Part 17

At five, the hour appointed for dinner, I returned to the drawing-room where our host lay at full length on the floor with his head on cushions in the bay-window, reading, and taking what he called “delicious comfort.” Mrs. Perkins came in to dinner, and we had a cosy good time. Mr. Clemens described the preaching of a Western clergyman, a great favorite, with the smallest possible allowance of idea to the largest possible amount of words. It was so truthfully and vividly portrayed that we all concluded, perhaps, since the man was in such earnest, he moved his audience more than if he had troubled them with too many ideas. This truthfulness of Mr. Clemens, which will hardly allow him to portray anything in a way to make out a case by exaggerating or distorting a truth, is a wondrous and noble quality. This makes art and makes life, and will continue to make him a daily increasing power among us.

He is so unhappy and discontented with our government that he says he is not conscious of the least emotion of patriotism in himself. He is overwhelmed with shame and confusion and wishes he were not an American. He thinks seriously of going to England to live for a while, at least, and I think it not unlikely he may discover away from home a love of his country which is still waiting to be unfolded. I believe hope must dawn for us, that so much earnest endeavor of our statesmen and patriots cannot come to naught; and perhaps the very idea he has dropped, never believing that it can bring forth fruit, will be adopted in the end for our salvation. Certainly women’s suffrage and such a change as he proposes should be tried, since we cannot keep the untenable ground of the present....

It is most curious and interesting to watch this growing man of forty—to see how he studies and how high his aims are. His conversation is always earnest and careful, though full of fun. He is just now pondering much upon actors and their ways. Raymond, who is doing the “Gilded Age,” is so hopelessly given “to saving at the spigot and losing at the bung-hole” that he is evidently not over-satisfied nor does he count the acting everything it might be.

We sat talking, chiefly we women, after dinner and looking at the sunset. Mr. Clemens lay down with a book and J. went to look over his lecture. I did not go to lecture, but after all were gone I scribbled away at these pages and nearly finished Mr. Appleton’s “Nile Journal.” They returned rather late, it was after ten, bearing a box of delicious strawberries, Mrs. Colt’s gift from her endless greenhouses. They were a sensation; the whole of summer was foreshadowed by their scarlet globes. Some beer was brought for Mr. Clemens (who drinks nothing else, and as he eats but little this seems to answer the double end of nourishment and soothing for the nerves) and he began again to talk. He said it was astonishing what subjects were missed by the Poet Laureate. He thought the finest incident of the Crimean War had been certainly overlooked. That was the going down at sea of the man of war, Berkeley Castle. The ship with a whole regiment, one of the finest of the English army, on board, struck a rock near the Bosphorus. There was no help—the bottom was out and the boats would only hold the crew and the other helpless ones; there was no chance for the soldiers. The Colonel summoned them on deck; he told them the duty of soldiers was to die; they would do their duty as bravely there as if they were on the battle-field. He bade them shoulder arms and prepare for action. The drums beat, flags were flying, the service playing, as they all went down to silent death in the great deep.

Afterward Mr. Clemens described to us the reappearance before his congregation of an old clergyman who had been incapacitated for work during twelve years—coming suddenly into the pulpit just as the first hymn was ended. The younger pastor proposed they should sing the old man’s favorite, “Coronation,” _omitting_ the first verse. He heard nothing of the omission, but beginning at the first verse he sang in a cracked treble the remaining stanza after all the people were still. There was a mingling of the comic and pathetic in this incident which made it consonant with the genius of our host. Our dear little hostess complained of want of air, and I saw she was very tired, so we all went to bed about eleven.

_Saturday morning._—Dear J. was up early and out in the beautiful sunshine. I read and scribbled until breakfast at half-past nine. It was a lovely morning, and I had already ventured out of my window and round the house to hear the birds sing and see the face of spring before the hour came for breakfast. When I did go to the drawing-room, however, I found Mr. Clemens alone. He greeted me apparently as cheerfully as ever, and it was not until some moments had passed that he told me they had a very sick child upstairs. From that instant I saw, especially after his wife came in, that they could think of nothing else. They were half-distracted with anxiety. Their messenger could not find the doctor, which made matters worse. However, the little girl did not really seem very sick, so I could not help thinking they were unnecessarily excited. The effect on them, however, was just as bad as if the child were really very ill. The messenger was hardly despatched the second time before Jamie and Mr. Clemens began to talk of our getting away in the next train, whereat he (Mr. C.) said to his wife, “Why didn’t you tell me of that,” etc., etc. It was all over in a moment, but in his excitement he spoke more quickly than he knew, and his wife felt it. Nothing was said at the time, indeed we hardly observed it, but we were intensely amused and could not help finding it pathetic too afterward, when he came to us and said he spent the larger part of his life on his knees making apologies and now he had got to make an apology to us about the carriage. He was always bringing the blood to his wife’s face by his bad behavior, and here this very morning he had said such things about that carriage! His whole life was one long apology. His wife had told him to see how well we behaved (poor we!) and he knew he had everything to learn.

He was so amusing about it that he left us in a storm of laughter, yet at bottom I could see it was no laughing matter to him. He is in dead earnest, with a desire for growth and truth in life, and with such a sincere admiration for his wife’s sweetness and beauty of character that the most prejudiced and hardest heart could not fail to fall in love with him. She looked like an exquisite lily as we left her. So white and delicate and tender. Such sensitiveness and self-control as she possesses are very, very rare.

_May Day._—Longfellow, Greene, Alexander Agassiz and Dr. Holmes dined with us. This made summer, Longfellow said at table—that this was May Day enough, it was no matter how cold it was outside. (The wind outside had been raging all day and winter seemed to be giving us a last fling.) Jamie recalled one or two things “Mark Twain” had said which I have omitted. When he lectured a few weeks ago in New York, he said he had just reached the middle of his lecture and was going on with flying colors when he saw in the audience just in front of him a noble gray head and beard. “Nobody told me that William Cullen Bryant was there, but I had seen his picture and I knew that was the old man. I was sure he saw the failure I was making, and all the weak points in what I was saying, and I couldn’t do anything more—that old man just spoiled my work. Then they told me afterward that my lecture was good and all that; I could only say, ‘no, no, that fine old head spoiled all I had to say _that_ night.’”

Longfellow was quite like himself again, but the talk was mainly sustained by Dr. Holmes and Mr. Agassiz. When Dr. Holmes first came in he looked earnestly at the portrait of Sydney Smith. “It reminds me of our famous story-teller, Sullivan,” he said; “it is full of epicureanism. _The mouth is made for kisses and canvas-backs._” Later on in the dinner, when Mr. Agassiz was describing the fatigue he suffered after talking Spanish all day while he still understood the language very imperfectly, “Why,” said Holmes, “it’s like playing the piano with mittens on.”

There was something pathetic in the fact of this young man sitting here among his father’s friends, almost in the very place his father had filled so many times—but his speech was manly and wise, from a full brain. They talked of the spectroscope as on the whole the most important discovery the world had known. “Well, what is it?” said Longfellow. “Explain it to us.” (I was glad enough to have him ask.) Agassiz explained quite clearly that it was an instrument to discover the elements which compose the sun, and proceeded to unfold its working in some detail. Two men made the discovery simultaneously, one in India and one in England. This spectroscope has been infinitely improved, however, by every living mind brought to bear upon it, almost, since its first so-called discovery. It is so difficult, Dr. H. said, to tell where an invention began; you could go back until it seemed that no man that ever lived really did it—like some verses, whereupon one of Gray’s was given as an example. The talk turned somewhat upon the manner of putting things, the English manner being so poor and inexpressive compared with the southern natures—the French being the masters of expression.

Longfellow gave a delightful account of the old artist and spiritualist, Kirkup, the discoverer of the Dante portrait, though Greene undertook to say that a certain Wilde was the man. I never heard anybody else have the credit but Kirkup, and certainly England believes it was he.

I think they all had “a good time”; I am sure I did.

As Mark Twain, in the preceding pages may be said to have led the reader back into the Boston and Cambridge circle, so there were constant excursions of interest from that circle out into the world in which such a man as Sumner stood as the friend of such another as Longfellow. For twenty-three years, from 1851 till his death in 1874, Sumner was a member of the United States Senate, and consequently was much more to be seen in Washington than in the State he represented. He appears from time to time in the pages of Mrs. Fields’s diary, and in the two ensuing passages figures first at her Boston dinner-table and then in Washington:

_Saturday, November 18, 1865._—Last night Miss Kate Field and Charles Sumner dined with us. Before we went to dinner Charlotte Foster, the young colored girl whom Elizabeth Whittier was so fond of and who is now secretary of the Freedmen’s Bureau, came in to call. She is very pretty and good. It is difficult nevertheless for her to find a boarding-place. People do not readily admit a colored woman into their families. I shall help her to find a good home....

Mr. Sumner opened the conversation at dinner by asking Miss Field to tell him something of Mr. Landor. She, smiling, said that was difficult now because she had talked and written so much of him that she hardly knew what was left unsaid. Mr. Sumner described his own first introduction then at the house of his old friend, Mr. Kenyon, in London. He had dropped in there by accident, but was positively engaged elsewhere at dinner; before he left, however, he was able to parry skilfully a remark aimed at the Yankees, which tickled Mr. Landor and made him try to hold on and induce him to stay. He was obliged to go then, however, but he returned a few days after to breakfast, when Landor asked him why the body of Washington did not rest in the Capitol at Washington. “Because,” said Mr. Sumner, “his family wished his ashes to remain at Mt. Vernon.” “Ashes,” said L., “his body was not burned; why do you say ‘ashes,’ sir?” “I quoted, ‘E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires,’ and he said nothing more at the time, but,” added Mr. Sumner, “I have never used ‘ashes’ since.”

Kate Field said “his wife was a perfect fiend”; but Mr. Sumner was inclined to doubt the statement. “These marriages with men of genius are hard,” he said, “because genius wins the race in the end.”

Then Kate brought the authority of Mr. Browning and others to back her statement, but, referring to Mr. Landor’s temper, she said that while the Storys were at Siena passing the summer one year, the Brownings took a villa near by and Mr. Landor lived opposite, while she and Miss Isa Blagden went down to make the Brownings a visit. During their stay Mr. Landor fancied that the stock of tea lately purchased for his use was poisoned, and threw it all out of the window. The Contadine reaped the benefit of this; they came and gathered it up like a flock of doves.

Mr. Sumner spoke of the high, very high place he accorded to Mr. Landor as a writer of prose. He had been a source of great admiration to him for years, he said. As long ago as when G. W. Greene was living in Rome and first becoming a writer, he asked Mr. Sumner what masters of prose he should study. “Then,” said Mr. S., “you remember his own style was bad; the sentences apt to be jumbled up together. I told him to read Bacon, and Hooker, and all the prose of Dryden he could find in the prefaces and elsewhere, and Walter Savage Landor; and my reverence for Mr. Landor as a writer of prose has never diminished.”

Later during the dinner, talking of his life abroad, Mr. Sumner was reminded of a letter he had received from John P. Hale, our minister plenipotentiary to Spain. He said for a number of years, while Mr. Hale was in the Senate, whenever appeals came from our foreign ministers or consuls abroad asking for increase of salary, Mr. Hale would jump up and say, “Gentlemen of the Senate, allow me to say I would engage to live at any point in Europe upon the salary now granted by the Government. It is no economy, indeed it is a great lack of economy, to think of raising these salaries.”

“Hereupon comes a letter from Spain urging an increase of salary in terms which would convulse the Senate with laughter after the protestations they have heard so often. I should like nothing better than to read it to them.” For the lack of their presence, however, he read it to us, and it was amusing truly, as if the old days and speeches were a blank.

Mr. Sumner easily slipped from this subject into others connected with the Government.

Kate Field said that Judge Russell told her that President Johnson was no better than a sot, and that the head of the Washingtonian Home (a refuge for inebriates here) had been sent for, as a man having skill in such cases, to try to save him. “Is this true, Mr. Sumner?” she asked. Mr. Sumner said not one word at first; then asked, “What authority had Judge Russell for making such an assertion?” Kate did not know, and I thought on the whole Mr. Sumner, who knew the man had really been sent for by the President himself, it is supposed for some other reason, doubted the whole tale. I doubted it sincerely from the first moment, and I wonder a man can be left to say such things.

Sumner then continued to describe very vividly what he had known of Andy Johnson’s behavior. When he left Tennessee to come to Washington to be Vice-President, he travelled with a negro servant and two demijohns of whiskey which he dispensed freely, drinking enough himself at the same time to arrive at Washington in a maudlin condition, in which state he remained until after the fourth of March. He was then living at the hotel, and a young Massachusetts officer, who lived on the same floor and was obliged to pass Mr. Johnson’s door many times a day, told Mr. S. that during the two days subsequent to Mr. Johnson’s arrival he saw, while passing his room, and counted twenty-six glasses of whiskey go in. At length good men interfered; they saw delirium tremens or some other dreadful thing would be the result if this continued, and old Mr. Blair went with Mr. Preston King and persuaded Mr. Johnson to go down and stay at Mr. Blair’s house, and he surrendered at discretion. It was a small house and a very quiet family, but they stowed Mr. Johnson away and Mr. King also, who was kind enough to offer to take care of him. Shortly after this Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Sumner had gone down the river in a yacht, and had landed at General Grant’s headquarters. They were sitting together at two desks reading the papers for the day when Mr. Sumner observed a figure darken the door, and looking up found Mr. Johnson. “Ah, Mr. Vice-President, how do you do,” he said, putting his papers aside. “Mr. President, here is the Vice-President.” Mr. Lincoln arose and extended his hand, but as Mr. Sumner thought very coldly, and after a short time they started again for their yacht. Mr. Johnson walked as far as the wharf, talking with Mr. Lincoln, but when they arrived there, Mr. Lincoln did not say, “Come with us and have lunch,” or “Come at night and have dinner,” but bade him simply “Good-bye” there, where they observed him afterward watching their departure with Mr. King by his side, who had come to rejoin him.

“This,” said Mr. Sumner, “is all Mr. Lincoln saw of Mr. Johnson. One week after this time the President was assassinated, and they never met from that hour until his death.”

Mr. Sumner thinks Mr. Beecher is making a dangerous and deadly mistake, and told him so. He said further to Mr. B. that his anxieties prevented him from sleeping, that he had not slept for three nights. “I should think so,” Mr. Beecher replied, “you talk like a man who had been deprived of his natural rest.” The two men have a respect for each other and talk kindly of each other, but they do not see things from the same point of view now at all.

_Friday morning, March 21, 1872._—L. W. J. and her daughter met us at the cars [in New York] bound to go with us to Washington. A pleasant day’s journey we had of it with their friendly faces to accompany us and with Colonel Winthrop to meet us at the train. The evening of our arrival Jamie went at once to see Charles Sumner who lives in a fine house adjoining our hotel. Nothing could be finer than the situation he has chosen. He kept J. until midnight and tried to detain him still longer, but the knowledge that I was waiting for him made him insist at length upon coming away. He found him better in health than he had supposed from the newspapers, and “the same old Sumner,” as Jamie said.

Saturday morning I went in early with J. and passed the entire morning with the Senator. Several colored persons came in as we sat there, and those who were people of eminence were introduced. He talked of literature and showed us his own curiosities which appear to be numberless. Jamie was called away, but he urged me to stay. He said he had sent a message to the Senate which required a reply and he expected every moment to hear the sound of hoofs on the pavement, as he had requested a special messenger to be sent on horseback. The messenger did not arrive, but I stayed on all the same until his carriage came to take him to the Capitol, when he insisted that I should accompany him. He showed me all the wonders of the place, not forgetting the doors which Crawford never lived even to design in clay altogether, but which his wife, desiring to have the money, caused to be finished by her husband’s workmen and foisted upon our Government. They are poor enough. Sumner opposed her in what he considered a dishonest attempt to get money, but of course he could not make an open opposition of this nature against a lady, the widow of his friend.

Sumner’s character is one of the most extraordinary pictures of opposing elements ever combined in one person. He is so possessed by Sumner that there is really no room for the fair existence of another in his world. Position, popularity, domestic happiness, health, have one by one been cut away from him, but he still stands erect, with as large a faith in Sumner and with as determined a look toward the future as if it beckoned him to glory and happiness. I suppose he must believe that the next turn of Fortune’s wheel must give him the favor he has now lost; but were he another man, all the honors of the state could hardly recompense him in the least for what he has lost. He has a firm proud spirit which his terrible bodily suffering does not appear to make falter. His health is so precarious that doubtless a few more adverse strokes would finish him; but he has had all there are to have, one would say. His friends, however, uphold him most tenderly; letters from dear Mrs. Child and others lay upon his table urging him to put away all excitement and try to live for the service of the state. Public honor, probity, the high service of his country seem to be the passions which animate him and by which he endures. He has a mania for collecting rare books and pictures nowadays and it is almost pitiful to see how this fancy runs away with him and how he must frequently be deceived. The tragedy of his marriage would be far more tragic if it had left any scar (as far as mortal can discover) save upon his pride. I would not do a man whom I hold in such honor any injustice, but he never _seemed_ in love.

_Sunday._—Not well—kept to my room in the Arlington Hotel all day, obliged to refuse to see guests also, and dear J. has gone alone to dine with Sumner. I had hoped to see his home once more and to see him among his peers. There is always a doubt of course, but especially in his state of health, whether we may ever meet again. If not, I shall not soon forget his stately carriage at the Capitol yesterday nor the store he sets at present upon his counted friends.

He pointed out the great avenue named Massachusetts, and the school house named after himself, with a just and noble pride yesterday. The trees are all ready to burst into leaf. Read Bayard Taylor’s Norwegian story, “Lars”—very sweet and fine it is—just missing “an excuse for being.” L. J. fills us with new respect and regard. Her devotion to her daughter is so perfect and so wise.