Between the idiot and the man of sense, the lunatic and the man of genius,
there are degrees--streaks--of idiocy and lunacy. How many expectant
politicians elected to Congress have entered Washington all hope, eager to
dare and do, to come away broken in health, fame and fortune, happy to get
back home--sometimes unable to get away, to linger on in obscurity and
poverty to a squalid and wretched old age.
I have lived long enough to have known many such: Senators who have filled
the galleries when they rose to speak; House heroes living while they could
on borrowed money, then hanging about the hotels begging for money to buy
drink.
There was a famous statesman and orator who came to this at last, of whom
the typical and characteristic story was told that the holder of a claim
against the Government, who dared not approach so great a man with so much
as the intimation of a bribe, undertook by argument to interest him in the
merit of the case.
The great man listened and replied: "I have noticed you scattering your
means round here pretty freely but you haven't said 'turkey' to me."
Surprised but glad and unabashed the claimant said "I was coming to that,"
produced a thousand-dollar bank roll and entered into an understanding as
to what was to be done next day, when the bill was due on the calendar.
The great man took the money, repaired to a gambling house, had an
extraordinary run of luck, won heavily, and playing all night, forgetting
about his engagement, went to bed at daylight, not appearing in the House
at all. The bill was called, and there being nobody to represent it, under
the rule it went over and to the bottom of the calendar, killed for that
session at least.
The day after the claimant met his recreant attorney on the avenue face to
face and took him to task for his delinquency.
"Ah, yes," said the great man, "you are the little rascal who tried to
bribe me the other day. Here is your dirty money. Take it and be off with
you. I was just seeing how far you would go."
The comment made by those who best knew the great man was that if instead
of winning in the gambling house he had lost he would have been up betimes
at his place in the House, and doing his utmost to pass the claimant's bill
and obtain a second fee.
Another memory of those days has to do with music. This was the coming of
Jenny Lind to America. It seemed an event. When she reached Washington Mr.
Barnum asked at the office of my father's newspaper for a smart lad to sell
the programs of the concert--a new thing in artistic showmanry. "I don't
want a paper carrier, or a newsboy," said he, "but a young gentleman, three
or four young gentlemen." I was sent to him. We readily agreed upon the
commission to be received--five cents on each twenty-five cent program--the
oldest of old men do not forget such transactions. But, as an extra
percentage for "organizing the force," I demanded a concert seat. Choice
seats were going at a fabulous figure and Barnum at first demurred. But
I told him I was a musical student, stood my ground, and, perhaps seeing
something unusual in the eager spirit of a little boy, he gave in and the
bargain was struck.
Two of my pals became my assistants. But my sales beat both of them hollow.
Before the concert began I had sold my programs and was in my seat. I
recall that my money profit was something over five dollars.
The bell-like tones of the Jenny Lind voice in "Home, Sweet Home," and "The
Last Rose of Summer" still come back to me, but too long after for me to
make, or imagine, comparisons between it and the vocalism of Grisi, Sontag
and Parepa-Rosa.
Meeting Mr. Barnum at Madison Square Garden in New York, when he was
running one of his entertainments there, I told him the story, and we had a
hearty laugh, both of us very much pleased, he very much surprised to find
in me a former employee.
One of my earliest yearnings was for a home. I cannot recall the time when
I was not sick and tired of our migrations between Washington City and the
two grand-paternal homesteads in Tennessee. The travel counted for much of
my aversion to the nomadic life we led. The stage-coach is happier in the
contemplation than in the actuality. Even when the railways arrived there
were no sleeping cars, the time of transit three or four days and nights.
In the earlier journeys it had been ten or twelve days.