I am also prepared to furnish “last words of eminent men,” at a moderate compensation.

General GRANT has taken time by the forelock in this matter.  His “Let us have Peace,” was a most brilliant effort, because nobody ever thought of it before.  “I propose to move on your works immediately, if it takes all summer,” was also a happy thought.

When General GRANT was in Boston he said he liked the way they made gravy in Massachusetts.  Now this in itself would not, perhaps, be called deep, because others have said the same thing before, but, coming from a man like GRANT, it set folks to thinking, and it is not surprising that something of this sort went the rounds: 

“We have the best authority for stating that General GRANT, during his recent visit to Boston, remarked that he was gratified at the manner in which gravy was produced in Massachusetts.  Our talented Chief Magistrate is a man of few words, but what he does say is spicy, and to the point.”

At the Peace Jubilee, GRANT said he “liked the cannon best;” but the reporters, being confidentially informed that the remark wasn’t intended for posterity, it didn’t get out much.  I didn’t hear of his saying anything else.

If a popular man takes cold, the whole public sneeze.  His opinions must go into the papers any how, though perhaps no better than anybody’s else.  Thus—­from a daily paper: 

    “The Hon. MONTGOMERY BLAIR recently said in a private
    conversation, that the present war would probably end in
    victory for the Prussians, and the overthrow of Napoleon.”

Supposing he did?  I heard JOHN SMITH say the same thing in an eating saloon over a month ago, and out of twenty gentlemen present, four were reporters, but they didn’t take out their note books in breathless haste and put down the Hon. JOHN SMITH’S opinion, how Mr. SMITH looked when he said it, and if he said it as though he really meant it, and in a manner that thrilled his listeners.

But JOHN hasn’t any popularity, you see, and the Hon. MONTGOMERY has—­though it may be a little mildewed.

Soon after the war, I wrote an article on the Alabama Claims.  It was a masterly effort, and cost me a month’s salary to get it inserted in a popular magazine.  If that article had proved a success, I could easily have gulled the public all my life on the popularity thus achieved.

But I made a wretched mistake to start with.  Instead of heading it “The Alabama Claims,” “By CHARLES SUMNER,” or “HORACE GREELEY.”  I said “By MOSE SKINNER.”

I will not dwell on the result.  Suffice it to say that I soon after retired from literature, a changed being, utterly devoid of hope.

MORAL SUASION.

A friend of mine, an eminent New York philanthropist, relates the following interview with a condemned criminal.  The crime for which this wretched man was hung is still fresh in our memories.  One morning at breakfast his tripe didn’t suit him, and he immediately brained his wife and children and set the house on fire, varying the monotony of the scene by pitching his mother-in-law down the well, having previously, with great consideration, touched her heart with a cheese knife.