NOTEBOOK

The news is that Gen. Grant died about two hours ago
—at five minutes past eight.

The last time I saw him was July i and 2, at Mt. Mc-
Gregor. I then believed he would live several months. He
was still adding a little, perfecting details, to his book—
a preface among other things. He was entirely through a
few days later. Since then a lack of any strong interest
to employ his mind has enabled the tedious weariness to
kill him. I think his book kept him alive several months.
He was a very great man—and superlatively good.

All men in New York insult you—there seem to be
no exceptions. There are exceptions of course—have been
—but they are probably dead. I am speaking of all per-
sons there who are clothed in a little brief authority.

August 6, 1885. Talked an hour with Gen. Sherman.
He spoke in terms of prodigious praise of Gen. Grant's
military genius. "Never anything like it before." I think
those were his words, but he said that this talk of Grant
never listening to indelicate stories was bosh. Said he had
seen Grant listen and laugh by the hour at Gov. Jim
Nye's yarns. They were indelicate, as I well remember
myself.

Somebody has said "Wit is the sudden marriage of
ideas which before their union were not perceived to have
any relation."

The English, the arrogant nation. The Americans the
material nation, the Germans the patient nation, the Rus-
sians the unclassifiable nation, the French the volatile na-
tion, the Scotch the thrifty nation, the Italians the
hot-blooded kind-hearted nation, the Irish the nation of
chaste women.

The last thing after Gen. Grant's body was laid to rest

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