His personality shines through in letters that are witty, breezy, snobby, gossipy, on occasion downright bitchy and sometimes verging on stream of consciousness.
What's more, for most, the jobs were menial, bordering on the downright depressing.
Mary Poppins rules through coldness, stares, lies and, on occasion, downright terror.
His target, he said, was the "easy platitudes, evasions and, on occasion, downright untruths of the official history".
And they want to eliminate the inheritance tax, which is overwhelmingly a tax on the downright wealthy.
Sadly, there continues to be a huge amount of inaccurate, ill-informed and on occasion downright malicious gossip published about me personally.
The causes are multiple and well known: the chronic problems of a mismanaged car industry, and a city leadership that was variously confrontational, undisciplined and inept, on occasion downright corrupt.
Of course, Berthe isn't a proper French maid; she's a French theater maid, in the tradition of Molière and Feydeau — funny, crafty, impertinent and, on occasion, downright rude.
The result, these critics say, is that the nominees were let off the hook on vital matters and the debates meandered to the point where they verged on being downright tedious.
