so marked a characteristic of their wedded life. Mr. Bryan came first,
his wife and his young daughter remaining in Jacksonville until he had
become settled. They then joined him. They immediately began the
erection of a modest home in Lincoln, buying a building lot on D street,
and upon it erected the home he now occupies, at No. 1625. The money was
furnished by Mr. Baird, but has long since been paid. Three children
have been born to them, Ruth, now nearly fifteen, William, aged eleven,
and Grace, aged nine. The first named is now a registered student at the
seminary at Godfrey, where the mother first began her college career.
Even the most casual visitor to the Bryan residence is impressed with
the distinctive home atmosphere of the place. Mrs. Bryan, as its
presiding genius, has stamped upon it the impress of her individuality,
no less marked in that sphere than her husband’s in his. The house
itself is little more than a cottage, although it boasts of a second
story and a cupola. Outwardly its lines are a little more impressive
than when it was first built. This can be traced to the addition within
the past year of a many-columned porch, stretching across its entire
front and bending in a graceful curve to a point midway of the rear.
With its paneled roof and the electric lights, its cosy corners and
inviting arm chairs, it is an enticing retreat, and here the Bryan
family spend most of their waking hours in the summer months.
There is no ostentation displayed in the furnishings of the Bryan
residence. The parlor is the parlor of the well-to-do middle class. The
sitting room is simply furnished, but home-like and inviting. The
library is the workshop and no unnecessary tools are lying about. On the
walls hang large portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and
Lincoln, and steel engravings of Benton, Webster, and Calhoun. They are
inexpensive pictures, but typical of the ideals of the occupants of the
room. Another picture shows Henry Clay, addressing his colleagues in the
United States Senate. The artist’s perspective was sadly at fault, but
it was not the art, but the subject, that attracted Mr. Bryan. The
library is an extensive one, but unique in its character. Fiction and
the classics find very little room. In their places are histories,
orations, works on political economy, lives and speeches of famous men,
who have helped build the nation of the past, dissertations and
addresses upon the hundred and one questions that have vexed and still
perplex the modern school of statesmanship. Upon few of these has any
dust accumulated, and upon all of them are the unmistakable signs of
frequent usage.
The characteristic that strikes the visitor most is the _bon homme_, the
_camaraderie_, of the household. A wholesome sympathy seems to be the
bond that unites all members. Neither the father nor the mother is a
strict disciplinarian. They do not believe in tyrannizing over their
children. They believe in encouraging their respective bents, and in
guiding them in the right channels, rather than in forcing in the ways
hallowed by tradition. Mrs. Bryan is essentially a home body; her
husband and children are her chiefest, but not her only cares. She is a
mentor to them all. Miss Ruth is much like her father in temperament.
She is quick and impulsive, warm-hearted and generous. Her popularity
among her girl friends is attested by the number that throng her lawn
every evening. William is a sturdy youth in build, and, boy-like, more
self assertive than his sisters. As his father is a typical American
man, so is the youth a typical American boy, fun-loving and possessed of
a harmless mischievousness that often disturbs the young girls who are
his older sister’s confidantes. Grace, the youngest, is delicate in
health, and her father’s favorite. It is to him she goes with her
childish troubles, sure of the sympathy that never fails her.
Mr. Bryan takes great pride in his household, and he bends every energy
to the end that the bonds of mutual confidence and love, the elements so
essential in a perfect home, may be strengthened and cemented. Every
hour that he can give to them he gladly spares. For four years he has
had no other office, no other working place, than in this home. After
the campaign of 1896 he gave up, to all intents and purposes, his down
town office, and has spent his time at home. His office is now in his
library, an inviting room opening off the parlor on one side, and the
sitting room on the other. His work is performed on a big flat-topped
desk that occupies a goodly share of the floor space. Here he is
surrounded by book-cases and statuettes, by curious mementoes, ink
stands, canes, a hundred and one articles that admirers in all sections
and climes of the country have sent him. Most of these have been
gathered together in a glass-covered compartment that separates the two
big book-cases.
Mr. Bryan finds that his best work is done with his wife as his
counselor and guide. She has a place on one side of the big desk, he on
the other. She is no less indefatigable as a worker than he. She finds
time between her consultations with him, when an important work is on
hand, to care for her household, and to direct the work of the one
domestic employed. Mrs. Bryan’s thorough understanding and appreciation
of every detail of his labors make her companionship and aid almost
indispensable. Together they have gone over the details of his campaigns
in the past years, and with him she still plans for the future. What he
writes, she either passes upon or assists in its production. Her
self-poise, marred by no self-consciousness, but marked by a quiet
dignity, is one of her remarkable possessions. Perhaps the best
delineation of the characteristics of this woman, remarkable in many
ways, is furnished by the eminent novelist, Julian Hawthorne, who spent
some time at the Bryan home during the past summer. Of her he said,
“Mrs. Bryan is as unusual a woman as her husband is a man, but she is so
unobtrusive that few people have much idea of her true character. I had
the opportunity to learn something of her during the campaign of ‘96,
and I well recollect her admirable bearing at the great meeting in
Madison Square Garden, when she was recognized and greeted on entering
her box by more than ten thousand people. It was a tremendous ordeal for
a woman to undergo. But she sustained herself with steadiness and
self-possession, remarkable in any woman, but more than remarkable in
her, who had always lived in quiet domestic ways, occupied with her
husband, her children, and her household duties. She is a woman of great
courage and unshakable faith, of exceptional intellect, also, nourished
with adequate education. She possesses the coolness of judgment which
must often have served him well in times of doubt. She is not led away
by imagination or hope, but sees things as they are, and resolutely
faces facts. Should the decrees of Providence see fit to place her in a
position of the first lady of the land, I should have no fear that she
would discharge her duties irreproachably. A true American woman, she is
such as you may always be glad to match against the great dames of the
old world. The dominant expression of her face is penetration, combined
with a gentle composure. But there is the sparkle of demure humor in her
eyes, and she can use speech as the most delicate of rapiers when she
chooses. It is easy to know her as an acquaintance, but I surmise that
no one really knows her except her husband, and probably she will be
able continually to discover new resources and depths even to him. She
is a good woman, with strong religious convictions, and she regards
Bryan’s political aspirations from that point of view. If it is the will
of God that he shall reach the highest place among his countrymen she
will accept the mission with good will and confidence. But should he be
defeated she will welcome the life of obscurity with unshaken
equanimity, believing that the councils of the Almighty are
unsearchable, but faithful. If she be destined to higher things, the
example to the nation, irrespective of party, of such a wife and such a
mother as she is, can not but be beneficial. If not, ‘Those also serve
who only stand and wait.’”
Sociability is one of the graces that attach to her naturally. The
number of visitors to her husband is so large and his amiability so
great, that if Mrs. Bryan did not maintain a watchfulness over them they
would consume all of his hours. This guardianship of his time has imbued
her with a little more sternness than is her nature, but at the same
time has endowed her with shrewdness of discernment that enables her to
gauge every one’s errand with astonishing accuracy. The true democracy
of the man is shown in his earnest desire that even the lowest of his
callers shall be received with the same consideration bestowed upon the
great ones, and no visitor ever leaves the Bryan home, even though he
may not have gained his wish, without the consciousness of the gentle
courtesy and a full-souled welcome.
But Mrs. Bryan is in no sense a society woman. She is of a turn of mind
too serious and too well poised to enable her to find enjoyment in the
frivolities and vanities that go to make up so much of the life of the
society woman. She likes to meet with her friends and talk with them,
and she misses no opportunity to indulge in this pleasure. Club and
church work take up much of her leisure. She has been active for years
in the work of the Nebraska state federation of women’s clubs. She can
write, and frequently does, for newspapers and periodicals. She can also
speak and speak well, but this she does rarely. Her range of information
is as varied as that of her husband, and she knows the ins and outs of
politics as well as she does the theories of good government, and the
vagaries of the different schools of political economy. For years Mrs.
Bryan’s father has resided with them. Now he is sightless and infirm,
but his hours are cheered and his burden lightened by the loving care of
his daughter.
The passing years have dealt very gently with Mrs. Bryan. She is above
the average in height, but her figure is matronly. Her face is pale, but
there is no pallor, the graceful curves of youth have softened in
outline, but in manner she has gained the dignity that does not hint of
reserve. Mrs. Bryan is always well dressed, the unobtrusiveness and
appropriateness of her garments marking the taste of the wearer. Her
gowns are usually of one color, relieved here and there by the bright
tints women love.
“Mrs. Bryan’s whole life has been one of study,” says Miss Wright, of
Lincoln, a friend of the family. “Long before she could read she knew
the names of all the bugs her little hoe turned up in the garden. In her
early life the doctor said she must be kept out of doors. Luckily she
did not like indoor life. All day long she tagged her father, and they
played together in the garden. By the time she was old enough for books
she was kin to everything they told about. She idealized the earth and
its generating and regenerating character. From a weak child she has
grown to be a strong woman with rare power of endurance and
concentration. She and her father would sit on the porch at night and
study the skies, and the Greek and Norse stories of the stars were
repeated until she had committed all of them to memory. He told her how
far away they were and what a speck the world would look if it could be
seen from Venus. The idea of the immensity of the Universe and the
relation of the world to the solar system seldom enters the mind of a
child, but with Mary Baird, it was the most interesting story that could
be told. Early star-gazing and her father’s influence trained her to
think of things abstractly, nakedly, and without the impediments of
custom and fashion. During her first days in school, her text-books were
distasteful, as they were new, but she studied them nevertheless, and
soon was at the head of her class. This habit of study has clung to her
ever since.”
Social dissipation is unknown in the Bryan household. Since Miss Ruth
has grown to the dignity of young womanhood, and has gathered about her
a bevy of young friends, an added gaiety has been given. She has had her
little parties, but her parents receive rarely, and then but informally.
The Bryans have several carriages and horses, and in these they find
their chief amusement. Once in a while Mr. and Mrs. Bryan are seen at
the theatres, but only at the best plays. Mr. Bryan has grown much
stouter in late years, and has taken to frequent horseback rides as both
an exercise and a pleasure. His favorite animal is a Kentucky bred
saddle horse. It was presented him by ex-Governor W. J. Stone, of
Missouri, and in compliment to its donor, Mr. Bryan has named it
“Governor.”
The figure of W. J. Bryan on horseback is a familiar one in the city of
Lincoln, a city where horseback riding has never been in vogue. Governor
is a coal-black, high-spirited animal, and prances and pirouettes with
nervousness at every halt. Mr. Bryan’s favorite ride is to his farm,
four miles east of the city. Here, on a thirty-acre tract, he has for
several years been making experiments in farming, or rather in
endeavoring to discover whether he has forgotten the lessons instilled
into his mind by his agricultural experiences in youth. Mr. Bryan
insists that he is not a farmer, but an agriculturalist, and defines the
difference tersely in this wise: “You see, a farmer is a man who makes
his money in the country, and spends it in the town. The agriculturalist
makes his money in town and spends it in the country.”
Mr. Bryan has no intention of taking up the life of a farmer. Ten years
ago, in the boom days of Lincoln, he purchased a five-acre tract close
to the suburb of Normal. He had driven out east of the city one day, and
at the top of a hill stopped to rest his horse. As he sat in his
carriage the splendid panorama of field and house and tree unrolled
before him. He was enchanted. Then and there he resolved to build a
permanent home upon that spot some day. The original five acres cost him
a good round sum, but his later purchases, made now and then, have been
at greatly reduced figures. The buildings upon the farm are largely
temporary in character. The house is a small one of five rooms, and
shelters the man who does the real work on the place. Mr. Bryan has
found much pleasure and recreation during the summer at the farm. During
the planting season and in the weeks that followed, he made a visit
daily and spent several hours “puttering” about, directing things here
and bearing a hand there himself, at the harder tasks. In the rural
atmosphere, away from the conventions of the city, he threw aside every
care and every burden. His ordinary clothing was cast aside for the
habiliments that distinguish the farmer at work. Mr. Bryan confesses to
a weakness for high-top boots, in which his trouser ends can be
hidden,—and then to work.
The one singular thing about everything that this man does is that he is
at all times able to preserve his dignity. There is nothing
selfconscious about that dignity. In the West, that sort is dangerous to
attempt. Simplicity is the dominant note in his character, his manners,
his talk, his walk. His amiability is inexhaustible, his patience
unending. If a delegation of Democrats passing through Lincoln do not
have time to go out and see Mr. Bryan, Mr. Bryan finds time to ride down
to the depot and see them. He has, since his nomination, made several
speeches from horseback, to boisterous but zealous delegations, and
always with the old charm and effect.
As to his patience, no better witnesses to its enduring qualities need
be asked than the newspaper correspondents who form a corps of watchful
guardians upon his footsteps. Many are the questions, some of them
impertinent, that are asked him, and during a campaign, the presence of
the press representatives, unobtrusive as they are, really destroys
whatever privacy remained to him. And yet through it all, his courtesy
is ever gentle, his good nature unfailing, his temper always under such
control as to seem to be an absent quantity in his make-up.
Lincoln, the city of his residence, has always been dominated by the
Republican party, and so great has been the preponderance of that
political organization that Mr. Bryan has never been able to carry it in
any of his campaigns. Mr. Bryan came to Lincoln a young man, and entered
into a very brisk competition with a number of other young lawyers, most
of them Republicans. None of these have risen above the political level
of county leaders, nor have they found fame or other reward at the bar.
The rapid flight of Mr. Bryan and his pre-eminence has engendered in
their breasts a bitterness of partisanship, accentuated and multiplied
by their personal jealousies, that has found its vent in mean and
malicious assaults upon his political integrity and attempted
belittlings of his abilities. This influence has in the past over-ridden
a local pride that would have justified an endorsement at least of his
Presidential candidacy, and added flame to the fires of partisanship
that particularly distinguishes the city. These two facts form the
solution to a mystery that has seemingly vexed a great many good people
in America, who do not understand the local conditions. Mr. Bryan seems,
too, to have pitched his tent in the most rabidly Republican section of
the city, as evidenced by the elaborate display of McKinley pictures in
the front windows of the houses of his neighbors, who are as lacking in
good taste as in civic pride.
None of these elaborate attempts at incivility have ever ruffled his
temper, nor have they caused him to retaliate with the weapons he so
well knows how to use. The fact is, he has many warm friends among the
Republicans of the city. His old law partner has long been a Republican
leader, and is now president of the State Senate. This year he has
espoused Mr. Bryan’s cause.
It has been said that the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bryan is a typical one.
It is more than a type; it is an ideal. The simplicity of the life his
family leads, the wholesomeness of the atmosphere, the absence of
affectation, the presence of a democracy that includes courtesy,
gentleness, amiability, and cordiality invariably impresses one. The
home life of a man is the mirror of his character; and in its limpid
depths one sees the secret springs of thought and reads the heart
aright. That that of Mr. Bryan reflects with truthful fidelity is a fact
within the knowledge of all who know the man and revere the woman. The
words he himself used in describing the beautiful home life of a friend
who had been called across the river apply with equal fitness to his
own:
“He found his inspiration at his fireside, and approached his ideal of
the domestic life. He and his faithful wife, who was both his help-mate
and companion, inhabited as tenants in common that sacred spot called
home, and needed no court to define their relative rights and duties.
The invisible walls which shut in that home and shut out all else had
their foundation upon the earth and their battlements in the skies. No
force could break them down, no poisoned arrows could cross their top,
and at the gates thereof love and confidence stood ever upon guard.”
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
1. Silently corrected typographical errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
3. One instance of unpaired double quotation marks could not be
corrected.