HOW TO GET STRONG
the Weary" his favorite hymn. Politics did not interest him. He was fond of driving fine horses; he gave one million to Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. He had thirteen children by his first wife."
Among many stories of his daring in storm and danger, this may be told here: In a sailing-race from Staten Island to a buoy five miles out in the Bay, and return; the favorite was a costly and handsome sloop, which could easily outsail Vanderbilt's periagua—this very boat he had earned. Upon the day of the race it blew a gale. Nothing could suit Vanderbilt better. Though he pressed the sloop hard, she rounded the stake first, and was evidently winning as she liked. But the finish-line had been placed just in front of and too near a stone-dock. The sloop, as she neared the finish, began to shorten sail, to avoid the danger. "Corneel" cracked on every stitch he had; shot over the line a winner; crashed into the dock; his boat sank; he shinned up the mast, won the prize; and a few dollars soon patched the boat, and made her all right.
In all his life he never laid on flesh; but muscular, erect, and commanding, he was one of the finest-looking men in the United States. He drove almost daily; not cooped up in a closed carriage, but he did the driving, and behind the fleetest pair of horses that money could buy. And woe be to your wheel if you got in his way. But no blooded horse he ever drove had more of the true racing-spirit in him than did this modern viking and railroad king, who made an average of a million a year for eighty years—one of the strongest, manliest, and greatest men America has yet produced.
HENRY CLAY (1777–1852)
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