reflect any credit on the academy. Had I been able to take half the
interest in my studies my grandfather showed in them, I would have won
prizes in every branch; but even my desire to please him could not
make me understand the simplest problems in long division; and later
here at the Point, the higher branches of mathematics, combined with
other causes, have nearly deprived the United States Army of a gallant
officer. I believe I have it in me to take a piece of field artillery
by assault, but I know I shall never be able to work out the formula
necessary to adjust its elevation.

With the exception, perhaps, of Caesar's "Commentaries," I hated all
of my studies, not only on their own account, but because they cut me
out of the talks with which in the past my grandfather and I had been
wont to close each day. These talks, which were made up on my part of
demands for more stories, or for repetitions of those I already knew
by heart, did more than any other thing to inspire me with a desire
for military glory. My grandfather had served through the Mexican War,
in the Indian campaigns on the plains, and during the War of the
Rebellion, and his memory recalled the most wonderful and exciting of
adventures. He was singularly modest, which is a virtue I never could
consider as a high one, for I find that the world takes you at your
own valuation, and unless "the terrible trumpet of Fame" is sounded by
yourself no one else will blow your trumpet for you. Of that you may
be sure. But I can't recall ever having heard my grandfather relate to
people of his own age any of the adventures which he told me, and once
I even caught him recounting a personal experience which redounded
greatly to his credit as having happened to "a man in his regiment."
When with childish delight I at once accused him of this he was
visibly annoyed, and blushed like a girl, and afterward corrected me
for being so forward in the presence of my elders. His modesty went