Part 18

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.

Jamie returned about 12 o’clock. There had been a gorgeous dinner. The guests were Caleb Cushing, Carl Schurz, Perley Poore, Mr. Hill, J. T. F. The service was worthy of the house of an English nobleman, the feast worthy of Lucullus. It fairly astonished J. to see Sumner eat. He of course sat at S.’s right. Not a wine, nor a dish, was left untasted and even the richest puddings were taken in large quantities. I thought of poor Mrs. Child and other devout admirers of this their Republican (!) leader, then of Charlotte Brontë’s story of Thackeray at dinner. Some day, said J., we shall take up the paper and find Sumner is no more, and it will be after one of these dinners.

The talk astonished J., utterly unused as he is to look behind the scenes of government. Caleb Cushing, a man over 70, who appears to have the vigor of 50, called Stanton “a master of duplicity.” Caleb Cushing said Seward was the first man who introduced ungentlemanly bearing into the Cabinet. Until he came there, there was no smoking, no putting up of the feet, but always a fine courtesy and dignity of behavior was preserved.

Before leaving the diaries from which so many pages have already been drawn, before letting the last of the familiar faces which look out from them fade again from sight, it would be a pity not to assemble a few entries recalling notable persons of whom Mrs. Fields made fragmentary but significant record. Here, for instance, are glimpses of Henry Ward Beecher, fresh from the great service he rendered to the Union cause in the Civil War by his speeches in England.

_Tuesday, November 17, 1863._—J. T. F. saw Mr. Kennard today and we heard from him the particulars of Mr. Beecher’s landing. He came on shore in the warm fog which was the precursor of the heavy rain we have today, at 3 o’clock A.M. of Sunday. He went to the Parker House until day should break and Mr. Kennard could come and take him to the retirement of Brookline, to pass the day until the train should leave for New York. News of his arrival getting abroad, a company of orthodox deacons waited upon him very early to invite him to preach. “Gentlemen, do you take me for a fool,” he said, “to jump so readily into the harness of the pulpit even before the fatigue of the voyage has worn away?” He heard of the illness of one of his younger children and therefore hastened as quickly as possible toward home.

The day before the one upon which he was to speak at Exeter Hall he awoke in the morning with a heavy headache; his voice, too, was seriously impaired by over-use. He wanted to speak, his whole heart was in it, yet how in this condition? He shut himself up in the house all that day and hoped for better things and went early to bed that night. The next morning at dawn he awoke, he opened his eyes quickly. “Is God to suffer me to do this work?” He leaped from the bed with a bound. His head was clear and fresh, but his voice—he hardly dared to try that. “I will speak to my sister three thousand miles away,” he said, and cried, “Harriet.” The tones were clear and strong. “Thank God!” he said—then speedily dressed—trying his voice again and again—then he sat down and wrote off the heads of his address. All he needed to say came freshly and purely to his mind just in the form he wished. The day ebbed away and the carriage came to take him to the hall. When he descended to the street, to his surprise there was a long file of policemen, through whom he was conducted because of the crowds waiting about his door. He was obliged to descend also at some distance from Exeter Hall, and he was again conducted through another line of police before he reached the door. The people pushed and cried out so that he ran from the carriage towards the hall; and one of the staid policemen, observing a man running, cried out and caught him by the coat-tail saying he mustn’t run there, that line was preserved for the great speaker. “Well, my friend,” said Mr. Beecher, “I can tell you one thing. There won’t be much speaking till I get there.” While he hurried on, he felt a woman lay hold of the skirts of his coat. The police, seeing her, tried to push her away, but she said to one of them, “I belong to his party.” Mr. B. said, “I overheard the poor thing, but I thought if she chose to tell a lie I would not push her away; but as I neared the door she crept up and whispered to me, ‘I am one of your people. Don’t you remember ——, a Scotch woman who used to live in Brooklyn and go to the Plymouth Church? I have thought of this for weeks and longed and dreamt of being with you again. Now my desire is heard.’”

The rest of this wonderful night the public journals and his own letters can tell us of—have told us. He has been as it were a man raised up for this dark hour of our dear Country. May he live to see the promised land, and not only from the top of Pisgah.

_December 10, 1863._—Visit from H. W. Beecher.... Mr. Beecher did not like Mr. Browning. He found him flippant and worldly. To be sure he had but one interview and could scarcely judge, but had he met the man by chance in a company he should never have sought him a second time. He said of Charles Lamb that he always reminded him of a honeysuckle growing between and over a rough trellis; it would cover the stakes, it would throw out blossoms and tendrils, it would attract hummingbirds and make corners for their nests and fill the wide air with its fragrance. Such was C. Lamb to him.

He was sure he could have liked Mrs. Browning—so credulous, generous, outspoken. He liked strong outspoken people, yet he liked serene people too; but then, he loved the world in its wide variety.

He said his boy wished to be either a stage-driver or a missionary. His fancy was for stage-driving; he thought perhaps his duty might make him a missionary....

It was such a privilege to see him back and such a privilege to grasp his hand, I could say nothing but be happy and thankful.

A few years later a passing shape from still an earlier generation casts its shadow of tragic outline across the pages of the diary.

_Sunday, January 6, 1867._—A driving snow-storm. Last night Jamie went to the Club; met W. Everett, who said that while his father was member of Congress and was at one time returning from Washington to Boston he was stopped in the street as he passed through Philadelphia by a haggard man wrapped in a cloak. “I am Aaron Burr,” said the figure, “and I pray you to ask Congress for an appropriation to aid me in my misery.” Mr. E. replied that the member from his own district was the person to whom to apply. “I know that,” was the sad rejoinder, “but the others are all strangers to me and I pray you to help me.” After some reflection Mr. Everett promised to try to do something in his behalf; fortunately, however, he was released by death before Congress was again in session.

Then soon appears a more cheerful figure, in the person of the Rev. Elijah Kellogg whose lines of “Spartacus to the Gladiators” have resounded in many a schoolhouse. His tales of the Stowes and the family Bible may still divert a generation that knows not Spartacus.

_Thursday, January 10, 1867._—Yesterday J. fell in with a Mr. Kellogg, a clergyman from Harpswell, Maine, the author of many noble things, among the rest, of the “Speech of Spartacus” which is in Sargent’s “School Speaker,” a piece of which the boys are very fond, but the masters are obliged to forbid their speaking it because it always takes the prize. He wrote it while in college, to speak himself. He went to school with Longfellow, though he is younger than the poet, and the latter calls him a man of genius. He is a preacher of the gospel and for the past ten months has been speaking every Sunday at the Sailor’s Bethel with great effect. He called to see J. and told him some queer anecdotes regarding his sea-life. He dresses like a fisherman, red shirt, etc., while at home. He remembers Professor Stowe and his wife well. He says their arrival at Brunswick was looked for with eagerness by many, with some natural curiosity by himself. One day about the time they were expected he was in his boat floating near the pier and preparing to return to his island where he lives, as the tide was going down and if he delayed much longer he would be ashore; but he observed a woman sitting on a cask upon the wharf swinging her heels, with two large holes the size of a dollar each in the back of her stockings, a man standing by her side, and several children playing about. At once he believed it must be the new professor, so he dallied about in his boat observing them. Presently the man cried out, “Hallo there, will you give my wife a sail?” “I can’t,” he replied, “there’s no wind.” “Will you give her a row then?” “The tide’s too low and I shan’t get home.” “Oh,” said the woman, “we will pay you; you’d better take me out a little way.” “No, I can’t,” he said. Presently he heard somebody say something about that’s being the minister and not a fisherman at all. “Do you think so?” said Mrs. Stowe. With that he dropped down into the bottom of his boat and was off before another word.

He told Mr. Fields also of the professor who preceded Professor Stowe. He was an unmarried man with three sisters, all of whom were insane at times and frequently one of them was away from home in an asylum. One day the brother was away, the eldest sister being at home in apparently good health, when another professor came to visit them to whom she wished to be particularly polite. “What will you have for dinner,” said she, “today?” “Oh! the best thing you’ve got,” he replied. So when dinner came she had stewed the family Bible with cabbage for his repast. He speaks with the greatest enthusiasm of the beauty of that Maine coast. We must go there.

Out of what seems a past almost pre-Augustan come these memories of N. P. Willis, a poet who suffered the misfortune of outliving much of his own fame.

_Thursday, January 31, 1867._—The papers of last night brought the news of N. P. Willis’s death and that he was to be buried in Boston from St. Paul’s Church today. Early this morning a note came from Mrs. Willis asking Mr. Fields to see Dr. Howe and Edmund Quincy, to ask them to be pall-bearers with himself and Colonel Trimble. Fortunately last night J. had seen the announcement, and before going to Longfellow’s made up his mind to ask Longfellow and Lowell to come in to assist at the ceremony of their brother-author; he had also sent to Professor Holmes before the note came from Mrs. Willis. He then sent immediately for the others whom she mentioned and for a quantity of exquisite flowers. All his plans turned out as he had arranged and hoped and the poet’s grave was attended by the noblest America had to offer. The dead face was not exposed, but the people pressed forward to take a sprig from the coffin in memory of one who had strewn many a flower of thought on the hard way of their lives. There are some to speak hardly of Willis, but usually the awe of death ennobles his memory to the grateful world of his appreciators. “Refrain! refrain!” we long to say to the others who would carp. “If you have tears, shed them on the poet’s grave.”

There had been previously an exquisite and touching service at Idlewild where Octavius Frothingham did all a man could do, inspired by the occasion and the loveliness of the day and scene. The service here would have seemed cold as stone except for the gracious poets who surrounded the body and prevented one thought of chill lack of sympathy from penetrating the flowers with which it was covered. I could not restrain my tears when I remembered a few years, only two, and the same company had borne Hawthorne’s body to its burial. Which, which, of that beloved and worshipped few was next to be borne by the weeping remnant!!

_Wednesday, July 1, 1868._—In our walk yesterday J. delighted himself and me by rehearsing his memories of Willis. J. was at the Astor House when Willis returned first from Europe with his young bride. He was then the observed of all observers. As in those days travellers crossed in sailing vessels, his coming was not heralded; the first that was known of their arrival was when he walked into the Astor with his beautiful young wife upon his arm. He wore a brown cloak thrown gracefully about his shoulders and was a man to remind one of Lady Blessington’s saying, “If Willis had been born to £10,000 a year he would have been a perfect man.” He was then at the head of the world of literature in America; his influence could do anything and his heart and purse were both at the service of the needy asker. Unfortunately from the first he never paid his debts. J. said he never believed the tales of Willis’s dissipation. He spent money freely even when he had it not. All the English folk, lords and ladies, who then came to see America were the guests of Willis.

I asked what his wife was like! “Like a seraph. She was lovely with all womanly attractions.”

Of the various “causes” to which Mrs. Fields and her husband paid allegiance, the cause of equal opportunity for men and women cannot justly be left unmentioned. They espoused it before its friends were taken with the seriousness they have long commanded, and, as the following passage will suggest, were full of sympathy with those who fought its early battles. The impact of one of these combatants, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, a reformer in sundry fields, against the rock of conservatism represented by the President of Harvard College, is the subject of a lively bit of record.

_September 22, 1876._—At four came Miss Phelps, at six came Mrs. Livermore. Ah! She is indeed a great woman—a strong arm to those who are weak, a new faith in time of trouble. She came to tea as fresh as if she had been calmly sunning herself all the week instead of speaking at a great meeting at Faneuil Hall the previous evening and taking cold in the process. She talked most wittily and brilliantly, beside laughing most heartily and merrily over all dear J.’s absurd stories and illustrations. He told her of a woman who came to speak to him after one of his lectures, to thank him for what he was trying to do for the education of women. She said, “I was educated at home with my brothers and taught all they were taught, learning my lessons by their side and reciting with them until the time came for them to go to college. Nobody ever told me I was not to go to college! And when the moment arrived and it dawned upon me that I was to be left behind to do nothing, to learn nothing more, I was terribly unhappy.”