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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



of humor and as a conversationalist he was 

 almost unrivaled. No one could listen to 

 him without imbibing fresh and charming 

 impressions of life and without learning 

 something of interest, which he drew so 

 readily from his stores of learning and re- 

 search. His modesty, and in the latter years 

 his seclusion in his home life, i^revented him 

 from achieving phenomenal success as a lec- 

 turer, as would otherwise have been the case ; 

 for, gifted with a marvelous vocabulary and 

 flow of speech, he fascinated his auditors 

 by his voice and manner, by his wonderful 

 charm and originality of thought." 



One who knew Mr. Gratacap as early as 

 his college years, Mr. Marcus Benjamin of 

 Washington, D. C, considers him to have 

 been an unusually able man, and gifted with 

 great versatility. He says: "He was very 

 modest and even diffident, and it may be 

 that his personality prevented a greater ap- 

 preciation of his real worth. As I look back 

 over the almost half century since I first 

 met him, I cannot but yield to him all honor 

 and praise for his achievements." 



Mr. Julius Hyman, another old friend and 

 fellow student at City College, says of him: 

 "Louis P. Gratacap was a wonderful man. To 

 a superior intellectual ability he had added 

 the power and charm of a wide cultural de- 

 velopment. And yet withal he remained a 

 man — a simple human who liked humans and 

 liked to be with them. . . . By instinct and 

 habit he was a gentle-man. A noble courtesy 

 informed all his actions. . . . Endowed be- 

 yond the average with natural gifts, he was 

 modest and retiring to the point of diffi- 

 dence. ... He had a discerning mind and 

 ever kept his sense of proportion. He de- 

 spised sham and pretense. He paid homage 

 to merit. In his analysis of leaders of men, 

 in his books on pulilic affairs, he hastened to 

 point out the good in them, and to emphasize 

 the constructive side of their policies. . . . 

 He was a great American, and he loved 

 America greatly. He was for America first, 

 last, and all the time — that America that 

 was to prove the world's leaven. For him 

 America was the justification of history. It 

 was the leavening that would bring salvation 

 to the world. He used to say to me, 'Hyman, 

 America is the greatest experiment in de- 

 mocracy the world has ever seen. Ultimately 

 the world must come around to us. If we 

 go, then the world goes. ' . . . 



"Louis P. Gratacap was an optimist. He 

 was perennially young. He had life-zest. He 

 lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow — and loved 

 to describe it in felicitous phrase. He was al- 

 ways enthusiastic — never downcast; his was 

 the Greek's en iheos, the 'god within.' . . . 

 He was of fine humor, at times almost boy- 

 ish in its quest. Goldberg's cartoons, with 

 their ingenious grotesqueries, would stir his 

 risibilities much. lie had a hearty infec- 

 tious laugh. He enjoyed a joke and could 

 tell a funny stoiy. And he did love con- 

 temporaneous life — the life of our cosmo- 

 politan New York. Of original native stock, 

 he met the more recent Americans with a 

 discerning eye and a mind of understanding. 

 ' Where others saw but a motley crowd, he 

 saw the soul of man Itehind it. ' In old Trin- 

 ity 's churchyard, on that gentle southern 

 slope, just where the daily flood tide of 

 Broadway's bustling business men, clerks, 

 and jetsam swirls into that swift current 

 of bankers and brokers that comes rushing 

 out of Wall Street's commercial caiion, in 

 the very heart of that old New York he 

 loved so dearly, a true civis Novi Ehoraci, 

 he now lies in peaceful rest. ... * His 

 life was gentle, and the elements so mixed 

 in him, that Nature might stand up and say 

 to all the world, "This was a man." ' " 



In a paper on Mr. Gratacap, read before 

 the Staten Island Association of Arts anil 

 Sciences, Mr. William T. Davis said: 



"The versatility of the man, as his bibliog- 

 raphy will show when published, was quite 

 remarkable. As a lecturer he had few 

 equals, and his many ideas were not only 

 presented entertainingly, but also through 

 the medium of a remarkable vocabulary. It 

 is related that ex-Governor Benjamin B. 

 Odell, a guest at an alumni dinner, after 

 listening to Mr. Gratacap, turned to the 

 president of the occasion and remarked : 

 'That man a cold scientist? Why, if he 

 went into public life, he would class with 

 orators like Joseph Choate and Horace Por- 

 ter.' But Mr. Gratacap did not care to 

 go into public life; he was a student, and 

 thought more of the quiet of his home, 

 where after the death of their j^arents, he 

 and his brother Thomas lived alone, except 

 for the servant. He lived only for his work 

 and for his friends. Very many can testify 

 to his kindly acts both in financial and other 

 aid." 



