Park. Nor did Vanderbilt look incongruous in this brilliant
setting. His tall and powerful frame was still erect, and his
large, defiant head, ruddy cheeks, sparkling, deep-set black
eyes, and snowy white hair and whiskers, made him look every inch
the Commodore. These public appearances lent a pleasanter and
more sentimental aspect to Vanderbilt's life than his intimates
always perceived. For his manners were harsh and uncouth; he was
totally without education and could write hardly half a dozen
lines without outraging the spelling-book. Though he loved his
race-horses, had a fondness for music, and could sit through long
winter evenings while his young wife sang old Southern ballads,
Vanderbilt's ungovernable temper had placed him on bad terms with
nearly all his children--he had had thirteen, of whom eleven
survived him--who contested his will and exposed all his
eccentricities to public view on the ground that the man who
created the New York Central system was actually insane.
Vanderbilt's methods and his temperament presented such a
contrast to the commonplace minds which had previously dominated
American business that this explanation of his career is perhaps
not surprising. He saw things in their largest aspects and in his
big transactions he seemed to act almost on impulse and
intuition. He could never explain the mental processes by which
he arrived at important decisions, though these decisions
themselves were invariably sound. He seems to have had, as he
himself frequently said, almost a seer-like faculty. He saw
visions, and he believed in dreams and in signs. The greatest
practical genius of his time was a frequent attendant at
spiritualistic seances; he cultivated personally the society of
mediums, and in sickness he usually resorted to mental healers,
mesmerists, and clairvoyants. Before making investments or