INTERVIEWING THE PRESIDENT.
It is about time, I wrote one day in America, I set my face homeward.
When on the prairie I was beginning to speculate whether I should ever be
fit to make an appearance in descent society again. Now, it seems to me,
the question to be asked is, Whether I have not soared so high in the
world as to have lost all taste for the frugal simplicity of that home
life, where, in the touching words of an American poet I met with this
morning, it is to be trusted my
Daughters are acting day by day,
So as not to bring disgrace on their papa far away.
Here, in Washington, I am made to pass for an "Honourable," in spite of
my modest declarations to the contrary, and have had the honour of a
private interview with the greatest man in this part of the world--the
President of the United States. One night, when I retired to rest, I
found my bedroom on the upper storey--contiguous to the fire-escape, a
convenience you are always bound to remember in the U.S.--had been
changed for a magnificent bedroom, with a gorgeous sitting-room attached,
on the first floor, and there loomed before me a terrific vision of an
hotel bill which I supposed I should have to pay: but then, "What's the
odds so long as you are happy?" The question is, How came the change to
be made? Well, the fact is, I had a letter to a distinguished
politician, the Hon. Senator B---, and he, in his turn, sent me a packet
addressed to the Hon. J. E--- R---; and all at once I became a great man
myself in the hotel. In a note Mr. B--- sent to the President he
informed him that I had been for thirty years a correspondent of certain
papers; and in another note to officials he has the goodness to speak of
me as "the Hon. Mr. R---, a distinguished citizen and journalist of
England." Certainly, then, I have as good a right to the best
accommodation the hotel affords as any other man, and accordingly I do
take my ease in my inn, and not dream, but do dwell, in marble halls,
while obsequious blackies fan me as I eat my meals, which consist of all
the dainties possible--the only things a fellow can eat this hot weather.
I am glad I have put up at Ebbet House, Washington, where I am in clover.
Like Bottom, I feel myself "translated." At Baltimore, the only night I
was there, I did not get a minute's sleep till daylight, because the
National Convention of Master Plumbers was holding its annual orgy just
beneath, and I seriously believed the place would be burned down before
the morning. In the dignified repose of Ebbet House I have no such fear;
my only anxiety is as to how I can ever again reconcile myself to the
time-honoured cold mutton of domestic life after all this luxurious
living. What made Senator B--- confer the dignity of Hon. on me I am at
a loss to understand. I know there are times when I think it right and
proper to blow my own trumpet in the unavoidable absence of my trumpeter;
but, in the present instance, I must candidly confess to have done
nothing of the kind. It is to be presumed that my improved position, as
regards lodging in Ebbet House, Washington, is to be attributed to the
social status given me by Senator B---, a gentleman who, in personal
appearance and size, bears somewhat of a resemblance to our late lamented
Right Hon. W. E. Forster, with the exception that Mr. B--- brushes his
hair--a process which evidently our Bradford M.P. disdained.
This morning I have shaken hands with the President at the White House--a
modest building not larger than our Mansion House, and, like that,
interesting for its many associations. Mr. Arthur is in the prime of
life--a tall, well-made man, with dark-brown hair and eyes, of rather
sluggish temperament, apparently. He did not say much to me, nor, I
imagine, does he say much to anybody. His plan seems to be to hear and
see as much, and say as little as he can. We met in a room upstairs,
where, from ten to eleven, he is at home to Congress men, who would see
him on public affairs before Congress meets, as eleven in the morning is
the usual hour when it commences business. There were seven or eight
waiting to speak to the President as he stood up at his table, so as to
get the light on his visitors' faces, while his own was shaded as much as
possible; and, owing to the heat in Washington, the houses are kept so
shaded that, coming out of the clear sunlight, it is not always easy at
the first glance to see where you are. The President did not seem
particularly happy to see anybody, and looked rather bored as the
Senators and Congress men buttonholed him. Of course, our conversation
was strictly private and confidential, and wild horses shall never tear
the secret from me. Posterity must remain in the dark. It is one of
those questions never to be revealed, as much so as that which so
provoked the ancients as to the song the syrens sang to Ulysses. The
President's enemies call him the New York dude, because he happens to be
a gentlemanly-looking man, and patronises Episcopalianism, which in
America, as in England, is reckoned "the genteel thing." The Americans
are hard to please. Mr. James Russell Lowell had got the gout, and the
New York writers said, when I was there, he had attained the object of a
snob's ambition. It is thus they talked of one of their country's
brightest ornaments. But to return to the President. He is a wise man,
and keeps his ears open and his mouth shut--a plan which might be adopted
by other statesmen with manifest advantage to themselves and the
community. The President wore a morning black coat, with a rose in his
buttonhole, and had the air about him of a man accustomed to say to one,
"Come," and he comes; to another, "Go," and he goes. I made some few
remarks about Canada and America, to which he politely listened, and then
we shook hands and parted, he to be seized on by eager Congress men, I to
inspect the public apartments of the White House. He has rather a hard
life of it, I fancy, as he has to work all day, and his only relaxation
seems to be a ride in the evening, as there are no private grounds
connected with the House. In the model Republic privacy is unknown.
Everything is open and aboveboard. Intelligent citizens gain much
thereby.
As to interviewing Royalty, that is another affair. An American
interviews his President as a right. In the Old World monarchs keep
people at arm's-length. And they are right. No man is a hero to his
valet. But I have interviewed the President of the United States; that
is something to think of. The interview was a farce--but such is life.