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.