ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS 113 



over mangled corpses of deceased hartebeests, lions, 

 and zebras. 



Roosevelt probably knew this himself, but his 

 book was written for the man in the street, and so 

 he perhaps felt that those horrible portraits were 

 expected of him, but it only reminds us of Corney 

 Grain's 



" Choir-boy whose voice o'er- topped the rest 

 Though very inartistic, the public like it best." 



Theodore Roosevelt was certainly one of the most 

 remarkable men of this or any other time. In 

 person he was the embodiment of physical fitness, 

 being an expert rider and shot and skilled in most 

 games. Mentally he was a giant whose broad 

 vision ranged over a vast variety of subjects. At 

 one sitting I have heard him discuss big game 

 hunting, bimetallism, zoology, geography, national 

 policy, European history, botany, palaeontology, 

 archaeology, and ancient forms of religion, bringing 

 to each and all a thoroughness, accuracy, wealth of 

 detail and breadth of criticism that was astonishing 

 did we not know the extent of his reading and the 

 power of his memory. His active brain was a com- 

 plete bibliography of a thousand subjects, and at a 

 moment's notice he could give you chapter and 

 verse to which to refer in regard to any point at issue. 

 No man living could have produced two such diverse 

 volumes as Presidential Addresses and State Papers 

 and Through the Brazilian Wilderness, and if we 

 add to this his experience as a soldier, and exposition 

 of his New Bible, we can obtain some slight grasp 

 of his mental and physical activities. 1 



1 " The man's memory was prodigious. I once spent some 

 ten days on two separate visits as his guest at the White 

 i 



