ability of their paying for their purchase out of their crops, etc. We came home together, of course, and although I saw him often, both at the White House and at great dinners, and much in private life after, I remember General Grant best on these two occasions. He was gifted by nature with a genius for military command, but he had also the unmetaphysical character of the Roman intellect, and in his private life he was all that was sweetest. While Sherman was a Greek, with the wit, tact, quickness, and elegance of the Greek mind, yet these two great captains loved each other and understood each other, and were alike heroes worthy to save the sinking ship of State, good husbands, fond fathers, and citizens of high renown. Sherman's sensitive and impressionable mind got him into trouble occasionally, and he never wished to be President. It was fortunate for him that he did not have that "bee in his bonnet," as old General Greene, of Rhode Island, used to call the desire for the Presidency.
Adelaide Ristori brought letters to me when she came to New York (in 1866 I think it was) from my friend Charles Hale, then our Minister to Egypt.
Virtue, beauty, and genius were this woman's title-deeds to fame, and, as one of her poetical biographers said justly, "Romance presided over her birth, and her path was strewn with as many incidents as flowers."
She brought her noble husband, Capranica, and her two children, the beautiful Bianca and her son, with her; and she also brought us Myrrha, Gamma, Medea, Lady Macbeth, Elizabeth, Mary Stuart, Pia dei Tolomei, and Adrienne Lecouvreur. When first asked to add Medea to her repertoire, she at first said no; that she could understand all passions but that which led to the murder of one's offspring. In the original, Medea mur-
