Adam Badeau, Grant in peace: from Appomattox to Mount McGregor, a personal memoir

[14] passionate, but with a power of concealing them almost without example. His reserve, however, was natural in part, as well as in part the result of intention. At times there was a positive inability to reveal emotion, a sort of inarticulate undemonstrativeness as far as possible from stolidity.

He had few affections, but these were intense; he did not hate many, but he could be implacable. He was not what is usually called ambitious, but after he had been long in power he was not insensible to the sweets of possession, and was decidedly averse to relinquishing what he had enjoyed. He was not vain, but he knew his own qualities, and, though he had the faculty of receiving adulation with a greater appearance of equanimity than any other human being I have known, he was not indifferent to the recognition of the world or the praises of his friends. He who never betrayed on that imperturbable countenance that he relished the plaudits of the multitude has told me often with delicious frankness afterward of the compliments he had received; he who seemed so careless of censure or criticism —after some little attempt at a speech of four or five lines, has looked around shyly as he sat down, and whispered: ‘Was that all right?’ The disclosure is no betrayal of his confidence, now that his modesty can no longer be pained. It cannot but make his calm and stalwart nature still more interesting to know that it covered the ordinary softnesses of humanity. The living, breathing man is nearer to us than the statue of stone or unreal demi-god. The Grant that I knew was full of human nature. He had his weaknesses, but they made him more lovable sometimes to those who found them out; he had his faults, but to deny this would be to deny that he was mortal.

I took a great delight in studying, not only his moral, but his intellectual qualities. He was not in the least a critic by nature; especially he was not introspective. But he was so sure of me that he was willing for me to explore his