Marse Henry (Volume 2) - An Autobiography by Henry Watterson
page 128 of 208 (61%)
page 128 of 208 (61%)
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lovable boy. He was repellant to Grant, who could not and perhaps did
not desire to understand him.... To him the Southerners were always the red-faced, swashbuckling slave-drivers he had fancied and pictured them in the days of his abolition oratory. More and more he lived in a rut of his own fancies, wise in books and counsels, gentle in his relations with the few who enjoyed his confidence; to the last a most captivating personality. Though fastidious, Schurz was not intolerant. Yet he was hard to convince--tenacious of his opinions--courteous but insistent in debate. He was a German; a German Herr Doktor of Music, of Letters and of Common Law. During an intimacy of more than thirty years we scarcely ever wholly agreed about any public matter; differing about even the civil service and the tariff. But I admired him hugely and loved him heartily. I had once a rather amusing encounter with him. There was a dinner at Delmonico's, from whose program of post-prandial oratory I had purposely caused my own name to be omitted. Indeed, I had had with a lady a wager I very much wished to win that I would not speak. General Grant and I went in together, and during the repast he said that the only five human beings in the world whom he detested were actually here at table. Of course, Schurz was one of these. He was the last on the list of speakers and, curiously enough--the occasion being the consideration of certain ways and means for the development of the South--and many leading Southerners present--he composed his speech out of an editorial tour de force he was making in the Evening Post on The Homicidal Side of Southern Life. Before he had proceeded half through General Grant, who knew of my wager, said, "You'll lose your bet," and, it being one o'clock in the morning, I thought so too, and did not care whether I won or lost it. When he finished, the call on me was spontaneous and universal. "Now give it to |
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