“As to my ever consenting to the use of my name as a Presidential candidate, that is entirely out of the question. I recall too well the personal experience of Generals Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Hayes and Garfield to be tempted by the siren voice of flattery. It is too like the case of the girl who marries a drunken lover in the hopes to reform him. It never has succeeded and never will; the same of any individual trying to reform the government, he will be carried along and involved in its scandals and unavoidable sins. No, I am going back next fall to St. Louis to spend the remainder of my days in comparative peace and comfort. “Wishing you and yours all the happiness possible in your sphere of action, “I am as always your friend, W. T. SHERMAN.” * * * * * Was with Professor Scherr and others last night at the Orsini again. Scherr is not only a literary man, he is an educated German thinker. I was interested in some things he said about human existence. “Nine men,” said he, “were born to serve a tenth. It never was otherwise; it never would be otherwise; it never could be otherwise.” “Education of the masses is all a mistake,” he continued. “Education only makes them discontented, and humanity is not bettered.” I wondered to myself if this were true. In America, I reflected, the masses are educated. They are, too, the most discontented people on earth. Nobody ever saw an American quite satisfied with his condition. I observed to Prof. Scherr that in certain Italian districts where the people were wholly illiterate and poor, I had noticed many signs of happiness. “Exactly,” replied the Professor. “They don’t hear constantly of what somebody else has got, and so believe they have got it all. This belief satisfies them, they want nothing more; their ignorance is their greatest blessing.” “The Swiss, though,” I said, “are all educated and are happy.” “Not a bit of it,” he answered, “they are growing more discontented every day. They were happy till they got free schools and education, and till they saw your rich American and English tourists living in luxury and scattering gold like French compliments. No, education without talent, is a curse. The first social revolution in Europe will be here within a gun shot of where we are sitting, here in so-called educated Switzerland.” _January, 1883._--Spent the holidays at Berlin visiting in the home of Mr. Sargent, our American Minister. Mr. Sargent had for weeks been in a stew with the German Government on account of their prohibiting our American meats. The same kind of trouble was had in Switzerland; but when it happened that I was able to prove that the American hams in which trichina were _officially found_, were _Antwerp_ hams “fixed up” and stamped “American,” the ban on American meats to Switzerland was raised.