t seventy-three, Vanderbilt married
his second wife, a beautiful Southern widow who had just turned her
thirtieth year, and the appearance of the two, sitting side by side in
one of the Commodore's smartest turnouts, driving recklessly behind a
pair of the fastest trotters of the day, was a common sight in Central
Park. Nor did Vanderbilt look incongruous in this brilliant setting. His
tall and powerful frame was still erect, and his large, defiant head,
ruddy cheeks, sparkling, deep-set black eyes, and snowy white hair
and whiskers, made him look every inch the Commodore. These public
appearances lent a pleasanter and more sentimental aspect to
Vanderbilt's life than his intimates always perceived. For his manners
were harsh and uncouth; he was totally without education and could write
hardly half a dozen lines without outraging the spelling-book. Though he
loved his race-horses, had a fondness for music, and could sit through
long winter evenings while his young wife sang old Southern ballads,
Vanderbilt's ungovernable temper had placed him on bad terms with nearly
all his children--he had had thirteen, of whom eleven survived him--who
contested his will and exposed all his eccentricities to public view
on the ground that the man who created the New York Central system was
actually insane. Vanderbilt's methods and his temperament presented
such a contrast to the commonplace minds which had previously dominated
American business that this explanation of his career is perhaps not
surprising. He saw things in their largest aspects and in his big
transactions he seemed to act almost on impulse and intuition. He could
never explain the mental processes by which he arrived at important
decisions, though these decisions themselves were invariably sound. He
seems to have had, as he himself frequently said, almost a seer-like
faculty. He saw visions, and he believed in dreams and in signs. The
greatest practical genius of his time was a frequent attendant at
spiritualistic seances; he cultivated personally the society of mediums,
and in sickness he usually resorted to mental healers, mesmerists,
and clairvoyants. Before making investments or embarking in his great
railroad ventures, Vanderbilt visited spiritualists; we have one
circumstantial account of his summoning the wraith of Jim Fiske to
advise him in stock operations. His excessive vanity led him to print
his picture on all the Lake Shore bonds; he proposed to New York
C