There's nothing like a farewell speech to provide a yardstick to a politician.
Joe Hockey's goodbye to parliament on Wednesday showed why the big, affable and palpably decent former treasurer will be missed.
And the reaction of his fellow MPs, Labor as well as coalition, underscored the high regard he's earned over 19 years as Member for North Sydney.
Hockey ruminated that most politicians leave because of defeat, death, disillusionment or disgrace. In his case he might have added a fifth D, disappointment.
He could well have been prime minister. Back in those fraught days when Malcolm Turnbull's opposition leadership was under threat, the polls said he was the Liberals' most popular leader. But he and Turnbull split the moderate vote and Tony Abbott grabbed the prize by a single vote.
Still, holding the second most important office in public life for two years was a big thing, even if his dismembered 2014 budget probably cost him any chance of succeeding Abbott.
Hockey's farewell was a mixture of the personal - three generations of his family were there - and the political.
He reinforced Abbott's dictum that MPs are volunteers to the political life, but their families are conscripts.
He turned to his youngest son, Ignatius, who had his sixth birthday in September.
"And I have missed every one of them," he said. "I won't miss another."
He even mixed the personal and the political when talking about ending the age of entitlement, the phrase for which he may be best remembered.
Ignatius broke his leg last Christmas and the cost to the family was $35.
"We have to live within our means," was the moral from this.
"The only way for future generations to be able to pay for compassion is to end the age of entitlement."
Hockey naturally defended his record. On the 2014 budget, for example, "the government had more courage than the parliament".
He was also more outspoken in his policy prescriptions than any treasurer ever could be while in office.
Thus he advocated increasing and broadening the GST while cutting other taxes, with the top personal rate at 40 per cent and the business tax rate 20 per cent.
He finished with a clarion call for courage - it's better to dream mighty dreams, see glorious triumphs, than to be among those poor souls who neither suffer much nor enjoy much because they live in the great twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
Then both sides stood and applauded in a bipartisan display of respect and affection that was impossible to counterfeit.
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