Once they have established their worth people tend to take their worth as a given. There are many such people at work today. On Herb's Washington Post Meg Greenfield is such a person. Miss Greenfield has run the editorial page for 20 years. She thought wonderfully and wrote wonderfully 20 years ago, and she does the same today.
People expect no less.
The same may be said of Herb's fellow cartoonist, Garry Trudeau, Jules Fieffer, and in movie cartoons, the genius, Chuck Jones. In other worlds, steady excellence comes out of Stephen Sondheim, Judith Jamieson, Judith Ivy, Alec Guinness, Merrill Streep, Barbara Cook, Norman Lear, Clark Terry, Chic Corea, Mel Torme, Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles. Woody Allen may have messed up his personal life, but his films make up an amazing body of work. It's just that in a world of 15-minute fame people come to think that fame is important. Steady excellence is important, and by steady, I don't mean static.