Chapter 2 - Page 2

but two languages, the English
and his own, but would not exclude any foreign tongue from the tests to
be applied to his memory. Then he laid before the assemblage his program
--a sufficiently extraordinary one. He proposed that one gentleman
should give him one word of a foreign sentence, and tell him its place in
the sentence. He was furnished with the French word 'est', and was told
it was second in a sentence of three words. The next, gentleman gave him
the German word 'verloren' and said it was the third in a sentence of
four words. He asked the next gentleman for one detail in a sum in
addition; another for one detail in a sum of subtraction; others for
single details in mathematical problems of various kinds; he got them.
Intermediates gave him single words from sentences in Greek, Latin,
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other languages, and told him their
places in the sentences. When at last everybody had furnished him a
single rag from a foreign sentence or a figure from a problem, he went
over the ground again, and got a second word and a second figure and was
told their places in the sentences and the sums; and so on and so on. He
went over the ground again and again until he had collected all the parts
of the sums and all the parts of the sentences--and all in disorder, of
course, not in their proper rotation. This had occupied two hours.

The Brahmin now sat silent and thinking, a while, then began and repeated
all the sentences, placing the words in their proper order, and untangled
the disordered arithmetical problems and gave accurate answers to them
all.

In the beginning he had asked the company to throw almonds at him during
the two hours, he to remember how many each gentleman had thrown; but
none were thrown, for the Viceroy said that the test would be a
sufficiently severe strain without adding that burden to it.

General Grant had a fine memory for all kinds of things, including even
names and faces, and I could have furnished an instance of it if I had
thought of it. The first time I ever saw him was early in his first term
as President. I had just arrived in Washington from the Pacific coast, a
stranger and wholly unknown to the public, and was passing the White
House one morning when I met a friend, a Senator from Nevada. He asked
me if I would like to see the President. I said I should be very glad;
so we entered. I supposed that the President would be in the midst of a
crowd, and that I could look at him in peace and security from a
distance, as another stray cat might look at another king. But it was in
the morning, and the Senator was using a privilege of his office which I
had not heard of--the privilege of intruding upon the Chief Magistrate's
working hours. Before I