CHAPTER XIX.
The Home in Washington.--"Fruit between Leaves."--Classical Studies.--Mrs. Garfield.--Variety of Reading.--Favorite Verses.
In a private letter to Colonel Rockwell, dated August 30th, 1869, Garfield writes:--
"It seems as though each year added more to the work that falls to my share. This season I have the main weight of the Census Bill and the reports to carry, and the share of the Ohio campaign that falls to me; and in addition to all this I am running in debt and building a house in Washington.
"On looking over my accounts, I found I had paid out over five thousand dollars since I first went to Congress, for rent alone, and all this is a dead loss; so, finding an old staff-officer (Major D. G. Swaim), I negotiated enough to enable me to get a lot on the corner of Thirteenth and I Streets, north, opposite to Franklin Square, and I have got a house three-quarters done. It may be a losing business, but I hope I shall be able to sell it when I am done with it, so as to save myself the rent."
This house, where Garfield and his family spent so many happy hours during their winter sojourns in Washington, is a plain brick mansion with a wing built out on the east side to accommodate his fine library. The parlor windows look out upon Franklin Square and the corner of I and Thirteenth Streets.
To a visitor ushered into this pleasant, cheery drawing-room, the first object that greeted the eye was an excellent portrait of "Grandma Garfield," which hung over the grand piano. On the opposite side was a beautiful painting of "Little Trot," the baby-girl whose loss the loving father never ceased to deplore. The room was tastefully but simply furnished, and in the small sitting-room, leading out of the parlor, the pretty desk piled up with books and papers, seemed the most important piece of furniture.
The dining-room with its Japanese dado, and its chairs and table of Austrian bent wood was a particularly pleasant room. Just above the mantel hung a half-finished sketch of an old-time knight balancing in one hand an empty glass, and leaning the other upon an inn table.
An artist friend began the painting with the intention of carrying out an ideal that Garfield had once expressed at a Shakespearian gathering. Dying before the picture was finished, the painter left only an outline of the idea, but that outline, Garfield valued very highly. His love for pictures was almost as great as his love for books, and the walls of this plain little house in Thirteenth Street were adorned with many choice paintings and engravings.
Just over the dining-room was the library where Garfield spent the greater part of his time, when free from congressional duties. In the centre stood a large black walnut office-desk with its accompaniments of pigeon-holes, boxes and drawers, filled to overflowing. Six or seven book-cases, holding in all some three thousand volumes, stood against the walls; and scrap-books of all shapes and sizes confronted you everywhere.
It used to be a common saying in Congress that no man in Washington could stand before the army of facts that Garfield could bring forward at a moment's notice. This readiness was largely due to his systematic course of reading, and his invaluable method of _indexing_. For instance: if an author's views on some subject struck him as particularly good and worth remembering, he would immediately make a note of it in his commonplace-book, giving with the topic, the volume, and page where the extract could be found. In this manner a rich fund of information was always at hand; his "fruit between leaves" was always ready to gather.
The record of the Congressional Library shows that he took out more books than any other member of Congress; and his reading embraced every variety of subject, history, biography, law, politics, philosophy, government, and poetry.
At one time, during an unusually busy session, a friend found him behind a big barricade of books.
"I find I'm overworked," he said, "and need recreation. Now my theory is that the best way to rest the mind is not to let it lie idle, but to put it at something quite outside the ordinary line of employment. So, I am resting by learning all the Congressional Library can show about Horace, and the various editions and translations of his poems."
Mrs. Garfield showed the same love for the classics as her husband. A year or two ago, he said,--
"I taught my wife Latin at Hiram, and she was as good a pupil as I had. She is now teaching the same Latin to my two big boys."
Mary Clemmer wrote of her:--
"Mrs. Garfield has the 'philosophic mind' that Wordsworth sings of, and she has a self-poise, a strength of unswerving absolute rectitude. Much of the time that other women give to distributing visiting cards, Mrs. Garfield has spent in the alcoves of the Congressional Library, searching out books to carry home to study.... She has moved on in the tranquil tenor of her unobtrusive way, in a life of absolute devotion to duty; never forgetting the demands of her position or neglecting her friends, yet making it her first charge to bless her home, to teach her children, to fit her boys for college, to be the equal friend, as well as the honored wife, of her husband."
From a letter of Garfield's to President Hinsdale we follow the indefatigable reader in still another course of study:--
"Since I left you I have made a somewhat thorough study of Goethe and his epoch, and have sought to build up in my mind a picture of the state of literature and art in Europe, at the period when Goethe began to work, and the state when he died. I have grouped the various facts into order, have written them out, so as to preserve a memoir of the impression made upon my mind by the whole. The sketch covers nearly sixty pages of manuscript. I think some work of this kind outside the track of one's every day work is necessary to keep up real growth."
In another letter to the same friend, he writes:--
"I have found a book which interests me very much. You may have seen it; if not I hope you will get it. It is entitled, 'Ten Great Religions' by James Freeman Clarke. I have read the chapter on Buddhism with great interest. It is admirably written, in a liberal and philosophic spirit, and I am sure will interest you. What I have read of it leads me to believe that we have taken too narrow a view of the subject of religion."
Again, when a fit of sickness confined him to the house, he says--
"I am taking advantage of this enforced leisure to do a great deal of reading. Since I was taken sick I have read the following: Sherman's two volumes, Leland's 'English Gypsies', George Borrow's 'Gypsies of Spain', Borrow's 'Rommany Rye', Tennyson's 'Mary', seven volumes of Froude's England, several plays of Shakespeare, and have made some progress in a new book, 'The History of the English People,' by Prof. Green of Oxford."
For light literature, Garfield usually turned to Thackeray, Scott, Dickens, Jane Austen, Kingsley, or Honore de Balzac. He was fond of poetry, and his voluminous scrap-books contained many gems, from one of which we cull the following verses, said to be his especial favorites.--
"Commend me to the friend that comes When I am sad and lone, And makes the anguish of my heart The suffering of his own, Who coldly shuns the glittering throng At pleasure's gay levee And comes to gild a sombre hour And give his heart to me.
"He hears me count my sorrows o'er; And when the task is done He freely gives me all I ask,-- A sigh for every one. He cannot wear a smiling face When mine is touched with gloom, But like the violet seeks to cheer The midnight with perfume.
"Commend me to that generous heart Which like the pine on high, Uplifts the same unvarying brow To every change of sky, Whose friendship does not fade away When wintry tempests blow, But like the winter's icy crown Looks greener through the snow.
"He flies not with the flitting stork. That seeks a southern sky, But lingers where the wounded bird Hath lain him down to die. Oh, such a friend! He is in truth, Whate'er his lot may be A rainbow on the storm of life, An anchor on its sea."