was reminded of a letter he had received from John P. Hale,
our minister plenipotentiary to Spain. He said for a number
of years, while Mr. Hale was in the Senate, whenever appeals
came from our foreign ministers or consuls abroad asking for
increase of salary, Mr. Hale would jump up and say, “Gentlemen
of the Senate, allow me to say I would engage to live at any
point in Europe upon the salary now granted by the Government.
It is no economy, indeed it is a great lack of economy, to
think of raising these salaries.”
“Hereupon comes a letter from Spain urging an increase of
salary in terms which would convulse the Senate with laughter
after the protestations they have heard so often. I should like
nothing better than to read it to them.” For the lack of their
presence, however, he read it to us, and it was amusing truly,
as if the old days and speeches were a blank.
Mr. Sumner easily slipped from this subject into others
connected with the Government.
Kate Field said that Judge Russell told her that President
Johnson was no better than a sot, and that the head of the
Washingtonian Home (a refuge for inebriates here) had been
sent for, as a man having skill in such cases, to try to save
him. “Is this true, Mr. Sumner?” she asked. Mr. Sumner said
not one word at first; then asked, “What authority had Judge
Russell for making such an assertion?” Kate did not know, and
I thought on the whole Mr. Sumner, who knew the man had really
been sent for by the President himself, it is supposed for some
other reason, doubted the whole tale. I doubted it sincerely
from the first moment, and I wonder a man can be left to say
such things.
Sumner then continued to describe very vividly what he had
known of Andy Johnson’s behavior. When he left Tennessee to
come to Washington to be Vice-President, he travelled with a
negro servant and two demijohns of whiskey which he dispensed
freely, drinking enough himself at the same time to arrive at
Washington in a maudlin condition, in which state he remained
until after the fourth of March. He was then living at the
hotel, and a young Massachusetts officer, who lived on the
same floor and was obliged to pass Mr. Johnson’s door many
times a day, told Mr. S. that during the two days subsequent
to Mr. Johnson’s arrival he saw, while passing his room, and
counted twenty-six glasses of whiskey go in. At length good men
interfered; they saw delirium tremens or some other dreadful
thing would be the result if this continued, and old Mr. Blair
went with Mr. Preston King and persuaded Mr. Johnson to go
down and stay at Mr. Blair’s house, and he surrendered at
discretion. It was a small house and a very quiet family, but
they stowed Mr. Johnson away and Mr. King also, who was kind
enough to offer to take care of him. Shortly after this Mr.
Lincoln and Mr. Sumner had gone down the river in a yacht, and
had landed at General Grant’s headquarters. They were sitting
together at two desks reading the papers for the day when
Mr. Sumner observed a figure darken the door, and looking up
found Mr. Johnson. “Ah, Mr. Vice-President, how do you do,” he
said, putting his papers aside. “Mr. President, here is the
Vice-President.” Mr. Lincoln arose and extended his hand, but
as Mr. Sumner thought very coldly, and after a short time they
started again for their yacht. Mr. Johnson walked as far as the
wharf, talking with Mr. Lincoln, but when they arrived there,
Mr. Lincoln did not say, “Come with us and have lunch,” or
“Come at night and have dinner,” but bade him simply “Good-bye”
there, where they observed him afterward watching their
departure with Mr. King by his side, who had come to rejoin him.
“This,” said Mr. Sumner, “is all Mr. Lincoln saw of Mr.
Johnson. One week after this time the President was
assassinated, and they never met from that hour until his
death.”
Mr. Sumner thinks Mr. Beecher is making a dangerous and deadly
mistake, and told him so. He said further to Mr. B. that his
anxieties prevented him from sleeping, that he had not slept
for three nights. “I should think so,” Mr. Beecher replied,
“you talk like a man who had been deprived of his natural
rest.” The two men have a respect for each other and talk
kindly of each other, but they do not see things from the same
point of view now at all.
_Friday morning, March 21, 1872._—L. W. J. and her daughter met
us at the cars [in New York] bound to go with us to Washington.
A pleasant day’s journey we had of it with their friendly faces
to accompany us and with Colonel Winthrop to meet us at the
train. The evening of our arrival Jamie went at once to see
Charles Sumner who lives in a fine house adjoining our hotel.
Nothing could be finer than the situation he has chosen. He
kept J. until midnight and tried to detain him still longer,
but the knowledge that I was waiting for him made him insist at
length upon coming away. He found him better in health than he
had supposed from the newspapers, and “the same old Sumner,” as
Jamie said.
Saturday morning I went in early with J. and passed the entire
morning with the Senator. Several colored persons came in
as we sat there, and those who were people of eminence were
introduced. He talked of literature and showed us his own
curiosities which appear to be numberless. Jamie was called
away, but he urged me to stay. He said he had sent a message to
the Senate which required a reply and he expected every moment
to hear the sound of hoofs on the pavement, as he had requested
a special messenger to be sent on horseback. The messenger did
not arrive, but I stayed on all the same until his carriage
came to take him to the Capitol, when he insisted that I should
accompany him. He showed me all the wonders of the place,
not forgetting the doors which Crawford never lived even to
design in clay altogether, but which his wife, desiring to
have the money, caused to be finished by her husband’s workmen
and foisted upon our Government. They are poor enough. Sumner
opposed her in what he considered a dishonest attempt to get
money, but of course he could not make an open opposition of
this nature against a lady, the widow of his friend.
Sumner’s character is one of the most extraordinary pictures
of opposing elements ever combined in one person. He is so
possessed by Sumner that there is really no room for the fair
existence of another in his world. Position, popularity,
domestic happiness, health, have one by one been cut away
from him, but he still stands erect, with as large a faith in
Sumner and with as determined a look toward the future as if it
beckoned him to glory and happiness. I suppose he must believe
that the next turn of Fortune’s wheel must give him the favor
he has now lost; but were he another man, all the honors of
the state could hardly recompense him in the least for what
he has lost. He has a firm proud spirit which his terrible
bodily suffering does not appear to make falter. His health
is so precarious that doubtless a few more adverse strokes
would finish him; but he has had all there are to have, one
would say. His friends, however, uphold him most tenderly;
letters from dear Mrs. Child and others lay upon his table
urging him to put away all excitement and try to live for the
service of the state. Public honor, probity, the high service
of his country seem to be the passions which animate him and
by which he endures. He has a mania for collecting rare books
and pictures nowadays and it is almost pitiful to see how
this fancy runs away with him and how he must frequently be
deceived. The tragedy of his marriage would be far more tragic
if it had left any scar (as far as mortal can discover) save
upon his pride. I would not do a man whom I hold in such honor
any injustice, but he never _seemed_ in love.
_Sunday._—Not well—kept to my room in the Arlington Hotel all
day, obliged to refuse to see guests also, and dear J. has gone
alone to dine with Sumner. I had hoped to see his home once
more and to see him among his peers. There is always a doubt of
course, but especially in his state of health, whether we may
ever meet again. If not, I shall not soon forget his stately
carriage at the Capitol yesterday nor the store he sets at
present upon his counted friends.
He pointed out the great avenue named Massachusetts, and the
school house named after himself, with a just and noble pride
yesterday. The trees are all ready to burst into leaf. Read
Bayard Taylor’s Norwegian story, “Lars”—very sweet and fine it
is—just missing “an excuse for being.” L. J. fills us with new
respect and regard. Her devotion to her daughter is so perfect
and so wise.
Jamie returned about 12 o’clock. There had been a gorgeous
dinner. The guests were Caleb Cushing, Carl Schurz, Perley
Poore, Mr. Hill, J. T. F. The service was worthy of the house
of an English nobleman, the feast worthy of Lucullus. It fairly
astonished J. to see Sumner eat. He of course sat at S.’s
right. Not a wine, nor a dish, was left untasted and even the
richest puddings were taken in large quantities. I thought
of poor Mrs. Child and other devout admirers of this their
Republican (!) leader, then of Charlotte Brontë’s story of
Thackeray at dinner. Some day, said J., we shall take up the
paper and find Sumner is no more, and it will be after one of
these dinners.
The talk astonished J., utterly unused as he is to look behind
the scenes of government. Caleb Cushing, a man over 70, who
appears to have the vigor of 50, called Stanton “a master
of duplicity.” Caleb Cushing said Seward was the first man
who introduced ungentlemanly bearing into the Cabinet. Until
he came there, there was no smoking, no putting up of the
feet, but always a fine courtesy and dignity of behavior was
preserved.
Before leaving the diaries from which so many pages have already been
drawn, before letting the last of the familiar faces which look out from
them fade again from sight, it would be a pity not to assemble a few
entries recalling notable persons of whom Mrs. Fields made fragmentary
but significant record. Here, for instance, are glimpses of Henry Ward
Beecher, fresh from the great service he rendered to the Union cause in
the Civil War by his speeches in England.
_Tuesday, November 17, 1863._—J. T. F. saw Mr. Kennard today
and we heard from him the particulars of Mr. Beecher’s landing.
He came on shore in the warm fog which was the precursor of
the heavy rain we have today, at 3 o’clock A.M. of Sunday. He
went to the Parker House until day should break and Mr. Kennard
could come and take him to the retirement of Brookline, to
pass the day until the train should leave for New York. News
of his arrival getting abroad, a company of orthodox deacons
waited upon him very early to invite him to preach. “Gentlemen,
do you take me for a fool,” he said, “to jump so readily into
the harness of the pulpit even before the fatigue of the voyage
has worn away?” He heard of the illness of one of his younger
children and therefore hastened as quickly as possible toward
home.
The day before the one upon which he was to speak at Exeter
Hall he awoke in the morning with a heavy headache; his voice,
too, was seriously impaired by over-use. He wanted to speak,
his whole heart was in it, yet how in this condition? He shut
himself up in the house all that day and hoped for better
things and went early to bed that night. The next morning at
dawn he awoke, he opened his eyes quickly. “Is God to suffer me
to do this work?” He leaped from the bed with a bound. His head
was clear and fresh, but his voice—he hardly dared to try that.
“I will speak to my sister three thousand miles away,” he said,
and cried, “Harriet.” The tones were clear and strong. “Thank
God!” he said—then speedily dressed—trying his voice again and
again—then he sat down and wrote off the heads of his address.
All he needed to say came freshly and purely to his mind just
in the form he wished. The day ebbed away and the carriage came
to take him to the hall. When he descended to the street, to
his surprise there was a long file of policemen, through whom
he was conducted because of the crowds waiting about his door.
He was obliged to descend also at some distance from Exeter
Hall, and he was again conducted through another line of police
before he reached the door. The people pushed and cried out
so that he ran from the carriage towards the hall; and one of
the staid policemen, observing a man running, cried out and
caught him by the coat-tail saying he mustn’t run there, that
line was preserved for the great speaker. “Well, my friend,”
said Mr. Beecher, “I can tell you one thing. There won’t be
much speaking till I get there.” While he hurried on, he felt
a woman lay hold of the skirts of his coat. The police, seeing
her, tried to push her away, but she said to one of them, “I
belong to his party.” Mr. B. said, “I overheard the poor thing,
but I thought if she chose to tell a lie I would not push her
away; but as I neared the door she crept up and whispered to
me, ‘I am one of your people. Don’t you remember ——, a Scotch
woman who used to live in Brooklyn and go to the Plymouth
Church? I have thought of this for weeks and longed and dreamt
of being with you again. Now my desire is heard.’”
The rest of this wonderful night the public journals and his
own letters can tell us of—have told us. He has been as it were
a man raised up for this dark hour of our dear Country. May he
live to see the promised land, and not only from the top of
Pisgah.
_December 10, 1863._—Visit from H. W. Beecher.... Mr. Beecher
did not like Mr. Browning. He found him flippant and worldly.
To be sure he had but one interview and could scarcely judge,
but had he met the man by chance in a company he should never
have sought him a second time. He said of Charles Lamb that he
always reminded him of a honeysuckle growing between and over
a rough trellis; it would cover the stakes, it would throw
out blossoms and tendrils, it would attract hummingbirds and
make corners for their nests and fill the wide air with its
fragrance. Such was C. Lamb to him.
He was sure he could have liked Mrs. Browning—so credulous,
generous, outspoken. He liked strong outspoken people, yet he
liked serene people too; but then, he loved the world in its
wide variety.
He said his boy wished to be either a stage-driver or a
missionary. His fancy was for stage-driving; he thought perhaps
his duty might make him a missionary....
It was such a privilege to see him back and such a privilege to
grasp his hand, I could say nothing but be happy and thankful.
A few years later a passing shape from still an earlier generation casts
its shadow of tragic outline across the pages of the diary.
_Sunday, January 6, 1867._—A driving snow-storm. Last night
Jamie went to the Club; met W. Everett, who said that while his
father was member of Congress and was at one time returning
from Washington to Boston he was stopped in the street as he
passed through Philadelphia by a haggard man wrapped in a
cloak. “I am Aaron Burr,” said the figure, “and I pray you to
ask Congress for an appropriation to aid me in my misery.”
Mr. E. replied that the member from his own district was the
person to whom to apply. “I know that,” was the sad rejoinder,
“but the others are all strangers to me and I pray you to help
me.” After some reflection Mr. Everett promised to try to do
something in his behalf; fortunately, however, he was released
by death before Congress was again in session.
Then soon appears a more cheerful figure, in the person of the Rev.
Elijah Kellogg whose lines of “Spartacus to the Gladiators” have
resounded in many a schoolhouse. His tales of the Stowes and the family
Bible may still divert a generation that knows not Spartacus.
_Thursday, January 10, 1867._—Yesterday J. fell in with a Mr.
Kellogg, a clergyman from Harpswell, Maine, the author of many
noble things, among the rest, of the “Speech of Spartacus”
which is in Sargent’s “School Speaker,” a piece of which the
boys are very fond, but the masters are obliged to forbid
their speaking it because it always takes the prize. He wrote
it while in college, to speak himself. He went to school with
Longfellow, though he is younger than the poet, and the latter
calls him a man of genius. He is a preacher of the gospel and
for the past ten months has been speaking every Sunday at
the Sailor’s Bethel with great effect. He called to see J.
and told him some queer anecdotes regarding his sea-life. He
dresses like a fisherman, red shirt, etc., while at home. He
remembers Professor Stowe and his wife well. He says their
arrival at Brunswick was looked for with eagerness by many,
with some natural curiosity by himself. One day about the time
they were expected he was in his boat floating near the pier
and preparing to return to his island where he lives, as the
tide was going down and if he delayed much longer he would be
ashore; but he observed a woman sitting on a cask upon the
wharf swinging her heels, with two large holes the size of a
dollar each in the back of her stockings, a man standing by her
side, and several children playing about. At once he believed
it must be the new professor, so he dallied about in his boat
observing them. Presently the man cried out, “Hallo there, will
you give my wife a sail?” “I can’t,” he replied, “there’s no
wind.” “Will you give her a row then?” “The tide’s too low and
I shan’t get home.” “Oh,” said the woman, “we will pay you;
you’d better take me out a little way.” “No, I can’t,” he said.
Presently he heard somebody say something about that’s being
the minister and not a fisherman at all. “Do you think so?”
said Mrs. Stowe. With that he dropped down into the bottom of
his boat and was off before another word.
He told Mr. Fields also of the professor who preceded Professor
Stowe. He was an unmarried man with three sisters, all of
whom were insane at times and frequently one of them was away
from home in an asylum. One day the brother was away, the
eldest sister being at home in apparently good health, when
another professor came to visit them to whom she wished to
be particularly polite. “What will you have for dinner,” said
she, “today?” “Oh! the best thing you’ve got,” he replied. So
when dinner came she had stewed the family Bible with cabbage
for his repast. He speaks with the greatest enthusiasm of the
beauty of that Maine coast. We must go there.
Out of what seems a past almost pre-Augustan come these memories of N. P.
Willis, a poet who suffered the misfortune of outliving much of his own
fame.
_Thursday, January 31, 1867._—The papers of last night brought
the news of N. P. Willis’s death and that he was to be buried
in Boston from St. Paul’s Church today. Early this morning
a note came from Mrs. Willis asking Mr. Fields to see Dr.
Howe and Edmund Quincy, to ask them to be pall-bearers with
himself and Colonel Trimble. Fortunately last night J. had
seen the announcement, and before going to Longfellow’s made
up his mind to ask Longfellow and Lowell to come in to assist
at the ceremony of their brother-author; he had also sent to
Professor Holmes before the note came from Mrs. Willis. He then
sent immediately for the others whom she mentioned and for a
quantity of exquisite flowers. All his plans turned out as he
had arranged and hoped and the poet’s grave was attended by the
noblest America had to offer. The dead face was not exposed,
but the people pressed forward to take a sprig from the coffin
in memory of one who had strewn many a flower of thought on
the hard way of their lives. There are some to speak hardly of
Willis, but usually the awe of death ennobles his memory to the
grateful world of his appreciators. “Refrain! refrain!” we long
to say to the others who would carp. “If you have tears, shed
them on the poet’s grave.”
There had been previously an exquisite and touching service at
Idlewild where Octavius Frothingham did all a man could do,
inspired by the occasion and the loveliness of the day and
scene. The service here would have seemed cold as stone except
for the gracious poets who surrounded the body and prevented
one thought of chill lack of sympathy from penetrating the
flowers with which it was covered. I could not restrain my
tears when I remembered a few years, only two, and the same
company had borne Hawthorne’s body to its burial. Which, which,
of that beloved and worshipped few was next to be borne by the
weeping remnant!!
_Wednesday, July 1, 1868._—In our walk yesterday J. delighted
himself and me by rehearsing his memories of Willis. J. was at
the Astor House when Willis returned first from Europe with his
young bride. He was then the observed of all observers. As in
those days travellers crossed in sailing vessels, his coming
was not heralded; the first that was known of their arrival was
when he walked into the Astor with his beautiful young wife
upon his arm. He wore a brown cloak thrown gracefully about his
shoulders and was a man to remind one of Lady Blessington’s
saying, “If Willis had been born to £10,000 a year he would
have been a perfect man.” He was then at the head of the world
of literature in America; his influence could do anything and
his heart and purse were both at the service of the needy
asker. Unfortunately from the first he never paid his debts.
J. said he never believed the tales of Willis’s dissipation.
He spent money freely even when he had it not. All the English
folk, lords and ladies, who then came to see America were the
guests of Willis.
I asked what his wife was like! “Like a seraph. She was lovely
with all womanly attractions.”
Of the various “causes” to which Mrs. Fields and her husband paid
allegiance, the cause of equal opportunity for men and women cannot
justly be left unmentioned. They espoused it before its friends were
taken with the seriousness they have long commanded, and, as the
following passage will suggest, were full of sympathy with those who
fought its early battles. The impact of one of these combatants, Mrs.
Mary A. Livermore, a reformer in sundry fields, against the rock of
conservatism represented by the President of Harvard College, is the
subject of a lively bit of record.
_September 22, 1876._—At four came Miss Phelps, at six came
Mrs. Livermore. Ah! She is indeed a great woman—a strong arm to
those who are weak, a new faith in time of trouble. She came to
tea as fresh as if she had been calmly sunning herself all the
week instead of speaking at a great meeting at Faneuil Hall the
previous evening and taking cold in the process. She talked
most wittily and brilliantly, beside laughing most heartily and
merrily over all dear J.’s absurd stories and illustrations.
He told her of a woman who came to speak to him after one of
his lectures, to thank him for what he was trying to do for the
education of women. She said, “I was educated at home with my
brothers and taught all they were taught, learning my lessons
by their side and reciting with them until the time came for
them to go to college. Nobody ever told me I was not to go to
college! And when the moment arrived and it dawned upon me that
I was to be left behind to do nothing, to learn nothing more, I
was terribly unhappy.”
“I know just how she felt,” said Mrs. Livermore; “there was a
party of six of us girls, sisters and cousins, who had studied
with our brothers up to the time for going to college. We were
all ready, but what was to be done? We were told that no girls
had entered Harvard thus far. We said to each other, we six
girls will go to Cambridge and call upon President Quincy, show
him where we stand in our lessons, and ask him to admit us. I
was the youngest of the party. I was noted for being rather hot
and intemperate in speech in those days, and the girls made me
promise before we left the house [not to speak]—‘For as sure as
you do,’ they said, ‘you will spoil all.’ So I promised, and we
went to Cambridge and found Mr. Quincy. The girls laid their
proposition before him as clearly as they dared, by showing
him what they had done in their lessons. ‘Very smart girls,
unusually capable girls,’ he said encouragingly; ‘but can you
cook?’ ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said one, ‘we have kept house for some
time.’ ‘Highly important,’ he said; and so on during the space
of an hour.”