THE FISH-BALL LETTER
In August, 1890, the Pittsburg _Post,_ a Democratic paper,
made a savage attack on me. He attributed to me some very
foolish remark and declared that I lived on terrapin and champagne;
that I had been an inveterate office-seeker all my life; and
that I had never done a stroke of useful work. Commonly it
is wise to let such attacks go without notice. To notice
them seriously generally does more harm than good to the party
attacked. But I was a good deal annoyed by the attack, and
thought I would make a good-natured and sportive reply to
it, instead of taking it seriously. So I sent the editor
the following letter, which was copied quite extensively throughout
the country, North and South; and I believe put an end, for
the rest of my life, to the particular charges he had made:
UNITED STATES SENATE,
WASHINGTON, D. C., Aug. 10, 1890.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PITTSBURG POST;
_My Dear Man:_ Somebody has sent me a copy of your paper
containing an article of which you do me the honor to make
me the subject. What can have put such an extravagant yarn
into the head of so amiable and good-natured a fellow? I never
said the thing which you attribute to me in any interview,
caucus or anywhere else. I never inherited any wealth or
had any. My father was a lawyer in very large practice for
his day, but he was a very generous and liberal man and never
put much value upon money. My share of his estate was about
$10,500. All the income-producing property I have in the
world, or ever had, yields a little less than $1,800 a year;
$800 of that is from a life estate and the other thousand
comes from stock in a corporation which has only paid dividends
for the last two or three years, and which I am very much
afraid will pay no dividend, or much smaller ones, after two
or three years to come. With that exception the house where
I live, with its contents, with about four acres of land,
constitute my whole worldly possessions, except two or three
vacant lots, which would not bring me $5,000 all told. I
could not sell them now for enough to pay my debts. I have
been in my day an extravagant collector of books, and have
a library which you would like to see and which I would like
to show you. Now, as to office-holding and working. I think
there are few men on this continent who have put so much hard
work into life as I have. I went one winter to the Massachusetts
House of Representatives, when I was twenty-five years old,
and one winter to the Massachusetts Senate, when I was thirty
years old. The pay was two dollars a day at that time. I
was nominated on both occasions, much to my surprise, and
on both occasion declined a renomination. I afterward twice
refused a nomination for Mayor of my city, have twice refused
a seat on the Supreme Bench of Massachusetts, and refused
for years to go to Congress when the opportunity was in my
power. I was at last broken down with overwork, and went
to Europe for my health. During my absence the arrangements
were made for my nomination to Congress, from which, when
I got home, I could not well escape. The result is I have
been here twenty years as Representative and Senator, the
whole time getting a little poorer year by year. If you
think I have not made a good one, you have my full authority
for saying anywhere that I entirely agree with you. During
all this time I have never been able to hire a house in Washington.
My wife and I have experienced the varying fortune of Washington
boarding houses, sometimes very comfortable, and a good deal
of the time living in a fashion to which no mechanic earning
two dollars a day would subject his household. Your "terrapin"
is all in my eye, very little in my mouth. The chief carnal
luxury of my life is in breakfasting every Sunday morning
with an orthodox friend, a lady who has a rare gift for making
fish-balls and coffee. You unfortunate and benighted Pennsylvanians
can never know the exquisite flavor of the codfish, salted,
made into balls and eaten on a Sunday morning by a person
whose theology is sound, and who believes in all the five
points of Calvinism. I am myself but an unworthy heretic,
but I am of Puritan stock, of the seventh generation, and
there is vouchsafed to me, also, some share of that ecstasy
and a dim glimpse of that beatific vision. Be assured, my
benighted Pennsylvania friend, that in that hour when the
week begins, all the terrapin of Philadelphia or Baltimore
and all the soft-shelled crabs of the Atlantic shore might
pull at my trousers legs and thrust themselves on my notice
in vain.
I am faithfully,
GEO. F. HOAR