teries of cancerous affections baffle the inquiry of the most expert medical skill. But one thing is certain, General Grant never rallied from that shock. Perhaps he would have been overtaken and slain by the same cruel enemy had he suffered no shock of that kind. It can only be said that from that moment he did not see a day of health. The pain and anguish of his financial troubles which came some months later, no doubt had much to do with the development of the seeds of disease; how much, will never be known and is a much mooted question among physicians. The disease first showed itself in the form of a slight soreness of the mouth and throat, supposed to be cankerous, rather than cancerous. The family physician seemed to think lightly of it. If he really felt that it was alarming he kept the secret well, and the public first learned of the trouble in a way to excite the least possible apprehension. The fact that Senator Hill of Georgia, had died not long before, after a long and distressing sickness, caused by cancer in the mouth, tended somewhat to stimulate the public fear that the malady had found another victim. But the reports were so positive in the assurance that nothing serious need be apprehended, that the intelligence produced hardly a ripple upon the sea of popular thought and sentiment. It was in the last months of the year 1884, that the people first learned that something, whether serious or not, none knew, was ailing his mouth and throat. All through the winter the daily press continued frequent mention of his symptoms, and it was evident that he was getting worse rather than better, but it was not until late in February that the case became so bad that, in spite of every effort at concealment, his true condition became generally known. The conviction that the great defender of the Union was the victim of a cancer. The waters of that flood permeated the whole country —even the South, which once looked upon him as a conqueror, have shown by their expressions of deep and keen sympathy that the people of that section have come to see in him the defender and saviour of a Union in which they really have as much interest as the Northern people. The swift and concordant action of Congress in restoring him to the army, and placing him upon the retired list, was only an echo, faint and feeble, of the universal sentiment of the American people. The progress of the disease was so rapid that by the latter part of March the bulletins announced that death was hourly expected. For several days the country watched with tender solicitude, in expectation that the next dispatch would state that the end had come. The press news was eagerly scanned morning and evening, and the whole nation seemed almos* absorbed in anxiety. The sick man looked for early release from his torture, and evidently longed for it. To him death had no terrors, and the sweet joys of a happy family life had been turned to the bitterest gall by his fell calamity. But he rallied. Hopes began to be entertained of his final recovery, although at no time did his physicians encourage the idea as a possibility,-they having pronounced his malady incurable; that he was mortally ill, and that whether his death be lingering or a sudden one, its shadow was upon him. While he had what are called "well days," when he was comparatively free from pain, his son states that his system seemed to be entirely broken, his appetite was poor, and the power of recuperation was apparently lost. For many months, and during his illness, General Grant had been at work on his "Memoirs," having been specially solicitous to finish them ere his powers should fail him. His publishers announce that they are at last completed, and that they will be issued from the press during the last month of the present year. In his persistent labors on these memoirs, continuing at his task when suffering severely from the murderous disease that is now sapping his vitality, the old hero showed the same great qualities which he displayed in battles with the rebels. He was the least excited, though the most interested character on this scene, as on those of the great battles he won. His patience and serenity, under pain and amid conflict, were equally displayed now as then, and he fought with the "monster" Death, as with the Rebellion,-with the obstinacy of a great mind and a strong constitution. There is something exceptionally pathetic in the tortures to which General Grant was subjected. Cancer is unlike ordinary disease. It is not the wasting away of nature at any given point, but a distinct and horrible entity, -a wild beast-a veritable man-eating tiger, springing from the jungle and fastening its terrible fangs upon a helpless victim. The system fosters and nurtures this beast of prey in the jungle of the blood many years, perhaps, before the fatal leap is made. If its work were done speedily, like yellow fever, or cholera, or if delirium, nature's anæsthetic, afforded any mitigation, it would be less pathetic. Slowly the work goes on, the monster tightening his grasp continually, and bringing his fangs and claws deeper and deeper in the quick and quivering flesh every day, the victim all the while conscious of his fate. |