failed him. He enjoyed life and wasted no time
on trivial worries, hit-or-miss, the keynote to his thought.

The Dutch blood of Holland and the cavalier blood of England mingled in
his veins in fair proportion. He was especially proud of the uncle, his
mother's brother, the Southern admiral, head of the Confederate naval
organization in Europe, who had fitted out the rebel cruisers and sent
them to sea. And well he might be, for a nobler American never lived. At
the close of the War of Sections Admiral Bullock had in his possession
some half million dollars of Confederate money. Instead of appropriating
this to his own use, as without remark or hindrance he might have done,
he turned it over to the Government of the United States, and died a
poor man.

The inconsistencies and quarrels in which Theodore Roosevelt was now and
again involved were largely temperamental. His mind was of that order
which is prone to believe what it wants to believe. He did not take
much time to think. He leaped at conclusions, and from his premise his
conclusion was usually sound. His tastes were domestic, his pastime,
when not at his books, field sports.

He was not what might be called convivial, though fond of good
company--very little wine affecting him--so that a certain self-control
became second nature to him.

To be sure, he had no conscientious or doctrinal scruples about a third
term. He had found the White House a congenial abode, had accepted the
literal theory that his election in 1908 would not imply a third but
a second term, and he wanted to remain. In point of fact I have an
impression that, barring Jackson and Polk, most of those who have got
there were loath to give it up. We know that Grant was, and I am sure
that Cleveland was. We owe a great debt to Washington, because if a
third why not a fourth term? And then life tenure after the manner
of the Caesars and Cromwells of history, and especially the
Latin-Americans--Bolivar, Rosas and Diaz?

Away back in 1873, after a dinner, Mr. Blaine took me into his den and
told me that it was no longer a surmise but a fact that the group about
General Grant, who had just been reflected by an overwhelming majority,
was maneuvering for a third term. To me this was startling, incredible.
Returning to my hotel I saw a light still burning in the room of Senator
Morton, of Indiana, and rapping at the door I was bidden to enter.
Without mentioning how it had reached me, I put the prop