excerpt from the book..Everybody who reads this book through will wonder that a manwho ought to be able to tell so much has really told so little.I have known personally and quite intimately, or have knownintelligent and trustworthy persons who have known personallyand quite intimately, many men who have had a great sharein the history of this country and in its literature for ahundred and thirty years.In my younger days there were among my kindred and near friendspersons who knew the great actors of the Revolutionary timeand the time which followed till I came to manhood myself.But I did not know enough to ask questions. If I had, andhad recorded the answers, I could write a very large partof the political and literary history of the United States.I never kept a diary, except for a few and brief periods.So for what I have to say, I must trust to my memory. I haveno doubt that after these volumes are published, there willcome up in my mind matter enough to make a dozen better ones.