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Show . i I , - GRANT'S MEMOIRS. j ! ; Yesterday was the day on which Gen- ! r era! Grant's " Tersoual Memoirs " Were ' y to have been published. The supply . ;l seems huge, but the demaud is said to be 1 " ''y fulIy e(lual t0 the supply. The"Memoirs" i : ' j will no doubt be of great interest, per- ., j haps more on account of the man than j the matter. General Grant's career was , ;j almost unique, and during the latter . : , years of his life he was almost idolized by the people, we had almost said dei- i i fied. . So . . great., became this idol-i ! j t ization, that it was almost treason ! ) to criticise any act of General Grant's, j f whether the act were military "or civil, j f f Everj-one will read the "Memoirs'; bo- i i j cause his neighbor will, and the discus- f sions over them will be long and loud, j - These "Memoirs" will be of great historical interest, but no doubt many I tilings in them will be controverted, as t tliey are in all memoirs. Memoirs are the material which history uses, but they are not history. General Grant's will i i hold a prominent place in the history of 1 : - : I the Civil War and the events which grew ! out of that war. t It has leen objected to the "Memoirs" I of General Grant that Grant was not a j literary man, and for : that, reason would i be lacking in interest. ". Such objections j are puerile in the extreme,' and show a j want of appreciation of the true worth of ; such works. It is to Grant's credit that he made no pretensions to literary j culture in the true sense of the word. We know in about what style these "Memoirs" "Mem-oirs" will be written from Grant's articles j in the Century. The style is plain, I straightforward, and without ornament. Of all the war articles which have ap-j ap-j pearedin the Century, the one which made I most pretention to literary merit, was I Lew Wallace's article on Fort Donelson, while Beauregard's Bull Run was in reality more truly literary than any which lias yet appeared. The sum which will, in all probability, be realized from the sale of the "Memoirs" should be sufficient to stop for ever the talk about the financial distress of the Grant family, and do away with the necessity for any more meetings of the trustees of the Grant fund. |