WASHINGTON  Dick Cheney is not a man given to revealing his inner thoughts. But on the cool, clear evening in April when Mr. Cheney, the 46th vice president of the United States, presided over a literary salon at his residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory here, he seemed in a reflective mood.

The featured author was Ian W. Toll, whose book, “Six Frigates,” chronicles the founding of the Navy. A collection of Washington luminaries, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, dined on salmon with pesto; the Sea Chanters, a Navy chorus, performed after dessert. As the evening wound down, the vice president offered a flash of introspection in quiet conversation with his guest of honor.

“He said that, when he was defense secretary, he felt he was presiding over a ‘huge grinding machine that was here before me and will be here after I’m gone,’ ” said Mr. Toll, who was so struck by Mr. Cheney’s remark that he wrote it down. “There was almost something wistful about it, a sense that even in this day and age, no one, not even someone who’s had a career like that of Vice President Cheney, can really hope to fundamentally reshape our institutions.”

Mr. Cheney has, of course, fundamentally reshaped at least one American institution: the vice presidency. Fueled by a belief in a strong presidency and American hegemony, and with the help of a president, George W. Bush, who gave him an extraordinarily free hand, he has stretched the limits of the job in ways his predecessors could not have imagined.