NOTEBOOK

with that terra-cotta firm and require that they pay Ger-
hardt 65 or 70% of the profit on every bust of Gen.
Grant. It is the best likeness of the General ever made in
clay, oil, or any other way—in fact, much the best; and
it is the last one that ever will be made from the living
subject—therefore if they hesitate about those terms there
are plenty others who will gladly take the enterprise off
their hands.

Get shorthander in New York and begin my autobiog-
raphy at once, and continue it straight through the
summer.

Which reminds me that Susy, aged 13 (1885), had
begun to write my biography, solely of her own notion—
a thing about which I feel proud and gratified. At break-
fast this morning I intimated that if I seemed to be talk-
ing on a pretty high key, in the way of style, It must be
remembered that my biographer was present. Whereupon
Susy struck upon the unique idea of having me sit up
and purposely talk for the biography.

He did, in fact, engage a stenographer at this
time and begin the dictation of autobiography.
He could not keep it up, however, not then. He
was too busy, and he was not used to dictation.
He dictated the story of the Grant book—that
being the freshest and most important thing in
his mind—then laid work aside for about twenty
years, during which period he made no more than
brief attempts to set down his memories.

Club Essay: The little man concealed in the big man.
The combination of the human and the god. Victor Hugo;
Carlyle; Napoleon; Mirbel; Jesus; Emerson and Wash-
ington, with a parenthesis enclosing a question mark after
Washington; Grant; Mahomet—in them (including the

177