V
_Office Major Hapgood, cor. 15th & F sts, Washington, Feb. 13, 1863._ DEAR
BROTHER[12]--Nothing new; still I thought I would write you a line this
morning. The $4, namely $2 from Theo A. Drake and $2 from John D. Martin,
enclosed in your letter of the 10th, came safe. They too will please
accept the grateful thanks of several poor fellows, in hospital here.
The letter of introduction to Mr. Webster, chief clerk, State department,
will be very acceptable. If convenient, I should like Mr. Lane to send it
on immediately. I do not so much look for an appointment from Mr. Seward
as his backing me from the State of New York. I have seen Preston King
this morning for the second time (it is very amusing to hunt for an
office--so the thing seems to me just now, even if one don't get it). I
have seen Charles Sumner three times--he says ev'ry thing here moves as
part of a great machine, and that I must consign myself to the fate of the
rest--still [in] an interview I had with him yesterday he talked and acted
as though he had life in him, and would exert himself to any reasonable
extent for me to get something. Meantime I make about enough to pay my
expenses by hacking on the press here, and copying in the paymasters'
offices, a couple of hours a day. One thing is favorable here, namely, pay
for whatever one does is at a high rate. I have not yet presented my
letters to either Seward or Chase--I thought I would get my forces all in
a body, and make one concentrated dash, if possible with the personal
introduction and presence of some big bug. I like fat old Preston King
very much--he is fat as a hogshead, with great hanging chops. The first
thing he said to me the other day in the parlor chambers of the Senate,
when I sent in for him and he came out, was, "Why, how can I do this
thing, or any thing for you--how do I know but you are a Secessionist? You
look for all the world like an old Southern planter--a regular Carolina
or Virginia planter." I treated him with just as much hauteur as he did
me with bluntness--this was the first time--it afterward proved that
Charles Sumner had not prepared the way for me, as I supposed, or rather
not so strongly as I supposed, and Mr. King had even forgotten it--so I
was an entire stranger. But the same day C. S. talked further with Mr.
King in the Senate, and the second interview I had with the latter (this
forenoon) he has given me a sort of general letter, endorsing me from New
York--one envelope is addressed to Secretary Chase, and another to Gen.
Meigs, head Quartermaster's dept. Meantime, I am getting better and better
acquainted with office-hunting wisdom and Washington peculiarities
generally. I spent several hours in the Capitol the other day. The
incredible gorgeousness of some of the rooms, (interior decorations,
etc.)--rooms used perhaps but for merely three or four committee meetings
in the course of the whole year--is beyond one's flightiest dreams. Costly
frescoes of the style of Taylor's saloon in Broadway, only really the best
and choicest of their sort, done by imported French and Italian artists,
are the prevailing sorts. (Imagine the work you see on the fine china
vases in Tiffany's, the paintings of Cupids and goddesses, etc., spread
recklessly over the arched ceiling and broad panels of a big room--the
whole floor underneath paved with tesselated pavement, which is a sort of
cross between marble and china, with little figures, drab, blue, cream
color, etc.) These things, with heavy elaborately wrought balustrades,
columns, and steps--all of the most beautiful marbles I ever saw, some
white as milk, other of all colors, green, spotted, lined, or of our old
chocolate color--all these marbles used as freely as if they were common
blue flags--with rich door-frames and window-casings of bronze and
gold--heavy chandeliers and mantles, and clocks in every room--and indeed
by far the richest and gayest, and most un-American and inappropriate
ornamenting and finest interior workmanship I ever conceived possible,
spread in profusion through scores, hundreds, (and almost thousands) of
rooms--such are what I find, or rather would find to interest me, if I
devoted time to it. But a few of the rooms are enough for me--the style is
without grandeur, and without simplicity. These days, the state our
country is in, and especially filled as I am from top to toe of late with
scenes and thoughts of the hospitals, (America seems to me now, though
only in her youth, but brought already here, feeble, bandaged, and bloody
in hospital)--these days I say, Jeff, all the poppy-show goddesses, and
all the pretty blue and gold in which the interior Capitol is got up, seem
to me out of place beyond anything I could tell--and I get away from it as
quick as I can when that kind of thought comes over me. I suppose it is to
be described throughout--those interiors--as all of them got up in the
French style--well, enough for a New York.