Part 22 (1/2)
There was nothing spectacular about Mr Tilden Not wanting the sense of hued it In spite of his positiveness of opinion and ae he was always courteous and deferential in debate He had none of the audacious daring, let us say, of Mr Elaine, the energetic self-assertion of Mr Roosevelt Either in his place would have carried all before hi behind the screen and pulling his wires--which his political and party eneet in the way of the machine and obstruct the march of the self-elect His confidences were not effusive, nor their subjects nu and sometimes it carried the idea of indecision, not to say actual love of procrastination But in my experience with hian, and it was nowise difficult for those whoht it best to reserve its conclusions
I do not think in any great affair he ever hesitated longer than the gravity of the case required of a prudenttenaciously to both horns of the dileht lead him to do, and did certainly expose hi
He was a philosopher and took the world as he found it He rarely co way of balancingeach the benefit of a generous accounting, and a just way of expecting no ot into deeper water his stature rose to its level, and from his exclusion from the presidency in 1877 to his renunciation of public affairs in 1884 and his death in 1886 his walks and ways ht have been a study for all ould learn life's truest lessons and know the real sources of honor, happiness and fame
Chapter the Thirteenth
Charles Earess--A Heroic Kentuckian--Stephen Foster and His Songs--Music and Theodore Thomas
I
Swift's definition of ”conversation” did not preside over or direct the daily intercourse between Charles Sumner, Charles Eames and Robert J
Walker in the old days in the National Capital They did not converse
They discoursed They talked sententiously in portentous essays and learned dissertations I used to think it great, though I nursed no little dislike of Sumner
Charles Ealander--a Yankee Jack-of-all-trades--kept at the front by an exceedingly clever wife Through the favor she enjoyed at court he received from Pierce and Buchanan uni their sojourns in Washi+ngton their home was a kind of political and literary headquarters Mrs Eames had established a salon--the first atteether a success Her Sundays evenings were notable, indeed Whoever orth seeing, if in town, ht usually be found there Charles Su person Both handsouished in appearance, he possessed in an ematism--or, shall I say, affectation?--and seemed never happy except on exhibition He had made a profitable political and personal issue of the Preston Brooks attack Brooks was an exceeding light weight, but he did for Sumner more than Sumner could ever have done for hily disagreeable to ht hin of 1872, Schurz brought us together--they had become as very brothers in the Senate--and I found hireat old htful oldof a hero I grew in time to be actually fond of his in his library, mourned sincerely when he died, and ith Schurz to Boston, on the occasion when that great German-American delivered the memorial address in honor of the dead Abolitionist
Of all the public men of that period Carl Schurz most captivated me
When we first came into personal relations, at the Liberal Convention, which assembled at Cincinnati and nominated Greeley and Brown as a presidential ticket, he was just turned forty-three; I, two and thirty
The closest intimacy followed Our tastes were much alike Both of us had been educated in --especially Schu quite reached the ”high jinks” of Wagner
To me his oratory onderful He spoke to an audience of five or ten thousand as he would have talked to a party of three or six His style was siue of satire or a burst of not too eloquent rhetoric
He was quite knocked out by the no time he could not reconcile himself to support the ticket Horace White and I addressed ourselves to the task of ”fetching hi in point of fact nowhere else for hiet up as called The Fifth Avenue Conference to e
Truth to say, Schurz never wholly adjusted himself to political conditions in the United States He once said to me in one of the querulous moods that sometimes overcame him: ”If I should live a hundred years my enemies would still call me a--Dutchht Laether The Mississippian had been a Secession Meress when I was a Unionist scribe in the reporters' gallery I was a furious partisan in those days and disliked the Secessionists intensely Of theressive I later learned that he was veryand lovable of ether by Schurz, he and I ”froze together” On one side he was a sentimentalist and on the other a philosopher, but on all sides a fighter
They called hi froh, albeit in his moods a recluse, he was a man of the world; a favorite in society; very land; the friend of Thackeray, at whose house, when in London, he made his abode Lady Ritchie--Anne Thackeray--toldbrainyclever woood friends and constant coether for a little while in the lower house of Congress One day he beckonedbackith his hands crossed behind his head
As I stood in front of hihth of February, 1858, Mrs Gwin, of California, gave a fancy dress ball Mr Lalorious young worace--ho states her likewise down to supper He went to bed, turned his face to the wall and dreao To-day this sanuton for an apart they came to a mean house in a mean quarter, where a poor, wizened, ill-clad woh the meanly furnished rooms Of course they would not suffice
”As they were coreat Mr La in Washi+ngton?' She said all her life
'Madaiven by Mrs
Senator Gwin of California, the eighth of February, 1858?' She said she was 'Do you re and handsoress, by the name of Lamar?' She said she didn't”