The Home in Washington.--"Fruit between Leaves."--Classical
Studies.--Mrs. Garfield.--Variety of Reading.--Favorite
Verses.
In a private letter to Colonel Rockwell, dated August 30th, 1869,
Garfield writes:--
"It seems as though each year added more to the work that falls to my
share. This season I have the main weight of the Census Bill and the
reports to carry, and the share of the Ohio campaign that falls to me;
and in addition to all this I am running in debt and building a house in
Washington.
"On looking over my accounts, I found I had paid out over five thousand
dollars since I first went to Congress, for rent alone, and all this is
a dead loss; so, finding an old staff-officer (Major D. G. Swaim), I
negotiated enough to enable me to get a lot on the corner of Thirteenth
and I Streets, north, opposite to Franklin Square, and I have got a
house three-quarters done. It may be a losing business, but I hope I
shall be able to sell it when I am done with it, so as to save myself
the rent."
This house, where Garfield and his family spent so many happy hours
during their winter sojourns in Washington, is a plain brick mansion
with a wing built out on the east side to accommodate his fine library.
The parlor windows look out upon Franklin Square and the corner of I and
Thirteenth Streets.
To a visitor ushered into this pleasant, cheery drawing-room, the first
object that greeted the eye was an excellent portrait of "Grandma
Garfield," which hung over the grand piano. On the opposite side was a
beautiful painting of "Little Trot," the baby-girl whose loss the loving
father never ceased to deplore. The room was tastefully but simply
furnished, and in the small sitting-room, leading out of the parlor, the
pretty desk piled up with books and papers, seemed the most important
piece of furniture.
The dining-room with its Japanese dado, and its chairs and table of
Austrian bent wood was a particularly pleasant room. Just above the
mantel hung a half-finished sketch of an old-time knight balancing in
one hand an empty glass, and leaning the other upon an inn table.
An artist friend began the painting with the intention of carrying out
an ideal that Garfield had once expressed at a Shakespearian gathering.
Dying before the picture was finished, the painter left only an outline
of the idea, but that outline, Garfield valued very highly. His love
for pictures was almost as great as his love for books, and the walls of
this plain little house in Thirteenth Street were adorned with many
choice paintings and engravings.
Just over the dining-room was the library where Garfield spent the
greater part of his time, when free from congressional duties. In the
centre stood a large black walnut office-desk with its accompaniments of
pigeon-holes, boxes and drawers, filled to overflowing. Six or seven
book-cases, holding in all some three thousand volumes, stood against
the walls; and scrap-books of all shapes and sizes confronted you
everywhere.
It used to be a common saying in Congress that no man in Washington
could stand before the army of facts that Garfield could bring forward
at a moment's notice. This readiness was largely due to his systematic
course of reading, and his invaluable method of _indexing_. For
instance: if an author's views on some subject struck him as
particularly good and worth remembering, he would immediately make a
note of it in his commonplace-book, giving with the topic, the volume,
and page where the extract could be found. In this manner a rich fund of
information was always at hand; his "fruit between leaves" was always
ready to gather.
The record of the Congressional Library shows that he took out more
books than any other member of Congress; and his reading embraced every
variety of subject, history, biography, law, politics, philosophy,
government, and poetry.
At one time, during an unusually busy session, a friend found him behind
a big barricade of books.
"I find I'm overworked," he said, "and need recreation. Now my theory is
that the best way to rest the mind is not to let it lie idle, but to put
it at something quite outside the ordinary line of employment. So, I am
resting by learning all the Congressional Library can show about Horace,
and the various editions and translations of his poems."
Mrs. Garfield showed the same love for the classics as her husband. A
year or two ago, he said,--
"I taught my wife Latin at Hiram, and she was as good a pupil as I had.
She is now teaching the same Latin to my two big boys."
Mary Clemmer wrote of her:--
"Mrs. Garfield has the 'philosophic mind' that Wordsworth sings of, and
she has a self-poise, a strength of unswerving absolute rectitude. Much
of the time that other women give to distributing visiting cards, Mrs.
Garfield has spent in the alcoves of the Congressional Library,
searching out books to carry home to study.... She has moved on in the
tranquil tenor of her unobtrusive way, in a life of absolute devotion to
duty; never forgetting the demands of her position or neglecting her
friends, yet making it her first charge to bless her home, to teach her
children, to fit her boys for college, to be the equal friend, as well
as the honored wife, of her husband."
From a letter of Garfield's to President Hinsdale we follow the
indefatigable reader in still another course of study:--
"Since I left you I have made a somewhat thorough study of Goethe and
his epoch, and have sought to build up in my mind a picture of the state
of literature and art in Europe, at the period when Goethe began to
work, and the state when he died. I have grouped the various facts into
order, have written them out, so as to preserve a memoir of the
impression made upon my mind by the whole. The sketch covers nearly
sixty pages of manuscript. I think some work of this kind outside the
track of one's every day work is necessary to keep up real growth."
In another letter to the same friend, he writes:--
"I have found a book which interests me very much. You may have seen it;
if not I hope you will get it. It is entitled, 'Ten Great Religions' by
James Freeman Clarke. I have read the chapter on Buddhism with great
interest. It is admirably written, in a liberal and philosophic spirit,
and I am sure will interest you. What I have read of it leads me to
believe that we have taken too narrow a view of the subject of
religion."
Again, when a fit of sickness confined him to the house, he says--
"I am taking advantage of this enforced leisure to do a great deal of
reading. Since I was taken sick I have read the following: Sherman's two
volumes, Leland's 'English Gypsies', George Borrow's 'Gypsies of Spain',
Borrow's 'Rommany Rye', Tennyson's 'Mary', seven volumes of Froude's
England, several plays of Shakespeare, and have made some progress in a
new book, 'The History of the English People,' by Prof. Green of
Oxford."
For light literature, Garfield usually turned to Thackeray, Scott,
Dickens, Jane Austen, Kingsley, or Honore de Balzac. He was fond of
poetry, and his voluminous scrap-books contained many gems, from one of
which we cull the following verses, said to be his especial favorites.--
"Commend me to the friend that comes
When I am sad and lone,
And makes the anguish of my heart
The suffering of his own,
Who coldly shuns the glittering throng
At pleasure's gay levee
And comes to gild a sombre hour
And give his heart to me.
"He hears me count my sorrows o'er;
And when the task is done
He freely gives me all I ask,--
A sigh for every one.
He cannot wear a smiling face
When mine is touched with gloom,
But like the violet seeks to cheer
The midnight with perfume.
"Commend me to that generous heart
Which like the pine on high,
Uplifts the same unvarying brow
To every change of sky,
Whose friendship does not fade away
When wintry tempests blow,
But like the winter's icy crown
Looks greener through the snow.
"He flies not with the flitting stork.
That seeks a southern sky,
But lingers where the wounded bird
Hath lain him down to die.
Oh, such a friend! He is in truth,
Whate'er his lot may be
A rainbow on the storm of life,
An anchor on its sea."