At the time of his confirmation hearing as Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts's limited judicial record - forty-eight opinions for the Court of the Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit - provided few clues to the substance of his likely Supreme Court jurisprudence. Those opinions, together with his first thirteen Supreme Court opinions, do, however, reveal a great deal about Roberts's judicial personality, the voice that a judge crafts from a range of rhetorical choices, including diction, metaphor, syntax, allusion, and tone. A careful reading of the canon of his stylistically artful opinions discloses a judge who writes for a lay as well as a legal audience; who prefers to ground his legal conclusions in the realities of human experience and specific fact rather than in abstract legal theories; and who positions himself as the successor to a line of distinguished judges (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Learned Hand, and Henry Friendly) who represent traditions of skepticism, judicial restraint, and legal craftsmanship. Roberts has spoken of himself as "a modest judge," and the judicial personality expressed in his early opinions suggests that he may pursue a less ambitiously ideological agenda for the Court than some observers may anticipate.