"
He is, indeed, a man of little speech. Gen. Grant himself is not more
averse to oratory than he. Once, in London, at a banquet, his health
was given, and he was urged to respond. All that could be extorted
from him was the following:--
"Gentlemen, I have never made a fool of myself in my life, and I am
not going to begin now. Here is a friend of mine (his lawyer) who can
talk all day. He will do my speaking."
Nevertheless, he knows how to express his meaning with singular
clearness, force, and brevity, both by the tongue and by the pen. Some
of his business letters, dictated by him to a clerk, are models of
that kind of composition. He is also master of an art still more
difficult,--that of _not_ saying what he does not wish to say.
As a business man he is even more prudent than he is bold. He has
sometimes remarked, that it has never been in the power of any man or
set of men to prevent his keeping an engagement. If, for example, he
should bind himself to pay a million of dollars on the first of May,
he would at once provide for fulfilling his engagement in such a
manner that no failure on the part of others, no contingency, private
or public, could prevent his doing it.
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