He spent his career at Northwestern University and is best known for his biography of Henry Adams, which won several major prizes.
He moved to the southwest to recover from tuberculosis, staying in that part of the country and practicing law in El Paso, Texas.
In 1942 he completed a Ph.D. in English at the University of Chicago with a dissertation on "The Early Career of Henry Adams."
With the exception of a visiting professorship at the University of Southern California in 1966-67, he remained at Northwestern for his entire teaching career.
He also wrote a two-volume biography of Bernard Berenson (1979, 1987), which is considered "the most authoritative and comprehensive" study of its subject.