Owen Wister, Ulysses S. Grant

[138] his spirit rose. He was asked to write war articles, and presently was able to pay Mr. Wood with the first-fruits of his pen. Then for weeks, sometimes in such torture from the cancer in his throat that drinking water was like swallowing molten lead to him, he fought death away while he wrote his memoirs. The tribute of the country in making him general once more on March 4, 1885, deeply pleased him; but he was shaken by it, and grew worse. Reviving, however, his vast will pushed on with the book, in order to leave something for his wife's support. He had no voice any more, but whispered his dictation, and wrote on days when he was strong enough. He held death away until the book was finished, and then gave death leave to come. In June he had been taken up the Hudson River to Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, from his New York house. His eyes followed West Point as the train passed by it. On