Sentence:  His behavior was not implausibly assumed to reflect, albeit indirectly, larger elements at work, even if mitigated by the cosmopolitan, patrician <WSD>emollience</WSD> of his character, as against the awkward, provincial angularity of his untried successor, then Vice President, Harry Truman. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The state or quality of being emollient; soothingness; softness.