Morning journal and courier., 1885-09-01

" ollco tO engage uoT III COut6TSdtlOu tO hear more of the tones than simple replies ives" and "no, :" and to see some play to her countenance. It was in vain. Believing that life is so short that we should omit no opportunity of trying to give pleasure to an other, we said "We think, madam, we are favored this afternoon. There are multi tudes in all parts of our country who would be highly gratifed to have an interview with the mother of General Grant," It was true, we felt it and it was pretty thing to say. Not by word or an expression of counte- nance did she show that she even heard us We were, nevertheless, glad we said it. A duty had been performed and it had revealed a trait of character. From her General Grant must have got his immobility that on occasions when common civility demanded vocal signifcaticn showed in reticence that was painful even to the bystanders. Neither mother nor son could help it. The faculty of social impressibility is necessary to every human being if they would widely win souls. Conversation must be had for life's happiest, best uses, when eye speaks to eye, heart to heart and the varied tones wake the soul in sympathy. Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln had words of cheer for everybody and hence were widely loved. When Henry Clay was defeated for the prssi- dency strong men bowed and wept; when Lincoln was assassinated the whole nation writhed in agony. There was then no such
 
 treme reticence and that grim fixed expression of face that gave no sign of the warm affec- tions that were within. Few, we found, cared to have his portrait, while for those of the others there was continuous demand.
 An analysis of the character of great man always interests. It never can be only partially done. We never can fully compre- bend ourselves, much less so another. Grants moral qualities were of the best. They were modesty, magnanimity, sef-repose, a total absence of vanity, self-seeking, jeal- ousy or malice. He loved truth and purity. His patriotism and sense of justice was so strong that he would elevate a personal ene- my to position if he was the best man for the public use. No man better loved than he, but his dreadful reticence allowed him to illustrate this only by acts. His mind was simple, direct in it's action and he had it in the perfect mastery of an iron will. His memory was like vice. His typographical memory and capacity bordered on the marvel ous When in camp he soon knew the position and the whole country around with it's roads, hills, woods and streams, and then it was all before him as map on the table. During the siege of Vicksburg he heard of a north ern man living in the vicinity, a civil engi- neer familiar with the whole adjacent coun- try from his surveys therein. He sent for him and adopted him in his military family.
  such head for civil engineer as that of Grants. This faculty made him superior to every other commander, so that he could make his combinations and move his men on the field of battle with we'll calculated re- suit, almost as certain as fate. He cared less than most commanders to discover the plans of his enemy. He had his own which they could not foresee and his involved continued movement. Therein he acted on the knowl- edge that the greatest courage is with him who attacks, and that even a musket ball in motion is worthy of more respect than a can non ball at rest. His faculty of concentra- ton was great, his nerves so rigid, that mid showers of bullets and the skipping of cannon balls he was as calm as on parade. Moreover, he had the invincibility of the faith that the Confederacy would ultimately totter and crumble, and the business ot each day was to hasten on the time by action for the rising of that dust. So he kept pound ing away and proved himself to be God s hammer to break up slavery.
 It was we'll for the amenities of that dread full struggle that the commanders on both sides had been largely personal friends, youths together in the same military school, brother officers in the same army. Grant felt this bond of sympathy when Lee came into his presence to lay down the sword. And humiliation. We chanced to make the ac- quaintance of a Virginian, an elegant young man, who had been an aid of Lee. He told us that one evening at table early in the war the officers of his military family were speaking in no measured terms of indigna- tion of a Virginian, perhaps it was General Thomas, for remaining in the Union army, when General Lee rebuked them, saying, "You do him a great wrong, young gentle men, in denouncing him. He has acted from the same conscientious sense of duty as you have, and is worthy of your highest re- spect in his decision"
 Grants mind was strong, but from his want of imagination, severely practical, dry and naked. A young cadet friend of ours in the long past at West Point told us that when listening to lecture there on the prop critics of globe he found he could not com prehend it. Through his obtruding imagina- tion that globe was enveloped in a blue flame, the result perhaps of the early theo- logic teaching which we happen to know he had. With Grant we venture to say when he came later to the same study the globe was as clear as ball of crystal He liked West Point for it's mathematics mainly. What on earth can be drier? Even "the Pons Asinorum" is over dry bed.
 He had no ear for music. Every tune was alike to him. Varied, weirdly- pleasing sen sations that arise in the soul of some na- lures were probably weak in him, such as come from listening to the wind signing through the pines, the murmurings of the mountain brook, the cooing of the doves un- der the caves, the chirp of the crickets and the nightly disputes of certain innocent, harmless insects who appear to have before them their especial question of the ages, whether s'Katy did" or "Katy didn't"
 He seemed weak in the sense of the beau tiful as derived from the contemplation of nature It was a great deprivation all will say who find exquisite enjoyment and lift their hearts in gratitude as they feel the be- nign presence of the universal spirit in the sparkling dew globule, the trembling leaf and the sweetly tinted flower. To many a heart this love is great panaoea in time of woe. They feel in the midst of sore strug gles that the world of beauty is still theirs But for this reflection they might sometimes seek relief in suicide. sLife, {" they will say, lis yet mine; it is the great possession"
 During the eight years of his presidency Grant never entered the library of Congress, and we have no evidence that his informa- tion extended much into the leaves of books. We do know that the brightest of our men in ideas, such scholars and thinkers as Wool sey, Emerson, etc., were not his companions, but he found them in the lower strata of the kings of money and lords of fleet horses, gorgeous in their settings, luxurious and ma terialistic in their lives.
 Grant had the sense of moral beauty. He loved goodness and was incapable of an in
 
 expression were heard from his lips. He was as strong in his friendships in his will, and he had that highest quality of citizen ship, deep, fervent devotion to his own fami- ly. His dislike of exaggeration, his calm ness of spirit and honesty of purpose is shown in every word he wrote or spoke. His memoirs when published will be found as charming from their terse simplicity and crystal clearness as the narratives of Defoe. Every child will comprehend every word. Grants absence of imagination and his power of concentration gave him clear view of facts, while his marvellous memory gave him therein full breadth of compre- tension, so that each fact would fall in at one view and in it's relative place of i'm portance. His calmness was so serene that no intruding emotion could disturb the perfect action of his judgment. Having no imagination, he never appealed to it in his soldiers, nor did they want it. War was with them business, not poetry. A poet was not wanted as commander or the Army of the Potomac, no matter what the direc- tion for which the soul of John Brown was heading; nor looking glass commander with his mind upon spreading epaulettes and bobbing plumes. He was. a thorough ly independent, self-poised thinker, and in his simplicity and originality of expression he often made two "or three words do the work of an entire sentence. A notable in- stance of this was given when General But Ter was imprisoned by the Confederates in the peninsula formed by the function of