Chairman of the Republican National Committee in the Hayes-Tilden
campaign.]
To his familiars, Mr. Tilden was a dear old bachelor who lived in
a fine old mansion in Gramercy Park. Though sixty years of age, he
seemed in the prime of his manhood; a genial and overflowing scholar;
a trained and earnest doctrinaire; a public-spirited, patriotic
citizen, well known and highly esteemed, who had made fame and fortune
at the bar and had always been interested in public affairs. He was a
dreamer with a genius for business, a philosopher yet an organizer. He
pursued the tenor of his life with measured tread. His domestic fabric
was disfigured by none of the isolation and squalor which so often
attend the confirmed celibate. His home life was a model of order and
decorum, his home as unchallenged as a bishopric, its hospitality,
though select, profuse and untiring. An elder sister presided at his
board, as simple, kindly, and unostentatious, but as methodical as
himself. He was a lover of books rather than music and art, but also
of horses and dogs and out-of-door activity. He was fond of young
people, particularly of young girls; he drew them about him, and was a
veritable Sir Roger de Coverley in his gallantries toward them and his
zeal in amusing them and making them happy. His tastes were frugal and
their indulgence was sparing. He took his wine not plenteously, though
he enjoyed it--especially his “blue seal” while it lasted--and sipped
his whisky-and-water on occasion with a pleased composure redolent of
discursive talk, of which, when he cared to lead the conversation, he
was a master. He had early come into a great legal practice and held
a commanding professional position. His judgment was believed to be
infallible; and it is certain that after 1871 he rarely appeared in the
courts of law except as counselor, settling in chambers most of the
cases that came to him.
[Illustration: From a photograph by Sherman & McHugh