applauded. Bogle smiled, his eyes moist.
Later that day, Bogle visited another cherished place. Princeton was at its most seductive as he savored familiar vistas, pointing out buildings where he took classes, dorms where he lived. "How I adore this campus!" he exclaimed.
Every moment at Princeton was magical, he said, and he was always grateful. One classmate remembers that Bogle constantly wore a smile.
As Nassau Hall's shadow lengthened, Bogle seemed wistful, almost melancholy. On unsteady legs, he headed for a stone bench and sat down wearily.
As he watched the undergrads, ripe with youth, vibrant with ambition, he lapsed into thought. "Life is all too short," he sighed.
"The only thing that gives me hope are members of the young generation, the smart kids in college today. They're devoted to service, to putting the interests of others ahead of their own."
He brightened. "Not everybody, but enough to persuade me we're going to be OK."
So what drives Jack Bogle? Why does he continue to work?
"I really don't work," he said. "I play all day, but it has a useful social purpose. I have more energy, idealism and passion now than I did 10 years ago.
"I feel an increasing sense of urgency about how much there is to do and how little time there is to do it. Deep down, I have a nervous feeling that if I stop I will die."
Bogle adores struggle. Opposition and antagonism test his mettle, hone his wits. But he does not battle blindly. He is a warrior who thinks and doubts. One of the most astonishing sentences in his new book is sequestered in parentheses: "Perhaps it will surprise you to learn that I do a lot of lonely wondering about the worth of my own life and career."
"At a certain stage in your life, you become more introspective, a quality that is so lacking in our society," Bogle elaborated. "You begin asking yourself: Why am I doing this? What am I doing this for? I think I added huge value to the investment business, but I wonder if I could have added huger value doing something else."
Bogle's friends have their theories about what makes him run.
"He's an evangelist, and evangelists don't stop," said Zeikel, the former Merrill Lynch CEO.
