Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

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MEMOIRS OF AN EDITOR

master of political detail was not such as to indicate
either the dimensions of his intellect or its really human
and even humorous perceptions. He would sit on the edge
of his chair, leaning forward slightly, and mysteriously
whisper communications that might refer to literature or
art or the wine cellar or the dogs at Greystone but sometimes seemed to an unhearing onlooker as if they must be
sinister suggestions for the overthrow of the Republic.
The drooping eyelids that half-veiled the gray-blue pupils
gave his countenance an expression of exceeding sagacity;
Oscar Underwood's eyes have somewhat of the same
quality, though otherwise he does not bear a physical
resemblance to Tilden. Diirer's little etching, "The
Peasant at Market," is a capital likeness of him. The
Democratic candidate of 1876 suffered in his sixties a
partial paralysis of the left side, which made him look
older than he was. He was slow of movement, unimpressive of utterance, deliberate in his judgments, unexcitable
of temperament, capable of absolute personal detachment
even from a situation that greatly concerned himself,
capable likewise of momentous decision, though his
characteristic phrase when such matters were put up to
him was the half-audible "I'll see you later." Those who
knew him best, like John Bigelow, Andrew H. Green,
Francis Lynde Stetson, and Abram S. Hewitt, appeared
not only to trust him, but also to love him, though Hewitt,
always the victim of dyspepsia, was sometimes inclined
to impatience with him. In the uncertainties following
that memorable election day, however, hundreds of
thousands of Democrats came to think of Tilden, first of
all, as a whisperer and a procrastinator.
It is not remembered, perhaps, by everybody that

although Mr. Tilden was graduated from the castellated
New York University in Washington Square he had been
for a time a member of the famous class of 1837 at Yale,
and that Evarts, Chief Justice Waite, Benjamin Silliman,