Day before yesterday; reminiscences of a varied life

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

REMINISCENCES OF A VARIED LIFE

-^ LIBRARY

A'^TOR, LF

Gessjord Studios

MAITLAND ARMSTRONG

[Born 1S36 — Died igiS]

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

REMINISCENCES OF A VARIED LIFE

BY

MAITLAND ARMSTRONG

1836-1918

EDITED BY HIS DAUGHTER

MARGARET ARMSTRONG

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1920

-Vl

; ASTOJ^, LENOX AND
I H 1920 L

Copyright, 1920, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published October, 1020

CONTENTS tl^^^^

CHAPTER PACB

I. Danskammer 3

II. New York When I Was a Boy 30

III. My Brothers 57

IV. The South Before the War 72

V. At College 88

VI. Travels and a Shipwreck 103

VII. New York When I Was a Young Man 125

VIII. Rome — Church and State 154

IX. Some Roman Friends 188

X. The Campagna 215

XI. Venice 240

XII. Saint Caudens and Others 258 V*

XIII. Some Pleasant Summers 288

XIV. The Century Club 303

XV. My Farm at Danskammer 329

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

CHAPTER I

DANSKAMMER

"To the heart of youth the world is a highway side.
Passing forever he fares; and on either hand.
Deep in the gardens the golden pavilions hide,

Nestle in orchard bloom, and far on the level land
Call him with lighted lamp in the eventide."

— Stevenson.

I was born on the 15th of April, 1836, at Dans-
kammer on the Hudson, near Newburgh. The date on
the house at Danskammer is 1834, so I have always as-
sumed that I was born in that house, although at the time
my father, Edward Armstrong, bought the place, about
1822, there was an old house near the edge of the bank
sloping down to the river, a rather fine colonial building
with two wings. When this house was torn down to make
way for our new one, one of the wings was moved back
of the Danskammer stable and used for many years as a
carpenter-shop; the walls were hard-finished and the orna-
mental ceiling and woodwork bore evidence of its having
been a part of a handsome house, probably the dining-
room. On the place at that time was a carpenter named
Edgar Bloomer, whom my mother hired by the year and
who did his work in this room. He was a nice man, and
as a child I liked to be out there with him, watching the
long shavings curl into ringlets before his plane and build-
ing houses with the blocks that he sawed off. I had four
brothers — Henry, Gouverneur, Charles, and Jack — and
this room was our lounging-place; especially on rainy days,

3

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

we had lots of fun there. Harry was an ingenious fellow
and by working there with Edgar Bloomer he became an
excellent carpenter and could build almost anything.

After my father bought Danskammer he added to it
various farms until he had a river-front of about two miles,
from Mudhole nearly to Hampton — both these little places
have changed their names and are now known as Roseton
and Cedar Cliff. Danskammer is one of the few names that
appear on the very oldest maps, and it was Henry Hudson,
according to tradition, who christened the pretty wooded
point that curves out into the river near our house, and
called it Duyvil's Danskammer — Devil's Dancechamber —
when he sailed up the river in the Half Moon and saw a
group of Indians dancing in the firelight on the flat rock
that crowned the point in those days. This Indian rock
was broken off" some years ago when the steamer Cornell
was wrecked there on a foggy night, and the little light-
house that stands there now was built after the accident.

My father had a substantial taste in houses; he built
his new house of granite, in the classic style which was the
fashion of the day, and finished it throughout in black wal-
nut. The dark-colored granite came from Breakneck, near
Cornwall, and the light granite of which the columns and
trimmings are made was from Quincy, Massachusetts. I
have heard that when the columns were landed at our dock
there was a great question as to how to get them up the
hill, as they were enormous. They finally drilled holes
in the ends and made rollers of the columns themselves,
and by attaching a tongue were able to roll them up to
the house.

At that time, before the brick-yards came, scarring
the landscape and even gnawing away our lawns and
gardens, the situation was beautiful, crowning a wooded

4

DANSKAMMER

plateau, with a sweeping view across Newburgh bay to
the Highlands. We had a delightful bathing-beach of firm
white sand, now of course swallowed up by the West Shore
Railroad, and a dock where large vessels could land. The
river was very gay in those pre-raihvay days, dotted w^ith
hundreds of sails, sloops, and schooners plying between New
York and Albany. In very old times my people came from
New York in sailboats — "safe, fast and commodious river
sloops" — but when I was a boy they used the big steamers.
When I was young there was a horse-boat ferry from Hamp-
ton to New Hamburg, a curious affair with a huge wheel
flat on the deck, operated by two horses, one on each side
on treadmills that turned the two paddle-wheels. When
that was given up we had to use sailboats or row across,
and we made it a point of honor always to cross the river
day or night, no matter what the weather was like.

My father settled in this part of the country because
my grandfather, Colonel William Armstrong, of the British
army, had been greatly struck by the beauty of the neigh-
borhood when he visited Newburgh during the Revolu-
tion. Colonel Armstrong was a Scotchman; he got his
commission as lieutenant in the 17th Foot when he was
nineteen, and soon after came to this country with Sir
Henry Clinton, and served all through the Revolution,
being wounded in the battle of Princeton, and losing an
eye in the battle of Stony Point. He surrendered with
Cornwallis at Yorktown. It is amusing to remember that
my wife's grandfather. Colonel Nicholas Fish, was also
present at Yorktown, on the winning side; I wonder if the
two grandfathers ever met.

My grandfather was sent to Newburgh under a flag of
truce to see Washington at his headquarters. He said
after the interview that he had never been so much im-

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

pressed by any man as by Washington, though he had
met many of the distinguished men of his time, among
them Napoleon and Wellington; and he gave it as his
opinion that a country fighting under such a leader could
not fail of victory. The late Doctor Forsyth, of New-
burgh, who knew my grandfather well, told me this anec-
dote at the Century Club in New York some years ago.

In the War of 1812 my grandfather became colonel of
the Nova Scotia Fencibles, but late in hfe was naturalized
as an American citizen. His army chest in my studio is
a huge and ponderous affair of solid English walnut and
brass. Histories mention that the British in the battle
of Princeton were "much encumbered with baggage."

Firearms were a hobby of my grandfather's. We used
to have the model of a gun that he had invented for the
British army. I don't know that it was ever used. Stu-
pidly enough, it was given away to a farmer, a neighbor
at Danskammer, by one of my brothers when I was a boy.
Colonel Armstrong left a fine collection of guns and pistols,
among them the pair of pistols, made by Twigg, which were
used in the Burr-Hamilton duel in 1804. The seconds
came to him to borrow pistols, as he was known to have
the best in New York. The one that shot Hamilton is
marked with a cross. My grandfather was much annoyed
at having one of his handsomest pistols marred by this
cross cut on the butt, which he considered a liberty, and
some rather acrimonious correspondence ensued on the
subject. Later he gave them to his eldest son, Henry,
who was in the British army and used them in India, but
when Henry was killed there the pistols were returned to
my grandfather, who left them to my uncle. Commodore
Salter. The commodore intended to bequeath them in
his turn to the Navy Lyceum at the Brooklyn Navy Yard

6

DANSKAMMER

— in fact, he had promised them to the curator — but my
brother Harry persuaded him to give them to him instead.
Harry at his death left them to my son Noel, and he has
them now.

It brings that bygone tragedy near to me when I recall
that Harry, when he was about fourteen, had the privilege
of listening to the story of the famous duel as related by
Major William Popham, Burr's most intimate friend, at
that time the only survivor of General Washington's aides.
You may imagine with what keen interest the boy hstened
to the old soldier, who had known all the parties concerned
in the duel, and my grandfather as well. I wish I had
heard him tell about it myself.

Colonel Armstrong had three children by his first wife,
Christian Amiel, a French lady; the two sons were named
Henry Bruen and David Affleck, after Enghsh generals
who were his friends. By his second wife, Margaret Mar-
shall, my grandmother, he had four — Edward, Margaret,
Charles Marshall, and Rose. (Aunt Rose was named
Rosetta, after the place in Egypt where the "Rosetta
stone" was found, because, for some now forgotten reason,
my grandfather was interested in a battle that was fought
there.) It is strange that of all my grandfather's children
and grandchildren I am the only one who has left any
descendants.

Margaret Marshall and her sister Janet lived with their
stepfather, John Ramsay, sometimes in New York or
Philadelphia, and sometimes in EHzabeth Town, as EHza-
beth was called in the days when it "contained an unusual
number of pohte families." And wherever the Ramsays
and Marshalls happened to be living they had a remarkably
good time, judging from their hvely letters and all the pretty
little visiting-cards and invitations they left behind them.

7

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

My great-aunt Janet married first John Rucker (her
granddaughter married General Phil Sheridan), and second
Alexander Macomb, the ''speculator," father of General
Macomb of the War of 1812. He deserved his nickname,
for the enterprises he embarked on with Robert Morris
and WiHiam Duer — such as buying four million acres in
western New York at eighteen cents an acre — were on a
grand scale; too grand, indeed, for Duer, who landed in
jail. Macomb's Dam Bridge, part of his farm, perpetu-
ates the name of this old gentleman in New York.

Margaret Marshall was a belle, so it is not surprising
that she had a romance before meeting my grandfather.
As a young girl she became engaged to a Spanish gentle-
man, Senor Rendon, secretary of the Spanish Legation.
They never married. I gather from his letters — both
voluminous and passionate — that the King would not
allow him to form an alhance with an American. Don
Gardoqui, the first Spanish minister to this country, gave
Miss Marshall two little marble busts of Caesar and Scan-
tilla, which now stand on my parlor mantelpiece in New
York, and I also have an interesting pastel of Madame
Van Berckel, wife of the first Dutch minister, given to my
grandmother by Van Berckel's daughter. (She went to
the West Indies and never returned. I beheve the ship
was lost.)

My old friend Judge Kent knew Colonel Armstrong
when his daughters were young and much admired. My
grandfather was a peppery old gentleman, and when
young Judge Kent — though I suppose he was not a judge
then — went to the Armstrongs' house one night with some
other young men to serenade the young ladies, the colonel
appeared at an upper window with a gun and threatened
to shoot if they did not desist.

8

DANSKAMMER

My grandfather died before I was born, but my brother
Harry remembered his taking a walk with him wearing a
black patch over one eye and his hair in a pigtail. The
old gentleman bought a card of peppermints for the little
boy; in those days peppermints came stuck in rows on
bits of pasteboard.

A family sorrow, bitter in its da}^ but carrying only a
flavor of romance by the time I arrived upon the scene,
was the death of my uncle Henry, my grandfather's eldest
son by his first marriage. He was also in the British
army, fought in Spain and was at the battle of Corunna
and in the famous retreat; perhaps he was at the burial of
Sir John Moore, when "not a drum was heard, not a
funeral note." Henry was killed at the siege of Bhurt-
poor in India — "leading a forlorn hope, blown up by a
mine," I was told as a child. Bhurtpoor, the capital of
the Jats, was a formidable fortress, and it took the British
two months to reduce it, but finally, on the i8th of Jan-
uary, 1826, they exploded ten thousand pounds of powder
in the chief mine and entered the city through a breach in
the wall, incidentally losing six hundred men, among them
my uncle Henry — but "the moral effect was deep and
lasting," the histories tell us. The news was a terrible
blow to his family. My aunt Rose told my brother
Harry that they were all sitting at the breakfast-table
when the Albion, a British newspaper, was brought in and
my grandfather found his son's name among the list of
the slain.

My father, Edward Armstrong, also followed my grand-
father into the British army. I have his commission
signed by George IV, in which he is styled "Edward Arm-
strong, Gentleman," and made an ensign in the 104th
Regiment of Foot. He was then ten years old — they

9

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

caught them young in those days. I don't know whether
or not he resigned from the army immediately after he
married, but in old letters he is addressed as captain.

It was at "Morrisania," the old Morris place in West-
chester, that my father met my mother for the first time.
She was Sarah Hartley Ward, the daughter of Colonel
John Ward, of Carolina, and was making the Morrises a
visit with her sister Mary, who also met her future hus-
band, Gouverneur Morris Wilkins, on this occasion. I
have heard that the coming of the Misses Ward from
Charleston to New York was something of an event in
the restricted society of that time, and doubtless many
young men were interested in the advent of these heiresses.
My father and mother were married in 1822 at the house
of Doctor Wilkes, St. John's Park, in Trinity parish.
They had seven children, only four of whom lived to grow
up. I was the youngest.

My father was one of the handsomest men of his time.
When Lord Stanley, later Earl of Derby, visited America
he went to Charleston with my father and attended church
there with him. All the girls were on the lookout to see
the nobleman. But they mistook my father for Lord
Stanley and said it was easy to see that a British nobleman
was much more distinguished-looking than any American.
I have a miniature of him by Rogers; it was then the cus-
tom for a man to present his miniature to his fiancee, and
this was his gift to my mother at the time of their mar-
riage. He was an accomplished man; he drew, and wTote
poetry, played the viohn, and had some knowledge of
medicine. He was a great favorite; my Aunt Margaret
Salter told me that when he was at a ball, if he saw a plain
girl having no attention, he would make a point of dancing
with her and trying to give her a good time, and old Mrs.

10

DANSKAMMER

Chrystie said he could cut the most beautiful double pigeon-
wing she ever saw. He was loved by all his neighbors,
high and low.

My father was athletic, a splendid shot and rider, an
adept in all manly arts, and up to all the sports of the
time. He raised many fine race-horses, chiefly sired by
"Sir Henry," famous for his race with "EcHpse"; but my
mother objected to racing, so only once did he enter a
horse for a race and that was not for money, but for a
"pipe of wine." Whether he won or not I don't know.
Many of the famous trotting-horses of Orange County are
descended from thoroughbred mares that my father owned.
Old people have told me how well my father looked on
his favorite horse, a mahogany bay named Frank, which
I remember perfectly. He also had a particularly favorite
gun, a muzzle-loader made by Westley Richards, which he
always used.

My family were all exceedingly fond of shooting and
fishing; their old letters almost always mention the size
of the trout that had been caught or the number of birds
that had been shot lately. When I was a boy the shoot-
ing was still good in our neighborhood, even wild pigeons
were still plentiful — my father writes to Uncle Charles of
killing sixty-two in one day — but they are now entirely
extinct. In an old book of travels in the State of New
York in 1783 the author speaks of the pigeons breeding
in infinite numbers: "In a valley where they nested, for
six or eight miles nearly every tree had a number of nests,
and some trees not less than fifteen or twenty." M3'
father used to go off on long hunting expeditions with an
intimate friend of his, the Honorable Charles Augustus
Murray, grandson of Lord Dunmore, the last English
governor of Virginia, notorious for having burned Norfolk.

II

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Partly because of the fine shooting, but also as a specula-
tion, my father and Mr. Murray bought several farms
together in Pennsylvania in the centre of the coal region.
Unfortunately the resources remained undeveloped while
in their hands, and in the end the land was sold to the
Scrantons.

Mr. Murray was a great traveller. He stayed some
years over here, much of the time being spent among the
savage tribes of American Indians in the Far West, mak-
ing what he called a "summer residence" with the Paw-
nees, and recounted his adventures in a most interesting
book of ''Travels." In a letter to my father Mr. Murray
gives an account of a ride he took from Danskammer to
Albany in 1834, stopping on the way to see the Hosack
place at Hyde Park, where he was shown around the
grounds by young Mrs. Hosack. Alas, where is "young
Mrs. Hosack" now! The Hosack place, which Doctor
Hosack bought from Doctor Bard in 1830, has always been
celebrated for its beauty — great trees crowning a broad
plateau in full view of the Catskills. The old colonial
house was torn down about twenty years ago and replaced
by one built by McKim, Mead and White for Frederick
Vanderbilt. Doctor Hosack must have been a nice old
fellow as well as a great scientist; he gave a strawberry
festival every year in his garden in New York for the
students in his classes at Columbia.

From Albany Mr. Murray went to Geneseo, where he
stayed with the Wadsworths, and wrote: "The extensive
farms formed a scene to delight the eye of a Poussin or a
Sir J. Sinclair, but possessed less interest to a contempla-
tive mind than the venerable and excellent gentleman who
had almost created it. For it is now forty-four years since
Mr. W. came as the first settler to this spot, with his axe

12

DANSKAMMER

on his shoulder and slept the first night under a tree.
He is now the universally esteemed possessor of a demesne
which many of the proudest nobility of Europe might
look upon with envy." This enthusiastic guest must have
made an equally pleasant impression on his hosts, for later
he married Elizabeth Wadsworth. Mr. Murray was am-
bassador to Persia and several other courts, and was at
one time Master of the Household to Queen Victoria.
One of his letters, speaking of the Queen's marriage and
describing Prince Albert, has an engraving at the top of
the page of Buckingham Palace, the window^ of his room
marked with a cross, "for the children." Of course he
often came to stay with us at Danskammer. My brother
Gouverneur remembered that on one occasion Harry and
he ran races together and Mr. Murray offered them
shillings as prizes or tips; as independent Americans the
boys refused them, and Gouv remembered that my father
was not pleased, because English boys were always ready
to take tips.

My father died in 1840. Though I w^as about four
years old I do not remember him. All I remember is
going to the door of the large "north room" at Danskam-
mer, and looking in and seeing something covered by a
sheet; I knew it was he and that he was lying there dead.
He died of scarlet fever just a few days after the death
from the same disease of my only sister, httle Mary.

We all had scarlet fever at the same time. I got off
very lightly and was out and around while the others were
still in their rooms. Old Doctor Van CIcek allowed no
refreshing drinks, not even water, or fruit; so Harry, who
was imprisoned in Aunt Rose's room on the second floor,
used to let down a doubled-up jack-knife on a string, to
which I would fasten pears, peaches, and plums, and he

13

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

would hoist them up. One day he managed to crawl out
of bed and drank the whole contents of the water-pitcher
on the wash-stand, after which he went to sleep and woke
up cured. At the time my father died my mother was so
ill that she could not be told of his death or of that of her
little girl until much later.

My earliest recollection is an adventure I had with my
little sister Mary when she was six and I was four. I have
only this one memory of her. Mary and I were out in the
"sugar-loaf" field alone, standing on the bank of the brook
near the bridge, when suddenly a little "skilly-pot" turtle
scuttled across the brook, which excited us so much that we
both fell off into the water. It was shallow and there was
no danger, but we both got a good wetting and were afraid
to go home in that condition, so we went to the top of the
hill at the end of the avenue and tried to dry ourselves in the
sun. Not being very successful in this, we finally went home,
where we found my mother in the large storeroom closet.
She was getting out rock-candy from a tin box that always
stood on the top shelf, and was giving it to the other chil-
dren. All these details are impressed so clearly on my
memory — they say the first thing a child remembers is
invariably connected with something to eat — because my
mother did not give Mary and me any of the rock-candy.
I remember well the delightful box from which the candy
came, the rich dark plum-cake that lived in it, and all the
other deficacies. This is, as I say, the only thing I am
sure I remember about my little sister, but I have also a
very distinct impression — whether real or fancied, I do
not know — of a fair little face and long, curling fight hair.
If I ever reach heaven and see her, as I often pray that I
may, shall I know her when we meet?

I remember other things about that summer of 1840.

14

DANSKAMMER

I remember Commodore Salter, Aunt Margaret's husband,
being there at Danskammer, and also Mr. David Mait-
land, my godfather. Of course Commodore Salter stands
out so plainly because he gave me my first ride on horse-
back. He had a bay horse that was kept in our stable,
and one day he put me on the back of this bay and led
him out among the apple-trees in the orchard. This was
a memorable ride and I shall never forget it.

Mr. David Maitland was a frequent visitor at Dans-
kammer, and I looked forward to his coming, as he always
brought candy — packages of ''Stewart's Mixed Broken
Candy," made by R. L. and A. Stew^art. Their place in
New York was on Chambers Street, the north side, where
it forms a sort of square. This candy was put up in square
packages, blue and white, holding about a pound; there
were sticks of pink cinnamon, wintergreen, red and white
striped, and white vanilla in squarish pieces, also occa-
sional strips of lemon that were very much prized; later it
was called "Ridley's Broken Candy." The Stewarts were
Scotchmen who made a large fortune and lived in hand-
some houses on Fifth Avenue.

When Aunt Margaret visited Danskammer, the first
thing she always did was to go down into the nursery and
see my old nurse, Catherine Small, for she had also been
nurse for all the Armstrong family and they were devoted
to her. She was the widow of a sailor who had been killed
by falhng from a mast. Her room was in the basement,
with one window toward the south that had one of those
wide window-seats in which two people could sit comforta-
bly; a like window opened into a long hall under the porch,
which always kept its white shutters closed, and on them
hung hfe-sized portraits in red crayon by Saint Mem in of
my grandfather and grandmother Armstrong, of which I

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

now have small steel-engravings. Both pictures and
frames were valuable, but in moving from Danskammer
they were left in a bureau-drawer and lost, hke a good
many other nice old things. Our garret was full of such
treasures and was a fme place to play on rainy days. At
one end was a dark room over the porch, and at the other
a raised platform where were kept large portfolios of en-
gravings by Boydell and Bartolozzi. There were chests
filled with old British uniforms, trappers' and American
Indian dresses belonging to my father, made of leather
with fringes on them, and quantities of old brocade dresses
which we used for charades. My sister-in-law cut up
some of the red coats to make iron-holders, and the bro-
cades went for pincushions for a church fair, but in the
end I secured some of the engravings.

At one end of the nursery was a FrankHn stove, where
a wood-fire always burned on chilly days, at the other a
tall mahogany press with shelves above and doors below,
in which were always goodies of some sort. The nursery
was the meeting-place for all the children; we played our
games there, and as it was near the storeroom my mother
also made a convenience of it and cut up the loaf sugar
there. In those days sugar came in the shape of a cone,
about eighteen inches high and six inches across at the
base; it was wrapped in several layers of paper, the outer
being thick and of a dark-purple color. On Christmas
Eve we hung up our stockings at the Frankhn, and I
remember opening mine one time sitting in the big trundle-
bed that stood beside nurse's, so big that several children
could sleep in it. It was on the floor in front of the
Frankhn that we did most of our work, made molasses
candy, mended our skates, greased our boots, and around
the large table we stoned the raisins for the Christmas
plum pudding.

i6

DANSKAMMER

When nurse got very old and bent and went about
with a stick she could scarcely let mc out of her sight, and
was always hobbling out to the "cold spring," nearly a
quarter of a mile away, to see if I had fallen into it. One
rainy day she was missed from the house, and after a long
search she was found lying in the raspberry patch insen-
sible. She had evidently gone to look for me. After this
she was somewhat childish, though she hved for several
years, until she was nearly ninety. She was a dear, sweet
old soul.

When the large table which I spoke of in the nursery
was not in use for some housekeeping rite we used it for
playing games. One game was sea-fighting. We had vast
fleets of wooden ships made up from shingles fitted with
masts, sails, and bowsprits. They were war-ships with
historic names. Wasp, Frolic, and the like. Harry usually
cut them out, perhaps a hundred to a fleet. They would
sally out and meet the hostile fleet and ram them— it was
our only means of warfare — the enemy would ram in
return, and when any vessel was practically disabled, with
mast and rigging gone, perhaps upset, it was towed into
harbor as a prize. We really had splendid fun and got
very much excited over the exploits of some favorite ship.
Then we had jackstraws, cut out in various shapes, such
as horses and castles, by Harry, who was very handy with
his knife. They all had numbers on the sides, and when
one got 500 he w^as winner. I remember a horse was the
highest, 1 00. Now^ those winter evenings seem ages ago !
Truly "the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

And always as our companion was little Fox, a yel-
low, dear, small Scotch terrier, given to Gouv by Mr.
David Maitland. Fox was Gouv's regular companion to
his rabbit-traps. I was too young then to be allowed to
go to the traps, but later I used to set traps and once

17

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

caught eleven in one night. When the snow was deep
Gouv used to have to carry Fox in his arms for miles; but
he always went along. In making our traps we used an
Indian tomahawk that had belonged to Brant, the famous
chief of the Six Nations, that had been given by him to
my grandfather when he went to see him on some mission
or other. Of course after a while we lost it. We had
many dogs; one, a splendid brindled half-mastiff and half-
bulldog named Leo, used to have awful fights with
Don, a fine yellow pointer, which we kept for Uncle
Charles when he was off on a cruise. Don would seize
the mastiff by his fore paws, and it was almost impossible
to make him let go, so Leo often went about lame and
bandaged up. When my father died he left to our care a
beautiful yellow-and-white setter named Ulric, given to
him by Mr. Maitland; he lived many years, but finally
became so infirm that once when he was taking a drink
at the "cold spring" near the barns and sheep-pen he fell
in and was drowned. And then there was Jet, a beau-
tiful black pointer that Mr. Maitland gave Harry, bred
from dogs belonging to Joseph Bonaparte. So we had
plenty of dogs.

My uncle Henry, who was killed in India, was never
more to me than a romantic name, but Uncle Charles
figured conspicuously and defightfully in our boyish fives.
A fieutenant in the United States navy, he spent most of
his shore leave at Danskammer, and his visits were great
events; he was so jolly and entertaining, so full of life and
spirits. And then he was sure to bring us all manner of
curiosities that he had picked up on his voyages — rare shells,
strange arms, and such-fike barbaric treasure. One of his
voyages was in the U. S. Sloop-of-War Saratoga to the
coast of Africa — she was built at Portsmouth and this was

i8

DANSKAMMER

her maiden trip — and he brought fascinating things from
this cruise and thrilled us \vith fine tales of an African
chief he had met, with a marvellous name which I have
forgotten. From Egypt he once brought us some wheat
that had been found in a mummy-case. It was planted,
and in my mind's eye I can see the beautiful waving green
patch that sprang from it growing at one side of the avenue.
But, sad to say, my brother Gouv insists that it never
came up.

One of uncle's cruises under the command of Commo-
dore Perry had an unfortunate termination. It seems
that on a certain occasion Perry was obliged to be away,
and left the ship under the command of a heutenant of a
lower rank than my uncle. As this was not at all in
accordance with etiquette, Uncle Charles considered it an
insult and expostulated with the commodore, and finally
sent him a challenge to fight a duel, through his friend and
second, Captain Hunter. Commodore Perry declined to
meet him, and my uncle was court-martialled for challeng-
ing his superior officer; but he was practically acquitted,
for he was given merely a nominal sentence, being sus-
pended for a very short time. I befieve the affair caused
quite a stir in navy circles.

The story of "Alvarado" Hunter, as this friend of my
uncle's was called, was pretty tragic. During the Mexican
War he was sent with one small ship to blockade the town
of Alvarado until the land forces came up, but he managed
to take the place before the army got there; for this excess
of zeal he was dismissed from the service, to the indigna-
tion of his friends.

My brother Harry was devoted to Uncle Charles, and
used to stay on the North Carolina with him; it was then
that Harry got the passion for the sea that held him all

19

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

his life. Uncle gave him the dog Carlo, a beautiful
cocker spaniel with long silken ears, brought up on the
ship and taught any number of clever tricks by the sailors,
such as cHmbing a ladder and fetching one's shppers. But
one accomplishment he had acquired on land. He could
catch a snake by the middle and shake the life out of it
before it got the smallest chance to defend itself.

I shall never forget Uncle Charles's last visit to Dans-
kammer. It was winter and the snow was on the ground;
I was out at the stable and he drove up to say good-by.
I watched him as he disappeared through the big black
gate. I never saw him again. It was a great grief to all
of us boys when we heard of his death, just as he was
finishing a cruise, "at midnight, aboard cruiser Ohio, off
Rio, homeward-bound." He died of yellow fever and was
buried at sea. I heard at the time that he was taken ill
of the fever on shore and did not want to be taken back to
the ship, fearing that the disease would be communicated
to others. This was like him; he was an unselfish, gallant
fellow. We boys loved him dearly. I have heard that at
his funeral there was not a dry eye on the ship.

For years after his death old sahs would turn up at
Danskammer and tell us about him; they said that on
board ship he was a strict disciplinarian, but when any
sailor met him on shore he ahvays gave him all the money
he had in his pockets. When these old sailors came to
Danskammer we always gave them a glass of brandy and
two dollars and sent them on their way rejoicing. They
would have to go to Hampton to take the ferry across the
river for the train at New Hamburg, and the path went
through our barnyard. One of these old salts, after the
usual drink and tip, started on his way; some time after-
ward Gouv happened to go out to the barn, and there

20

DANSKAMMER

was the old fellow perched on top of the barnyard gate,
watching round-eyed a pair of white oxen sleeping peace-
fully in the sun. They were kind, tranquil beasts, but to
the old seaman they were an unknown terror. Gouv asked
him why he was waiting, and he said he was afraid "one of
those fellows would run him down."

My mother, who you will remember came from Caro-
hna, was very hospitable and kept open house at Dans-
kammer, most of her guests being our Southern relations.
She always kept good horses, and in old times usually
drove to Charleston for the winter, with four horses, tak-
ing a considerable time for the trip, and as there were few
hotels, she was entertained by her friends all along the
way. It must have been an ideal way to travek
I remember very well the two large travelling carriages
that used to stand in our stable, arranged for four horses,
with a high seat for the coachman with a big hammer-cloth
below his seat, and platforms behind for footmen and
luggage, and flights of folding steps that let down from
inside the carriage.

Our every-day carriage was the shape of a pumpkin-
seed, also with a hammer-cloth and steps to let down, and
was hung on large springs front and rear. When my
mother went to hve in New York in 1849 ^^^ ^^t the house
and farm to Mr. Warren DeLano, all the horses except
Charley and some of the furniture w^ere sold at auction,
what is called a **vandue" in our part of the country. A
good many valuable things that were not then appreciated
were sold at that time. We had a pair of small mules
and I remember how funny Sam and Bill looked when,
after the sale, they were driven off by their purchaser,
harnessed to our great family carriage. Bill was a
vicious animal, but Harry was venturesome and used to

21

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

ride him. Mules do not have prominent withers like
horses, so when Bill stood up perpendicularly on his
forelegs, Harry and the saddle would slip over his head,
and both come down in a heap, but he would put the sad-
dle on and have another try. Harry even rode the cows
sometimes.

My mother was a very humane woman, but she had
all her horses' tails docked if they were long when she
bought them. Previous to being docked, the muscles of
the tail were cut by a veterinary surgeon, then the end was
attached to cords that ran over pulleys fastened to the
posts at each side of the rear of the stall, which kept the
tail in an upright position, and this process was continued
for several weeks, until the tail was always carried up. It
was then docked. It was cruel, but every one did it; one
never saw carriage-horses with long tails. Now it is for-
bidden by the S. P. C. A.

When I was little we went to church in Newburgh, at
St. George's, where the Reverend Doctor Brown was rec-
tor for more than fifty years. I believe when he first
began his hfe there that there was great prejudice against
him on account of his being an Episcopalian — it was shortly
after our difficulties with England, and people had not
yet got over the dislike for everything Enghsh, including
the Enghsh Church. I remember the long, cold drives
to church on winter mornings and the leathery smell of
the closed carriage. When we drove into Newburgh for
shopping we would stop the carriage in front of the shops
and they would bring the things out to show us. The
Bank of Newburgh and the Highland Bank were just
where they are now, and nearly opposite was Farnham's
grocery-store. All the grocers were then liquor dealers as
well, and usually had bars in the rear of their stores, and

22

DANSKAMMER

it was not thought to be to their discredit. Mrs. Farnham
was a very capable lady and I remember her coming to
Danskammer to help my mother make calfs-foot jelly for
a church fair. The jelly was made in a bag and hung up
in the schoolroom to drip — a big round bag like a hot-water
bottle dripping into a pan.

The roads in winter when there was no snow were
pretty bad, and everybody was glad when the ice on the
river froze thick enough for sleighing. As soon as it was
strong some venturesome person would lay out a track
and mark it with Httle cedar-trees, and then we had a
fine level road, sometimes for months. Of course there
were no big steamboats and ferries to break up the ice as
they do now. One of my earliest recollections is a drive
across the river with my mother and old John Bush, our
colored coachman for forty years, and a visit to the Ver-
plancks at Fishkill. I was sent to play with the children
— I was perhaps five years old — and presently when a tre-
mendous noise emanated from the nursery they all rushed
up and found that I had quarrelled with one of the boys
and had felled him with a chair. I don't recall what hap-
pened afterward; I only remember that I was in disgrace.
The Society of the Cincinnati was founded in the old Ver-
planck homestead and the place is one of the original
manors.

Until 1849 ^v^ always lived summer and winter at
Danskammer. For several years we had tutors, three in
all, young divinity students. The Reverend Henry Ed-
wards I remember as a handsome young man who was
fond of chemistry and used to make interesting experi-
ments, resulting sometimes in explosions which we thought
very exciting. Each of our desks in the schoolroom had
under it a small open box, hke a carpenter's mitre-box, in

23

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

which we put our feet, in order to make our toes turn out !
I don't know whose idea it was or whether or no it had the
desired effect. Our schoolroom, the north basement room,
had wide window-seats level with the lawn outside, fine
places to sit when we wanted to paint in water-colors or
make boats. These windows were guarded by iron bars,
soldered with lead into the granite sills and supposed to
be immovable. Mr. Edwards's punishment for misde-
meanors— and with five boys there were a good many such
■ — was "keeping in." So when a punishment was due he
would lock the door in the afternoon and go away, leaving
us, as he supposed, safely imprisoned. But Harry was an
ingenious boy and contrived to drill the solder out from
around two of the bars, so that we could all creep out and
get safely back by the time Mr. Edwards returned. And
I do not think that he ever discovered how we spent our
afternoons. At that time we had an old farmer named
Jonathan Pierce; when the "Pickwick Papers" came out
Mr. Edwards would have old Jonathan into the school-
room and read it aloud to him, and he would enjoy it
enormously and be convulsed with laughter.

The Reverend Samuel Hawkesley, afterward rector at
Marlborough, was the best of all our tutors. We were
awfully fond of him; he was jolly and amused us very
much, and was a good man besides. When he was at
Marlborough he established missions at Latintown and
Ellenville and many other places. As he had no horse, he
used to walk to all these missions. It is about forty miles
from Marlborough to Ellenville !

In 1847 Jack and I went to Mr. Alzimora's school in
Newburgh, and my mother left us there for the two winters
which she spent in New York and Charleston. It was
what is called a "select school," but the boys might have

24

DANSKAMMER

been "selected" for their badness — they were the only
really bad boys I ever met at school. Our principal
amusements were skating and coasting in winter — New-
burgh has always been famous for its skaters — and swim-
ming in summer from a fine beach now swept away by the
railroad. I remember a boy named Seabury Lawrence
swimming across there. One calm summer evening some
years later I swam from our dock to the white house just
below the Suydams' place at New Hamburg, about two
miles. I was not at all tired.

One day toward spring, when we were at school, while
the river was still frozen, Jack and I got leave to walk up
to Danskammer. My mother had left a cook in our house
and John Bush was there and a man named Matt Maston,
a farm-hand on the place. After dinner we were to drive
back, but thought it would be dull to return in a wagon,
and there was no sleighing, so we begged John Bush to
take us back in the sleigh on the ice. He did not think it
very safe, but we got Alatt Maston to walk ahead of us
with a long pole with which to sound the ice. John Bush
drove Bess and Charley; they had broken through the
ice the winter before and were still a little nervous on
the river, but we did not mind. We sent Maston ahead
with his pole, and after he had gone about three miles he
reported that it was quite safe, and that he need go no
farther with us, so he went home. It was a warm day and
the ice was rather soft, but we went merrily on, suspecting
nothing, when suddenly the ice broke ! The horses began
to plunge — they wTrc a pair of fine, spirited animals —
and the sleigh sank down, but the horses managed to pull
it out onto firm ice. We got out and walked cautiously
ahead and found that the ice would scarcely bear us, that
it was all honeycombed and one could almost stick one's

25

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

finger through it, so we returned and told John Bush that
he would have to drive back the way we had come over
the crack, and go ashore. John didn't like the prospect,
neither did the horses, who had by this time grown very
much excited. We did not get into the sleigh again, but
walked along, watching John. He got in, laid the whip
on the horses, and they went at a gallop bounding over
the crack. They got safely over, but the sleigh sank
down and we thought that it was gone, but the horses
pulled it out. A little farther on we managed to get
ashore; but at that time there was no road there, and we
had to drive about three miles over bare ground, old stone
walls, and rocks. At last we reached home, had the horses
put in a wagon, and drove back to Newburgh. By the
time we reached there all the ice in the river, that we had
been on a few hours before, was broken up and floating
away.

Horses have always been one of the great interests of
my life. After the memorable occasion when Commodore
Salter put me on his bay horse, I rode whenever I had the
chance. I have a faint memory of a ride up Soap Hill on
one of the carriage-horses, a bay — and this miscellaneous
riding went on for some years, until finally, when I was
about fourteen, I found myself practically the owner of a
good horse, as no one used him except myself. He really
was a driving-horse that my brother Jack bought from a
neighbor, Sam Halsey, a nice active little bay horse named
Bill, fifteen hands high. The reason I got him was
that Jack's first drive with him turned out badly. Jack
started out one evening with his new horse, wagon, and
whip, and returned home on foot with nothing but his
whip, leaving the rest of his equipage scattered over the

26

DANSKAMMER

road. He had been run into. Bill had run home into
the stable. Jack said he would never drive him again, so
I rode him steadily for several years. He was a perfect
little saddle-horse. I once rode him from Danskammer
to Goshen and back — in all fifty-four miles — and I do not
remember that either Billy or I was at all tired. The
use of this horse practically made a good rider of me.
Another horse I rode was a black pony that Gouv and I
bought together, but he was never much good, and finally
fell into the spring and got drowned.

Newbold Morris, a great friend of mine — he gave me
the ring I always wear — was in the habit of riding up to
Danskammer on horseback. On one occasion he stopped
there for a day or two and I went on with him to Hyde
Park, where we stayed with his uncle, Mr. Tom Newbold.
I rode a little bay horse called Ruby, and Newbold a
gray mare. We met there a Miss Eleanor Jones, an heiress
and a very nice girl. In a few days I came home, leaving
Newbold at Hyde Park, and shortly after he turned up
again at our house, riding another horse — he was a great
horse-jockey and had traded his mare for a cream-colored
nag — with the news that he was engaged to Miss Jones !
Newbold was awfully good-looking.

Time passed on, I graduated at college and went abroad,
and had some nice rides in Madeira, and about a year after
my return, having spent a winter studying law in New
York, of which more anon, I returned to Danskammer,
deciding to study law in Newburgh in the office of Has-
brouck and Taylor, and ride back and forth on horseback.
It is seven miles from the Danskammer house to New-
burgh, fourteen miles to go and return, but the first six
months I only missed one day, when the snow was so deep

27

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

in our avenue that my mare stuck and could not get
through. Indeed, during those two years of 1861 and 1862
I scarcely missed a day. Rain or shine, snow or whatever
the weather might be, I went and came. Very early every
morning John Bush w^ould come into my room to light the
fire, usually remarking that it was "as cold as Egypt."
Gouv and I breakfasted by the bright coal-fire in the din-
ing-room and I would be in Newburgh bj' nine o'clock.
I read law, copied papers and such things, and lunched at
the baker's, or went to the grocer's for some bread and
cheese; sometimes Mr. Hasbrouck would ask me to his
pleasant house for lunch or dinner.

My mount was a chestnut known as "Holden's Mare"
— she never had any other name — but she was not really
my horse any more than Bill had been. In fact, she
was another inheritance from Jack. She belonged to
Holden, who kept the steamboat dock at Marlborough,
and the first time I saw her was up at Jew's Creek near
the dock, where Gouv and I were rail-shooting. We spoke
of her to Jack with so much admiration that he finally
bought her, but when he got her he didn't like her and
lent her to me; as no one ever used her except myself, she
was like my own horse. She had a beautiful fast trot; I
once rode her the six miles from Newburgh to the hickory-
tree at the head of our road in eighteen minutes. I only
had two falls from her. One frosty morning John Bush
forgot to draw the girths tight and the saddle turned as
I put my foot in the stirrup, and the mare went careering
off to the stable, leaving me flat on my back on the lawn.
The other time was due to a habit she had of passing
vehicles on a dead run; as I rode up behind Dan Barnes
she broke into a gallop, caught her left leg on his wheel,

28

DANSKAMMER

and we all went headlong. She was hard to mount, too,
and always started on a gallop as soon as I got my foot
into the stirrup, but barring these Httle peculiarities
"Holden's Mare" was very fine.

29

CHAPTER II

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

"Broadway, the first that takes the eye,
The noblest street I here espy.
The new-swept side-walks, neat and clean,
With poplars shaded, sweet and green;
The num'rous steeples tow'ring high.
Seen best from ships when passing by
And when descending Hudson bold;
The City Hotel we behold,
Commercial next, and old Tontine."

— Thomas Eaton.

When I was a little boy about six or seven I went with
my mother to stay at Mrs. Plummer's boarding-house, No.
65 Broadway, near Rector Street. Mrs. Plummer was a
fine old lady, quite a friend of my mother, and her house
was perhaps the best of its kind in New York. It was
more hke a family hotel than a boarding-house, very well
kept, the food delicious, and the very nicest people stayed
there. I remember the long, handsome table, shining with
bright linen and silver, with Mrs. Plummer's portly figure
at the head and Miss Ehza Plummer at the foot. Miss
Eliza afterward married Mr. Pritchard, a fine-looking
man and very much of a gentleman; he was a boarder at
that time. Another boarder was a Mr. Albert Speyer, a
dashing, interesting man, who told me captivating stories
of the wild West. He was a great traveller, a friend of
Fremont, the explorer of the West, who was afterward
candidate for President against Buchanan.

I remember Mr. Speyer giving me a half a dollar that

30

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

I kept as a pocket-piece for a long while, as half-dollars
were not plenty with me, but one day I wanted very much
to go to the American Institute Fair, held in the Castle
Garden at the Battery, which at that time stood out in
the water, as the ground had not then been filled in around
it as it is now. This fair was an annual event in New York
and every one went to it. Well, I wanted to go there with
some other boys and had no money for a ticket except
that half-dollar, so although it was a sore trial to part with
it, I used it for my ticket. I have no remembrance of
what we saw or did there; the only thing I remember is
my pang at parting with my half-dollar. The Castle Gar-
den, originally a fort, was later fitted up as a place for all
sorts of entertainments. Jenny Lind sang there, and when
La Fayette made his triumphal return to America it was
here they gave him a reception.

There was an old gentleman at Mrs. Plummer's, Mr.
Phoenix, whose face wore the "livery of good living," and
who was very kind to me. He would often take me by
the hand and we would go together to his store, a whole-
sale grocery-store in some near-by street, which I found a
delightful place. I liked the nice smells of the coffee and
sugar, and the figs and nuts with which he used to regale
me. A great pet of mine was a large gray cat of his that
would lie curled up on top of the bags. Mr. Phoenix was
a member of the well-known New York family of that
name, and, like many gentlemen of those days, combined
banking with importing wine, coffee, and other groceries.

Broadw^ay at that time from the City Hall Park down
to the Battery was handsomely built up with hotels and
dwelling-houses. Old Trinity Church was being built then.
Opposite Mrs. Plummer's was the Globe Hotel; farther up
on the east side on the corner of Cedar Street was the City

31

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Hotel, where my mother sometimes stayed, one of the best
hotels in New York. Below on the west side of Broadway
was the large house with two lions in front of it, one on
each side of the steps, which was afterward occupied by
the British consul. These hons remained there until a
year or so ago. On the east side, facing the Bowling
Green, the block now occupied by the Custom House,
were handsome large brick and stone houses, occupied by
leading citizens — among them were the Primes and Whit-
neys — while around the corner were other fine houses fac-
ing the Battery. The Mortons lived in one of these.
The Battery at that time was a pretty park, surrounded
by a wrought-iron railing, with an iron gate at the corner
of the Battery and Broadway, where an old apple-woman
was stationed with a tempting array of candy, apples, and
oranges. The Bowhng Green was also surrounded, as it
is now, by an iron railing. The tops of the rails formerly
had crowns on them, which were all broken off during the
Revolution, when the populace tore down the leaden statue
of George HI that stood there. (I understand that within
the last few months this railing, an interesting relic of the
Revolution, has been taken down, and no one knows what
has become of it. Another historical memento that has
lately been carelessly injured is the Worth Monument on
Madison Square, our only memorial of the Mexican War;
one of the four trophies — cannon-balls, muskets, etc. —
which formerly stood on the granite posts at the corners
of the railing was lost when the Subway was built. The
remaining three were replaced for a short time, but then
they too disappeared and the posts have stood unfinished
ever since; the raihng, also, which is rather pleasing in
design, is in bad shape.)

I was allowed to go down and play in the Battery and

32

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

often patronized the old apple-woman at the corner.
There was a fountain in the centre of the Bowling Green
in the form of a pile of rocks about twenty feet in height.
The water did not spurt up into the air but was so arranged
that it would come out at the top and fall down in little
cascades over the projecting stones into a large basin at
the bottom. In this basin could be seen two flamingoes.
I remember they would stand on one leg, seemingly asleep.
There were also two pretty little deer. I don't think that
I had ever seen a deer before; I certainly had never seen
flamingoes. The deer were small, tame, and very sweet;
one day I remember that I bought some of those little
Sicilian oranges from the old apple-woman at the corner
and fed them to the deer, who put their noses eagerly
through the railing, but there was a certain difficulty in
regaling the deer, which added to the interest, for although
they could reach out and take the oranges in their mouths,
the fruit was so hard and round that they generally dropped
them and they would roll down the slanting pavement
into the gutter; but I would laboriously pick them up and
offer them again and again, until they managed to masti-
cate them.

In my mind's eye I can see the Battery and the Bowl-
ing Green exactly as they were then. The old apple-
woman's stall at the gate, that flamingo poised on his one
leg in the basin of the fountain, the two little deer nosing
after the oranges, and myself laboriously rescuing them
from the gutter and offering them so persistently. How
distinctly one sometimes recalls a trifling memory like
this when other events of real moment are forgotten !

Not long after this, when I was still a very small boy,
I went to pay a visit to my Aunt Margaret Salter, who
lived in West Fourteenth Street, near Sixth Avenue. Aunt

33

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Margaret was the wife of Commodore William Dayton
Salter, of the United States navy. She was a dear soul;
I have never known any one more kind and generous.
She was highly educated, fond of reading and, hke all my
uncles and aunts, an excellent talker. Aunt Margaret
told me that when she was with my father. Aunt Rose,
and Uncle Charles, she heard the best and most amusing
conversation of her life. As she spoke beautiful French,
she made herself very agreeable to the foreign visitors
whom she entertained at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when
her husband was commandant. While he was at sea she
lived either in New York or Elizabeth. General Win-
field Scott lived in Elizabeth and was a great friend of my
aunt's. I believe they were the last couple in America
who could dance the minuet. The general was an enor-
mous man, about six feet four, and large in proportion,
always very kind, pohte, and stately. I used often to
meet him going up the river on the Mary Powell and have
a little chat with him.

The commodore was a typical sea-captain of the old
school; an excellent sailor, a most capable man, and very
decided, not to say pig-headed, in all his ideas. He was
short, with a ruddy, clean-shaven face. He once told me
that he taught all his midshipmen to shave with both
hands, so that in case they were wounded they could still
shave ! He went to sea as midshipman at the age of ten.
There were no naval schools in those days; they got their
education at sea, and I fancy they did not teach them
much apart from seamanship, for the commodore often
complained that he was inferior to his wife in accomphsh-
ments. He was only twelve when he got into his first sea-
fight — the famous battle between the Constitution and the
Guerriere in the War of 1812 — and was also in the cele-

34

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

brated stern chase of the Constitution, the "most exciting
in naval annals," when she escaped from the British fleet
in the fog. Mr. Dana painted an excellent picture of the
chase, getting all the facts for his work from the commo-
dore, and gave him a photograph of it, framed in a bit of
wood from the Constitution, which my son Noel has at
Danskammer. The last foreign service of the Constitution
was the transport of American products to the Paris Expo-
sition of 1878, which makes a link between me and the
famous old ship.

When the commodore was young, duelling was still very
popular; he told me that there were frequent duels in the
cockpit among the midshipmen, and described to me a
duel that he had fought with another officer at Naples.
I spoke of this duel once to Loyall Farragut, who told me
that it was historic in the navy and that he had seen it
mentioned in some book. It seems that the Queen of
Naples visited the ship, and after she had left, my uncle
remarked that she was a handsome and agreeable lady; a
fellow officer denied this vigorously, asserting that she was
ugly and ill-favorcd. This was cause enough for a duel,
so one was fought and young Salter shot his opponent in
the hip. He said to me: "I met him the other day in an

omnibus; we are now the best of friends, and by G he

limps yet!" This seemed to give him great satisfaction
after fifty or sixty years.

In 1 84 1 Captain Salter was put in command of the
first steamship in the nav}-, the Mississippi. Steam was
considered a very hazardous experiment, and my uncle
said that "it was only when he looked aloft at the sails
and yards that he felt at home." In a letter to my aunt
he says: "She is a large ship, 120 feet long and 46 wide. I
have two ten-inch guns now mounted and four eight-inch;

35

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

I suppose the others will be forthcoming soon. I shall
have a heavy battery. The ship will be all legs and arms,
she really looms hke a seventy-four. The engine is six
hundred horse power, the stack or furnace pipe as big in
proportion as our little church steeple. We have much
running ice, lots of snow and visitors, the latter interfere
much with our work; a boat-load, principally petticoats,
is coming alongside now."

The commodore had met many distinguished people,
among them Napoleon, who once came aboard his ship in
the Mediterranean, and Byron also visited the Constitu-
tion. I used to like to hear him talk about them, and
about his adventures in South American waters when he
was in command of the Brazil squadron. I stayed with
Aunt Margaret very often at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
when the commodore was commandant there. They had
a fine garden and a large fig-tree that lived for many years,
and even bore figs, by being covered with straw in winter.

But we have got very far away from that first visit of
mine to Aunt Margaret in New York. Commodore Salter
was very kind and took me to the theatre at Niblo's Garden.
The play was "Beauty and the Beast." It was my first
play. I don't remember much about it except the great
impression the terrific beast made on me, and where he
changes into the prince and drops his disguise it was most
thrilling. The dead beast lay on the stage in a round
heap. I remember him distinctly, looking exactly hke the
old buff'alo-robes that we had in the stable at home for
sleighing. Another treat was a feast on sponge-cake
bought for me by the commodore during a walk around
the block, down Fifth Avenue, through Sixth Avenue and
so home, which I recall with httle pleasure, for that eve-
ning I was taken very ill and had the doctor, and, indeed,

36

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

was not expected to live. While I was lying ill, supposed
to be asleep, I heard my Aunt Margaret trying to console
my mother by saying the usual things — that even if I died
it would be **all for the best" — when to their surprise I
suddenly sat up in bed and remarked: **If I am going to
die now what was the use of my ever having been born?"
Later Aunt Margaret moved to a house which is still
standing, next to the garden of the large Van Beuren house
in West Fourteenth Street; it has a bay window overlook-
ing their garden, and is now almost the only dwelling,
except the Van Beuren house, on the block. At that time
Fifth Avenue from Sixteenth Street to Washington Square
was the most fashionable part of New York — there were
practically no shops in that neighborhood, from 1849 to
1853, except Cook's grocery -store, on the corner of Thir-
teenth Street and Fifth Avenue, where the Heckschers'
house was built later — but there were still primitive spots.
On the site of the Van Beuren house stood a very pretty
little wooden colonial house, painted white, two stories,
with a green door and brass knocker, approached by two
flights of curving wooden steps. In front of it was a large
balm of Gilead tree and a pump then in use, and I have
often seen large white sows asleep in the gutter on the
corner of Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue. Indeed,
pigs roamed all the streets of the city at that time. The
site of the Fifth Avenue Hotel was then occupied by a
road-house, a cottage, and outbuildings called Corporal
Thompson's, and back of it was a green paddock and open
field running down to Sixth Avenue. I have seen a cow
looking over a pair of bars on the corner of Fifth Avenue
and Twenty-third Street. Moses H. Grinnell lived on the
corner of Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue, and the
Haights and the Parkers built handsome houses on the

37

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

corners of West Fifteenth Street and the Avenue. The
Grfnnell house was later occupied by Delmonico. The
August Belmonts lived between Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Streets, the Heckschers nearly opposite, then came Mr.
Lenox, and on the opposite corner of Twelfth Street the
Minturns.

Directly opposite Niblo's Garden was Pat Hearn's
notorious gambhng-house, a very celebrated and fashion-
able resort for the sporting fraternity. It was a very
quiet-looking brownstone house, always tightly closed,
with the blinds drawn down. Right around the corner, in
Houston Street, J. C. Bancroft Davis and William Robin-
son lived a httle later than this, and when Thackeray
visited America he stayed with them there. The Metro-
pohtan Hotel was on Broadway in front of Niblo's Garden,
and was one of the most famous hotels in New York.
St. Thomas's Church was on the corner of Houston Street
and Broadway. Mrs. Eades's boarding-house was next to
the church, and next to that were the rooms where the
American Art Union used to exhibit, and where later the
Academy of Design exhibitions were held before they built
their new building at the corner of Twenty-third Street
and Fourth Avenue. Maillard's was next door to Mrs.
Eades's, and Laura Keene's theatre was opposite. Later
than the time of which I am writing, I saw Wilham Burton,
the most famous comedian of his day, in his theatre in
Chambers Street, opposite the City Hall Park. The same
building was occupied for many years by the United States
District Court, where I was admitted to practice about
1866, and where I practised law. Judge Betts was then
on the bench, his son was clerk of the court, and George
Morton, Mrs. Shippen's father, was United States com-
missioner. They all had offices in this building.

38

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

In 1848 I first knew of Brooks's clothing-store, on the
corner of Catherine and Cherry Streets. I was then twelve
years old and was very proud to hear that I was to go to
Brooks's for a new suit. I remember it well; the trousers
were light gray with a stripe on the side of dark gray, the
jacket a bkie roundabout with brass navy buttons. I
think that Brooks was the pioneer of ready-made clothes.
I don't think that any one before that ever bought any
good ready-made things; clothes wTre all made to order
by regular private tailors. Previous to this visit to Brooks's
my clothes were made at Danskammer by my mother's
dressmaker, Mrs. de Groot from Marlborough, who came
in by the day. I remember her making mc a pair of trou-
sers of gray cloth, the color of the West Point cadets. I
liked the cloth well enough, but they were strapped down
with leather straps that I abhorred. The first time I wore
them I went to church at Marlborough, and as soon as I
came home I took my straps out on the lawn where the
dogs had dug a hole and buried them. They were never
found and troubled me no more. At the time I got my
Brooks suit I also had a pair of patent-leather low shoes
made by Sales, a fashionable bootmaker in Houston Street
near Broadway. These shoes were interesting to me, as
before that my shoes had been made by Atwood in New-
burgh, and were not like Sales's, which were very smart
and went well with my new suit. But I was inordinately
proud of a pair of boots with red tops that Atwood made
for me; I used to stuff my trousers inside the tops and
exhibit them on all occasions.

I seem to remember more about the clothes of 1848
than I do about its politics, but my friend Mr. Bosworth,
of Springfield, has a better memory, and recited to mc a
campaign song of that date which he used to sing as a boy.

39

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

I fancy ft has never been published. Cass was Zachary
Taylor's opponent in the presidential contest and "Van"
was, of course, President Van Buren. The '* Barn-burners"
were so radical that they were said to be willing to *'burn
their barns to destroy the rats." The *' Locos" took their
name from an incident at Tammany Hall, when all the
lights being extinguished, the meeting went on with the
aid of "loco-foco" matches provided in anticipation of the
emergency.

"Uncle Sam's White House is a very fine station
For any man to have and attend to the nation.
And many men came to the door and knocked,
And Uncle Sam sung while the door was locked,

'Who's that knocking at the door?

Is that you, Zac?' *No, 'tis Cass!'

'Well you ain't Santa Anna and you've got no pass.

So there's no use your knocking at the door

Any more!

There's no use your knocking at the door!'

Next the Barn-burners came, with the Locos in their ranks.
And Uncle Sam laughed at their foolish pranks,
For they brought Matty Van, who had been there before,
And Uncle Sam sung, as they knocked at the door, —

' Is that you, Zac ? ' ' No, 'tis Van ! '

'Well, you can't come in, you're a used-up man!

And there's no use your knocking at the door

Any more !

There's no use your knocking at the door!'

Next the People came, with the brave old chief.
Whose brow was decked with a warrior's wreath.
He walked right up, as he did to the foe.
And knocked like a soldier in Mexico.

And Uncle Sam said, 'Is that you, Zac?

Well, walk right in, for you've never turned back !

And there's no use your knocking at the door

Any more !

There's no use your knocking at the door!"*

40

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

It was some statesman of about this time, though I
cannot remember his name, who was responsible for a bit
of repartee familiar in my youth. He said to an opponent
in the House — he must have been a refined old party:
"Sir, you are not fit to carry guts to a bear." This odd
statement not being relished, he was told that he must
apologize; whereupon he amended it by saying: "Sir, I
apologize, you are fit to carry guts to a bear."

My mother and I used sometimes to visit my godfather,
Mr. Maitland, at his house, 41 Barclay Street. He was
the head of the firm of Maitland, Kennedy and Company,
of No. 14 Stone Street, later Maitland, Phelps, and now
Maitland, Coppel and Company. They have been bank-
ers for over a hundred years and my family have had an
account there since 1830.

At the time I visited in Barclay Street the whole neigh-
borhood near the City Hall park was a residential section.
Columbia College was near by, and the Astor House was
the best hotel in the city. St. Paul's Church looked much
as it does now. The old City Hall was the only building
in the park, with Barnum's Museum nearly opposite.
Barnum's Museum was then of white marble, with oval
pictures of wild animals all over its front, and there was
a balcony about half-way up the front where musicians
played. This building was burned later. There were all
sorts of fake curiosities there — the "Woolly Horse," the
"What is-it?" advertised thus: "Oh what is it? Is it
man or monkey? It was discovered in the wilds of Africa
and may be seen at all hours." It was simply an idiot
boy. They also had "real mermaids" and the Siamese
twins. The latter were genuine objects of curiosity. Mr.
William R. Travers once went to see them and Barnum
himself showed him around and introduced him to the

41

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

twins. Mr. Travers put up his eyeglass and, after examin-
ing them carefully, said in his stuttering voice: "B-B-B-
Brothers, I presume?" Mr. Travers was a very amusing
and witty man, and stuttered just enough to make his
remarks more entertaining. His funny sayings were mani-
fold, and his manner and action most amusing. He owned
some of the finest race-horses of the day, in partnership
with Leonard Jerome. Years after the time I am now
writing about, I remember coming back from a race-meeting
of the Narragansett course with him. We embarked on
a boat from Providence to Newport. Mr. Travers was
standing on the dock, high above the deck of the boat, as
the tide there falls several feet, and there was a man on
the boat with a basket of beer in those round-bottomed
bottles that will not stand up. Mr. Travers asked the
man to throw him some and Mr. Travers caught them one
by one, putting the first under his left arm, the next under
his right, two between his legs, and finally one in each
hand, so he had six without setting one down — he looked
very funny. Once a man slapped him violently on the
back, mistaking him for some one else, and then exclaimed :
"I beg your pardon; I thought you were my friend Jones."
Mr. Travers said: "D-D-D-Does your friend Jones I-I-I-Iike
that sort of thing?" He told of once coming home after
a dinner, a little the worse for wear, late at night, and try-
ing to creep into bed very quietly, not to disturb his wife,
but she was awake, and just as he was comfortably set-
tled she remarked — according to him: " W-W-W-William,
d-d-d-do you usually go to bed w-w-w-with your hat on?"
But I am getting too far ahead of my period — I must not
forget that I am still a little boy in New York.

About this time I went with my mother to pay a visit
to the Luquers, who Hved in a pretty country place in the

42

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

outskirts of Brooklyn; Mrs. Luquer was a sister of Mrs.
Stewart Maitland. I remember that we went to ehurch
and that I had a new pair of suspenders of which I was
very proud and which I insisted on displaying by keeping
my jacket wide open. The cap which I wore to church
on these grand occasions was a Scotch bonnet, a present
from my godfather, Mr. Maitland, shaped like a large
tam-o'-shanter but made of velvet of the royal Stuart
tartan. Though it was considered an exceedingly hand-
some thing, I never liked it very much. There were two
Luquer boys, Nicholas and Lea. (Lea was afterward a
member of the Century Club and rector of the church at
Bedford, New York.) They had a donkey which I rode, but
he had a tiresome habit of standing on his fore legs and I
would slip over his head.

My mother had great charm and grace of manner, al-
though, as I remember her, she was not handsome; she
spoke French and Italian, and painted extremely well, as
may be seen in a vohime of bound water-color drawings
done from nature, of flowers and fruits gathered for her
by my father. The names are in the handwriting of Mr.
Downing, the celebrated landscape-architect. These are
not the conventional water-colors of the time, but realistic
work, sensitively true to life.

In 1849 rny mother rented the Danskammer house to
Mr. Warren Delano and we went to live in New York, at
12 West Fourteenth Street. In those days there were few
opportunities for learning painting, but my mother always
encouraged my taste for art, and as soon as we went to
New York she put me to work with Mr. Coe, who was
about the best teacher then to be found. I worked in his
studio for three years with the greatest interest. I see now
that he was not a good artist, but he started me so that I

43

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

became fond of painting and worked hard. My mother
always provided me with the best colors and drawing
materials, and when I began copying she would have my
feeble efforts framed, much to my dehght; although they
were poor daubs, I was proud to see them hanging up
and was encouraged to persevere.

Mr. Coe's studio was on the same floor in the New
York University where I went to day-school. I don't
think that I was a very good scholar; I was bright enough,
but did not like study, so I used to play hooky and go
into Mr. Coe's studio and paint. Mr. Parker, the prin-
cipal, came in one day in school hours when I should have
been working in his schoolroom, and was surprised to
find me there painting. He Hked me, however; for one
thing, I wrote a good hand, so every week I was told to
write out a book for him, with all the boys' names, with
six divisions after each name, standing for the six working
days of the week, which Mr. Parker would keep on his
desk in front of him, and if in looking around the school-
room he spied any boy idling or misbehaving, his name was
given a bad mark in the book. By the irony of fate my
name would be called out and registered very often in the
neat fist that I had written out so laboriously. Mr. Parker
was an attractive man and I am sure he was a good school-
master. I gave him a good deal of trouble but we were
fond of each other. Another teacher, Mr. BuH, was good
at mathematics but poor in Enghsh, I remember well,
because I was once awfully fresh to him when he used the
expression "get red of a fraction."

The University Grammar School was on the ground
floor of the old University Building, a fine casteflated
Gothic edifice, built of white marble, on the east side of
Washington Square. The College Department was up-

44

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

stairs. There were one hundred boys in the First Depart-
ment where I was and a Primary Department of nearly as
many boys adjoining it, under the charge of Mr. Hobby,
known as ** Hobby's"; our department was known as
"Parker's." We had a fme playground in Washington
Square, then called the Washington Parade Ground be-
cause the annual parade of the mihtia was held there, and
I well remember the stout German militia officers dashing
about on their steeds. Mr. Hamilton Fish told mc Wash-
ington Parade Ground was formerly used as a place for
public executions, and that he once saw a colored woman
executed there on the site of what is now the Washington
Arch. Mr. Janvier, the author of many good stories about
the Washington Square neighborhood, once in talking to
me about it mentioned that Minetta Creek formerly ran
through the square, which made it damp and misty, and
that it was also the Potters' Field, where they buried pau-
pers and criminals. He added that even now, on a foggy
evening, "the ghosts of the potters could be seen wander-
ing about there." In my day, notwithstanding its grue-
some origin, it was a fme place for games and foot-races,
but most of all for playing marbles, which was our favorite
game. I had an intimate school friend named Jaudon,
who lived at No. i Fifth Avenue, and I used to meet him
almost every afternoon to play marbles in Washington
Square. It was really a gambling game in a small way,
because the winner always took and kept his opponent's
marbles; these were the ordinary marbles, which were
pooled in the centre of a circle and shot at with "agates,"
all the marbles knocked out of the ring belonging to the
shooter. These agates were ordinarily painted marbles,
worth one or two cents each, known as "chancy agates'*
or "chancy alleys," but there were real "agates" to be

45

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

had, carved out of agate stone, that cost as much as twenty-
live cents or more. So when real "agates" were in the
ring in place of common marbles, the game became an
expensive one. The little Jaudon boy was very nice and
I was fond of him, but he was a better player than I and
won almost all my "agates." He was familiarly known
among boys as Billy, but that was not his real Christian
name, and at this distant day I do not recall it. He died
when very young.

A quaint old Irish candy-man named Jimmy was a
frequenter of Washington Parade Ground. He carried a
tray, holding it in both hands, supported by a leather strap
around the back of his neck. We had recess at one o'clock
and Jimmy would always be on hand at that time and had
excellent custom. His tray contained squares of molasses
candy, white and pink cocoanut-cakes, and "all-day
suckers" — though I am not sure we called them by that
appropriate name — round, of lemon candy with white
veins running through them, and very durable. All of
these were one cent each.

I was a rather quarrelsome boy and had several
encounters, although I do not think that I ever fought a
boy smaller than myself. There was a boy at school named
Gabriel Chevallier; his father was French and, I think, an
instrument -maker. One day when Chevallier was leaning
his chair back on its hind legs, I put my foot under it and
sent him backward. He said nothing, but a few days
later he did the same to me, but I jumped up and imme-
diately challenged him to fight, so we selected our seconds,
and in recess met in a square space in the hall surrounding
the pump, and had a regular set-to of several rounds, but
he was too much for me and gave me a black eye which
left a httle mark on the upper lid that remained there for

46

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BO^'

years. He was declared the victor, but \vc were always
afterward good friends. It must have been twenty-five
years later that I was looking into Goupil's window on
Fifth Avenue and Twenty-second Street when Chcvallier
came up and spoke to me, and we talked alxjut sch(xjl-days
and I asked if he remembered giving me a black eye, but
from politeness, I suppose, he said that he did not recall it.

In 1852 I went to College Hill, near Poughkeepsic,
where my brother Gouv had been educated. This was
about the best school in the country, a very large colonial
building on top of a high hill, overlooking the whole neigh-
borhood, and surrounded by farms and large woods through
which we were allowed to roam. I worked hard and
really learned something, particularly from Professor
Charles Murray Nairn, teacher of the classics, who taught
me how to study and became an intimate friend. After-
ward I went to his school in New York. He was a Scotch-
man, a gentleman, and a fine scholar; later he was professor
of English literature at Columbia. College Hill was an
up-to-date school; they had a fine gymnasium in a building
expressly arranged for it, at a time when very few other
schools had gymnasiums, and in this I worked hard and
laid the foundation of considerable physical endurance
which has served me well all through my life. Mr. Charles
Bartlett, the principal, was not a scholar himself, but had
the faculty of getting good assistants. He had a peek-
hole behind his desk from which he could look out without
being seen, and a boy never knew when he would suddenly
be pounced upon. It was good in one way, because it
kept the boys at work, but it was generally thought to be
taking a mean advantage of us. Now Professor Nairn was
a gentleman and put the boys on their honor.

It was while I was at College Hill that the steamer

47

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Henry Clay was burned. There used to be great rivalry
between the various fast Hudson River boats, and when
this accident happened the Henry Clay wsls racing with the
Armenia. The Clay took fire from her overheated boilers,
and the captain ran her ashore near Yonkers, but the pas-
sengers in the stern, which was in deep water, were cut off
from the shore by the flames and many of them were
drowned. Mrs. Bartlett, the wife of the principal of our
school, was lost, and Miss Hawthorne, a sister of Nathaniel
Hawthorne; and also an intimate friend of my mother's,
Mr. A. J. Downing, the celebrated landscape-architect.
He was a fine swimmer and rescued many people, acting
very gallantly before he himself went down. Another bad
river accident was the loss of the Swallow in 1845. She
struck on a rock near Hudson one terribly stormy winter's
night, while she was racing with the Express and the
Rochester, and many lives wxre lost.

I enjoyed all my school fife at College Hill. My most
intimate friend was WilHe Prime; the Primes lived in New
York, formerly on the corner of State Street and the Bowl-
ing Green, and afterward in one of those swell-front houses
in West Sixteenth Street. On Saturday afternoons Bill
Prime and I would take long walks together in the woods;
we collected birds' eggs and trapped and tamed squirrels,
particularly flying squirrels. We once got a mother flying
squirrel and a whole brood of young ones; she would sit
with her wings spread out over them just hke a hen and
chickens. Bill was fond of all sorts of natural history and
was especially interested in snakes, which he would catch
and hold up by their tails, much to my admiration, as I
could not do anything except kill them — but this we never
did. I had a real love for that boy. I did not see much
of him in later years, for he was fond of a wild life, and

48

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BO^'

shortly after left school and went to Texas. He was a
handsome fellow, with winning ways, tall, and, like David
of old, ruddy and of a fair countenance, not only manly-
looking but manly and brave in every way. He was t he-
father of Charlotte Prime, who married Will Benjamin, a
cousin of my wife's.

My mother died in New York in February, 1853.

I did not go back to College Hill, but returned to the
University Grammar School for the rest of that winter
and boarded at Mrs. Plummer's all by myself. She had
moved to the southeast corner of Fifteenth Street and
Union Square, to a house which still stands and is now part
of the Union Square Hotel. I was there about a year, and
as my brothers were at Danskammer, I was alone.

Billy Prime gave me two red squirrels that I kept in a
wire cage in my room at Mrs. Phmimer's; she was so kind
that she never objected, but it must have been a nuisance
to have them in a bedroom. Mrs. Plummer and her daugh-
ter Eliza were so kind to me that it was quite hke being
at home, but it was not a very good plan to leave a Ixiy
of my age his own master alone in New "\'ork; fortunately,
I did not get into any mischief and it did me no harm.

In pleasant weather I occasionally went to Danskam-
mer, and whenever I felt like it I paid a visit to the Gou-
vcrneur Wilkinses at Castle Hill, where I spent some
of the happiest days of my childhood, with Uncle Gouv
and Aunt Catherine, as I always called them, although
they were not really blood relations. As I told you in the
last chapter, Gouverneur Morris Wilkins's first wife was
my mother's elder sister, Mary Somersall Ward; his second
wife w^as Catherine Van Rensselaer. She was always most
sweet and kind to me, and I had a standing invitation to
visit them whenever I liked. As I was always welcome I

49

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

went there very often. Uncle Gouv was a splendid-looking
man, somewhat such a man in appearance as Daniel Web-
ster, and of great ability, genial and delightful in conver-
sation, a graduate of Yale and extremely well read. If he
had been a poor man and felt the spur of necessity he would
have become distinguished, but he never went in for pub-
lic life or any profession. Although he had been a slave-
holder he was a Republican and a strong supporter and
admirer of Lincoln.

On my visits at Castle Hill I usually drove with Uncle
Gouv when he made his morning rounds. On these occa-
sions he himself always drove the same large gray horse,
everything spick and span and in perfect order. We w^ould
first go to the post-office in Westchester village and then
do various errands in the neighborhood, stopping to talk
with every one he met, as all his neighbors respected him
and liked to hear his views; indeed, I found it part of a
liberal education to hear him express them.

Castle Hill lay just at the junction of Westchester
Creek and the Sound, directly opposite Zerega Point, and
^ was one of the most beautiful places in the country. The
house was an old one, having been built by Uncle Gouv's
father or grandfather, and he had made additions to it
himself with taste and discrimination. His library was a
fine one, containing many of my grandfather Ward's
books, which, of course, when Uncle Gouv died, went to
his second wife. On her death she left it to Rensselaer
Cruger, her nephew, but I do not know who now owns
these books of my grandfather's, that he had brought from
England and that had his coat of arms as a book-plate.
The grounds of Castle Hill were terraced dow'n to Long
Island Sound and beautifully planted, with greenhouses at
intervals. I remember the delicious hothouse grapes and

50

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BO^'

figs that came from the forcing-houses and graperies against
the back of the house. The dining-room was of fine pro-
portions, wainscoted to the ceiling with oaken panels on
which hung portraits of his father, his grandfather, and
Uncle Gouv himself, by Elliot, and also a portrait of Mrs.
Wilkins as a young girl in a large flat sort of light-colored
garden-hat.

Mr. Wilkins left all his property, a very great estate,
to his only daughter, Ellen, the first wife of John Screven,
who was without fortune. She died two or three years
after Mr. Wilkins, leaving several children (one of her
daughters, Kitty, married Robert J. Turnbull and had a
charming family of sons and daughters), but bequeathing
all her property to her husband. Strange to say, when
Mr. Screven died he left almost all Mr. Wilkins's property
to a daughter by his second wife (Miss Van Rensselaer),
w^ho was, of course, no relation to the W ilkinses.

It was odd that so many of the Wilkins family con-
nection should have married Van Rensselaers "en secondc
noce." (Kitty Turnbull was once asked if the Van Rens-
selaers were her relations; she said no, they only fur-
nished stepmothers for her family.) For besides Mr.
Wilkins's and Mr. Screven's second wives (both Van Rens-
selaers), Kitty Turnbull's father-in-law, Doctor Turnbull,
chose a Miss Van Rensselaer when he married for the
second time. Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Turnbull had always
said that they would never marry either widowers or slave-
holders, but their husbands were both. Mr. Wilkins had
large plantations in South Carolina and Doctor Turnbull
in Mississippi.

The Wilkins estate included Castle Mill, containing
about three hundred acres, a large tract of land immedi-
ately adjoining it, and several hundred city lots on Harlem

51

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

llat, comprising the whole north front on the Central Park,
on iioth Street, and the block fronting on the Central
Park from io8th to 109th Streets, and much other prop-
erty besides. This Harlem flat property was a large farm
called the "Nutter Farm," which Uncle Gouv inherited
from his mother, who was a Miss Nutter. When Central
Park was laid out four hundred lots were taken for the
park, so the whole northern end of the park was once the
"Nutter Farm" and belonged to Mr. Wilkins.

Mr. Clarence Davies, in a history of Westchester, does
not speak of Castle Hill, but in mentioning that section
of Westchester he remarks that there is still standing (about
1 91 2) the remains of a fine old stone gate. This is evi-
dently the gate of Castle Hifl, all that remains of that
lovely and important country place. Nor does Mr.
Davies, I think, make any reference to Gouverneur Wilkins
in his book, although when I used to visit there he was one
of the most distinguished figures in Westchester. It made
me sad to read that book and realize that all those times
are gone and forgotten, the only record of Castle Hill
being a nameless gate-post or two to mark the site of a
really historic and beautiful spot.

The celebrated Gouverneur Morris of the Revolution
was Uncle Gouv's uncle. Gouverneur Morris was very
rich and did not marry until late in life. Uncle Gouv was
his prospective heir, and there were others who were look-
ing forward to inheriting from him, so they were all dis-
appointed when a son was born to him and their hopes
were blasted. They were discussing the name that was
to be given to the child— in the end he was named Gou-
verneur— and as at that time there was a famous general
in Russia named Kutusoff, Uncle Gouv suggested that the
child should be called after this general, but I dare say the

52

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BOY

poorer relations did not relish the pun as much as he did [
I took a trip once out to Morrisania, the old Morris place
in Westchester, with my mother and Uncle Charles, when
I was a very, very small boy. We went by tlie I larlem Rail-
road, one of the first railways in this country, and Uncle
made lots of jokes with me about my riding behind the
"black pony," as he called the engine. There was a de-
lightful swing under a big cherry-tree in the grounds of
Morrisania, I remember.

To return to New York. In 1854 there were many
more opportunities for enterprising boys to enjoy them-
selves than now. One favorite place for us to play was
the large vacant space between Seventeenth Street and
TwTnty-third Street, which was then mostly open pastures
and orchards of large old pear and apple trees. Daniel
Giraud Elliot, afterward the distinguished ornitholcjgist,
who lived in his father's house in East Fourteenth Street,
told me a few years ago that when he used to look out of
his rear windows there was nothing in sight to the north
but open fields. My chief playmates in those days were
the Lathrop twins, Frank and Ned, who lived in Seven-
teenth Street; with Albert and Walter Stanton we used to
go skating on a pond in an open common about where
Forty-second Street and Sixth Avenue cross.

A large part of the block on Twenty-third Street be-
tween Fifth and Sixth Avenues was devoted to Franconi's
Hippodrome, the first thing of the kind on a grand scale
that New York had seen. It was really a very fine circus,
boasting real races with race-horses and jockeys. I was
fascinated by these, and spent all my spare cash and most
of my evenings there. Union Square, where we used to
skate on the fountain, was, of course, a very dilTerent place,
also, and it was another of the rally ing-places for the boys

53

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

of the neighborhood, among whom were Bobby Goelet
and Elbridge Gerry. Gerry was a tall, awkward boy,
the butt of all the others. Doctor Cheever's church
stood on the corner of Union Square and Fifteenth Street,
where Tiffany built later, and where now some sad sale
of rain-coats or the hke is usually in progress. For the rest,
there were only dwelhng-houses around the square — Judge
Kent, Judge Ruggles, and Mrs. Parish hved there. When
I returned from abroad in 1859 the Everett House had just
appeared on the north side. About the same time the
famous Fifth Avenue Hotel, on Madison Square, was fin-
ished. Both are now torn down.

Morris Ketchum lived on Gramercy Park. His boys
were great friends of mine, particularly Frank, and we
used to congregate with other boys in the vacant lot back
of his house, where we kept chickens, invented all sorts of
games, and fought with the rowdies who periodically invaded
the lots. One day Charley Ketchum, who was a great
fighter, had an altercation with a rowdy, and on the latter's
invitation we adjourned to a large vacant lot near First
Avenue, where Charley fought him. About a dozen of our
crowd went over, but there must have been one or two
hundred roughs. The lot was level and sunken, with slop-
ing sides fined with our enemies; though they played the
game fairly it was a wonder we were not all killed. There
were several other Ketchum boys, one of the younger of
whom, Landon, had his front teeth filed so that he could
more readily spit through them without opening his jaw.
The Ketchums had lots of horses and ponies, and their
stable in Fifteenth Street was a favorite resort where we
all went to ride or drive the ponies, play games, and spar.
The fine-looking colored coachman, named Ben, as a per-
son of position and authority, looked out for us, and used

54

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A BO^'

to be very good-natured about harnessing up ponies when-
ever we wanted them. As I was not accustomed to driving,
I remember I had some difiicuhy in getting around the
corners.

The Ellises were other schoolmates that I liked a great
deal. Julius was very handsome, and always beautifully
turned out, while Sam dressed very badly. One winter he
wore no undercoat, but just a white overcoat buttoned up
to the chin, with no shirt-collar showing; there was a tra-
dition he wore no shirts ! But by fits and starts he would
become a great dandy; I remember one winter, when we
were all older, he had a blue coat with brass buttons and a
leopard-skin waistcoat. Doctor Ellis lived in Second Av-
enue. Later on I used to go there to spar w ith Sam, who
was my particular friend. Between the rooms where wc
sparred were folding-doors set with stained glass, and once
I knocked Sam right through one of the doors and broke
all the glass.

One night Sam, Fred de Peyster — usually known as
"Dip" — and I were coming home pretty late from a dance
in Washington Place, I don't remember whose — I was
boarding at that time in West Fourteenth Street, at Mrs.
Jenks's boarding-house — when Sam and Dip espied a
freight-wagon standing in University Place, opposite the
Society Library, and dragged it up to my landlady's house
and deposited it on her front steps. What she thought of
it I could never find out without seeming dangerously
curious.

Doctor Ellis was a graduate of West Point, and his five
sons inherited military tastes, so in 1861 every one of them
enlisted in the army. All were in the battle of Bull Run,
and there the handsome Julius, so much admired, was
killed; he had a military funeral at St. Mark's Church

55

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

and a salute fired over his grave. Gus was killed at
Gettysburg. Three of the brothers — Julius, Ash, and John
— were in love with Julie Waterbury, who after numer-
ous competing proposals finally decided on John. Sam
had a nice turn for drawing and made excellent heraldic
designs for the coats of arms of his friends. He had many
acquaintances among barkeepers, and would invent gor-
geously illuminated armorial bearings for them to hang
up in their barrooms. He was a most quaint and witty
fellow, altogether delightful.

56

CHAPTER III

MY BROTHERS

"We sit beneath the orchard trees,

We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,

Their written words we linger o'er.
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made.
No step upon the unconscious floor."

— Whittier.

One summer when I was about fourteen my mother
blew off my brother Jack and me to a trip to Niagara,
Trenton Falls, Saratoga, and Lake George. It took about
two weeks. I remember just how I was dressed. I wore
white shirts with a collar turned over my jacket and a
colored cravat tied in a bow — we did not have colored
shirts or scarfs in my day — my roundabouts were buttoned
up the front with pearl buttons, and all my shirts were
made with collars and cuffs on them. (I have never worn
separate cuffs to this day.) My suits were linen, brown
for ever>--day and colored for best; one was white with nar-
row blue stripes. We wore straw hats and boots— real
boots with legs — or sometimes low shoes.

I kept a diars- in a butcher's book, entitled, "Journal
of my Travels in the United States. Private." And
though I don't need to consult its pages to refresh my
memory — it is all as clear as if it were yesterday— I shall

57

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

quote from it, for my boyish way of putting things seems
to me amusing:

"Started in the steamer New World for Albany, but she
got aground and the passengers had to be taken off by a
steamer behind us called the Mason. Mr. de Peyster was
on board. Travelled all night on the cars and had a recess
at Rochester for breakfast. Eat a whole broiled chicken
and sundries to match. Saw a girl in the cars dressed in
the Bloomer costume, blue with a gold band for border.
She looked very ugly."

At Niagara we stayed at the Clifton House on the Eng-
hsh side, went under the Horseshoe Falls dressed in oilskins,
and saw all the sights, including the animals in the museum
— "skeleton of a whale, 3 bald-headed eagles, some very
large cat owls, 2 wolves, 4 read headed cranes, the same
as ours only they have red heads, they began to gobble
when you told them to, 2 Buffaloes, he looked rather sav-
age. A poor dinner, grizly beef and a small portion of
bony chicken. Saw a great many eels on the rocks, dozens
of them laying on the rocks. Went up Lundy's Lane to
the Battle field, an old soldier gave us a description of it.
Went on a double plank road to the Burning Spring that
if you tutch it with fire it blazes up. We bought a bottle.
Then we came up to the Devil's Hole. A man told us
there were 200 Enghsh soldiers driven within and killed.
The man was deformed and had only part of an arm with
one finger near his armpit. Boiled turkey with oyster
sauce, roast beef, ice cream and peaches. Went to Goat
Island, a woman lost her handkerchief overboard and I
caught it on a stick just as it was passing, a little washing
did not hurt it any. Sunday. The service of the church
of England is a great deal different, rather a poor sermon."

** Started for Trenton, first in cars drawn by horses,

58

MY BROTHERS

then in a steamboat to BufValo. Went to Barnum's Mu-
seum at Schenectady, a great humbug, and some Ethiopian
Minstrels, miserable ones. A woman had S50 stolen from
her pocket. After that we came home. There was a man
selhng paper, a Yankee of course, you put it on a shcat
with another over it and a dozen sheats under it and you
can write on top and take the impression all the way
through. You can take drawings the same as Hthographs
and the impressions of leaves. He said he had a book
that was full of the impressions of all sorts of leaves that
he had offered him last year $250 for, and he would not
take it. I believe it. I bought a paper of it, 4 colors,
Black, Blue, Red and Green. You can mark clothes with
it indelably and stone, wood, lace, and marble just the
same."

At Saratoga we stayed at Congress Hall, a iine hotel,
built around a square, with a lawn in the middle where a
band played in the evening. A piazza ran around the
square with French windows opening on it, and on this
piazza we had our rooms. All hotels were then kept on
the American plan — you paid so much, including every-
thing. As I remember, the usual charge was three dollars
a day and there w^ere no extras. Hotels on the European
plan were unknown. At this time Saratoga was the most
fashionable resort in America— Newport had hardly been
discovered— so the nicest people, particularly Southerners,
went there and drank the waters. Every one went down
each morning to the spring and drank, so we did too,
though we thought it nasty. Saratoga was quite dillercnt
from what it is now, for there was little racing in those
days, and no sporting fast set, though they did have a
trotting-course near by where Jack and I went. It was my
first trotting-match.

59

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

At Lake George we got hold of a nice fisherman, named
Horace Welsh, and spent most of our time on the lake,
catching some fine bass. "... It is Sunday today. After
dinner we had ice cream, peaches, pineapples, plums, raisins
and almonds. They have eight rattlesnakes here that
they have had for some years, and all of that time they
have not eaten anything." I remember that in the train
coming home a lady asked me to get her a glass of water
and when I brought it to her she offered me a tip, which I
politely dechned. Outwardly I was calm, but inwardly I
felt deeply insulted — I thought she should have known
that I was a gentleman and above taking tips. It seems
funny to remember this for nearly seventy years.

My brother Charles was drow^ned in the river in 1848,
and I think after the shock of this accident my mother
tacitly encouraged us to go in for land-sports — shooting,
riding, and the hke — rather than for sailboats. However
this may be, I know I never cared much for saihng.

My oldest brother was named WiKiam Henry, after
my grandfather and my uncle who was killed in India.
HsLvry had unusual natural abihties, but no staying quali-
ties, and took up too many different pursuits in life. He
began by going to too many different schools. After our
tutors at home he went to Mr. Phinney's in Newburgh.
Schoolmasters used heroic methods in those days. Mr.
Phinney had a colored coachman named Sam, part of
whose duty it w^as to hold the boys on his back by their
hands, their bodies being well exposed, while Mr. Phinney
flogged them. I think Harry went next to the school at
Nazareth in Pennsylvania, built originally by Whitefield
and kept by the Moravian Brothers. Judging by the lit-
tle picture on their writing-paper it was a simple place,
and the terms were a contrast to the ideas of St. Mark's or

60

MY BROTHERS

Groton to-day. They charged tliirly-fivc dollars a quar-
ter, I find in an old bill, and four dollars for such extras
as "washing and the Greek language."

After this Harry tried Doctor Mufilenberg's famous
school at Flushing, called "College Point." Although
Harry gave him a great deal of trouble, Doctor Muhlenlx-rg
was attached to him. When Doctor Muhlenberg was talk-
ing to a boy of whom he was fond, he had a funny habit
of taking off his pupil's cap in an absent-minded way and
rubbing his head. Harry told me of meeting the Doctor
in the street, after he was grown u|), and as soon as Harry
took his hat off the Doctor started rubbing his head just
from habit. While at College Point Harry once skated
across the Sound; it was unusual to have it frozen, and he
took advantage of the opportunity, but couldn't skate
back because the ice broke up. After going to a military
school at West Point he entered Trinity College, Hart-
ford, in 1844, but only stayed a year. He was mixed up
in some frolic in a room on the second floor of Jarvis Hall —
I know the room well and I should say the windows were
about twenty feet above the ground. When the professor
came and knocked at the door Harry jumped out of the
window and was pretty badly hurt; he broke something,
his leg, I think, so he left college the end of his freshman
year.

He had always wanted to enter the na\T since his
visits on board the North Caroliria with Uncle Charles,
and my mother had tried her best to get him a warrant,
through Mr. Legarc and other friends. Indeed, it was
supposed to be all settled and Harry went to New ^ ork
with Uncle, only to learn that the secretary of the navy
had just died and had not signed the warrant after all. It
was a great blow. But he was determined to go to sea

61

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

anyway. So he got a position as cabin-boy on the clipper
ship Water Witch, commanded by the notorious Bob Water-
man, a fme sailor but very cruel and arbitrary — I think
he was ultimately tried for the murder of a sailor. Harry
was one of several cabin-boys, all, I believe, gentlemen's
sons. It was the custom in those days for nice boys to
go in this way to learn the sea. They wxnt to Hong Kong.
It was the ship's first voyage and she made the return trip
from there to New York in seventy-six days, the fastest
trip of the day. One stormy, dark night Captain Water-
man sent Harry up to reef a royal, which is, I believe, the
highest and smallest sail on the main, or mizzen, mast of a
fuII-rigged ship. Harry tried his best each time, but the
bitter wind tore it away from him, so he slithered down to
the deck and told the captain it couldn't be done.

"Go up again and reef it and be d d to you, and

don't come back till it's done," was the captain's answer.
So up the mast Harry went and, finding the sail loose,
flapping in the storm, he took out his sheath-knife and
cut the whole sail clear and away it went.

"Can't do it, sir!" he reported to the terrible captain.

"What ! Why the can't you do it?"

"Toproyalmizzen gone to leeward, sir!" And, strange
to say, that was the end of it.

A brief flirtation with the law came next in Harry's
career. He studied for about a year in the law office of
Wells and Van Wagenen, in New York— Mr. Thomas L.
Wells was^ one of my father's most intimate friends— but
most of his friends were studying medicine, among them
Tom Pinckney, of South Carofina, so he shifted to the
New York Hospital and got a smattering of medicine.
Surgery had a fascination for him, and he probably would
have made a success at it with his skilful hands, but just

62

MY BROTHERS

at that time, 1849, gold was discovered in California and
he determined to go there and dig. So with his intimate
friend Sam Craig he joined French's Expedition. They
prepared themselves with saddles, rifles, etc., and went to
Galveston, from which place they were to ride across the
plains on horseback to Cahfornia. Frencli's Expedition, a
large company of men, assembled at Galveston and actually
started, but dissensions arose and dissatisfaction with
French's arrangements; in a short time the whole thing
was a failure, the train disbanded, and every man had to
shift for himself.

So Harry bought a horse and started to ride alone to
California. It took him nine months. He crossed the
American Desert, and he has told me how his only com-
panions were the little horned toads that used to nestle
in his blankets at night, when the desert was so breath-
lessly still that he could hear the grains of sand moving.
He passed through the site of El Paso — then, I think, only
two rocks or perhaps a single house — swam his horse across
the Colorado River, and finally reached the coast, where
he took passage in a brig. The captain of the brig died
on the w^ay, there was no one to navigate her, so Harry,
who, of course, knew about sailing, took command and
brought her into San Francisco.

At the mines, as he was so handy with tools, he built
himself a nice little house and was getting along fmely,
when news came that his mother was ill— or perhaps he
was just restless. Anyway, he left his house in the gold-
diggings and returned to New York. While in the mininp-
camp he also practised medicine and surgery, and actually
amputated a man's kg. I believe the patient survived !

Harry happened to be in the South, staying with some
of our relations, just before the Civil Wiu broke out.

63

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Though he was a Northern man, he was so closely con-
nected with the South that when the neighbors began
training a troop he helped them to drill, as he had been to
a mihtary school. They had lots of fun. One day — I tell
you this just as Harry told it— when the drill was over,
they were having a feast in the woods, a splendid affair,
with all sorts of good things sent by the Charleston ladies,
wild turkey and plum-cake and wine, and every man with
his body-servant standing behind him. After the feast
one of his friends — I am not sure if it was "Powder'*
Whaley or "Corkie" Huger — took him aside.

"Harry," he said, "your interests are all in the North,
and Vhere the purse is there the heart should be. A boat
goes from Charleston to-night and it may be the last to
leave the port; you'd better take it. I was in love with
your mother, so look out for yourself, and don't get a knife
in your back !"

Strange to say, Harry took this advice — a thing he was
never known to do before or since — and got the last boat
from Charleston. As he was going up the gang-plank he
happened to see Miss Sarah Matilda Grayson, a young
cousin of my mother's, and "she looked so pretty and
rosy" that he proposed then and there, with a "Tilly, will
you marry me?" which she found agreeable.

She was the daughter of the Honorable William Gray-
son, of Charleston. (I believe Mattie, as we always called
her, came near being named Gardenia Garden, after our
relation Doctor Garden and the w^ell-known flower named
in his honor by Linnseus.) Mr. Grayson approved highly
of slavery, but was strongly opposed to secession. Unfor-
tunately, though he was a Union man, he did not trust in
our success in arms and invested all his money in Confed-
erate bonds, and, of course, lost it. His theories about

64

MY BROTHERS

slavery are summed up In a pamphlet of 1851, whose argii-
ments sound so curiously in one's ears to-day that I shall
quote a few paragraphs:

"There are two kinds of labor, hireling lal^or and slave
labor. Let the North enjoy their hircHng hibor with all
its advantages — pauperism, rowdyism, mobism and anti-
rentism — its strikes, emeutcs and street fights — we of the
South are satisfied with our slave labor. The hirehngs of
Europe are clamoring for what they call the organization
of labor. Slave labor is the only organized Ial)or ever
known. It is the only condition of society in which labor
and capital are associated on a large scale — in which their
interests are combined and not in conflict. If the negroes
were made free, whether peace or war ensued, they would
in time become extinct."

Mr. Grayson's poem, "The Hireling and the Slave,"
was widely read and endlessly quoted before the Civil
War, and he was the biographer of his friend James Lewis
Pettigrew, the great Carolina lawyer, also a Union man.
After Mr. Grayson's death I edited his "Life of Pettigrew,"
and it was published by Harper, with a preface by Henry
Tuckerman, the poet.

To return to Harry — the day was set for his marriage
to Miss Grayson, but the South just after the fall of Fort
Sumter was in a most turbulent condition, and he had
great difficulty in reaching Charleston. At Atlanta, on
account of some reckless remark, he excited suspicion, and
a furious mob collected and threatened to lynch him. A
friend travelling with him was taking a nap in the hotel
when he was aroused by the clamor in the street. Lookmg
out he saw Harry standing in a corner between two houses,
with his back to a wall and a pistol in his hand, facing a
lot of yelling ruffians. He rushed out and brought the

65

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

mayor, who was able to calm the mob for a moment, and
who took Harry's arm and walked him off to safety. The
crowd had a rope ready, so it w^as a pretty close shave !
While it was still touch and go, Harry told me that he saw
right in front of him the man to w^hom he had been talking
indiscreetly, and who had collected the mob. Harry said
he fixed his eyes on him and said, "Perhaps I can kill only
one, but you'll be that one!" which he thought took a
little of the zest out of this ringleader, and made him keep
the others back until the providential coming of the mayor.

After his marriage Harry stopped touring the w^orld,
and his Hfe on the old Acker Farm, not far from Danskam-
mcr, was uneventful except for a tragedy — his only child,
Httle Emmie, was drowned in the brook in front of their
house. He never got over it. The Acker, or Eckhert,
Farm was part of the original grant of a thousand acres
from Queen Anne to Wolfert Eckhert, who built "Wolfert's
Roost," the house where Washington Irving lived after
changing its name to ''Sunnyside." Harry's house w^as a
quaint old place, with huge fireplaces and enormously thick
walls of brick and stone, built by Wolfert as a blockhouse
to defend the inhabitants against the Indians; it is by far
the oldest house in the neighborhood.

Harry was a splendid rider, an excellent shot, and a
good sportsman in every w^ay. There w^as nothing he did
not know about dogs, especially the training of pointers.
Most of his pointers were of the famous Wade Flampton
breed, named after the governor of South Carolina. One,
named Shot, that he had trained from a puppy, was ex-
traordinarily clever. If he saw Harry's horse being saddled,
he knew that Marlborough was the objective, and he would
take a certain short cut across the fields and meet him on
the main road. If, on the other hand, he saw the horse

66

MY BROTHERS

being harnessed into a wagon, he would guess that he was
going in the opposite direction to Newburgh, where all the
household shopping was done, and another short cut would
bring master and dog together on the Newburgh road.
Harry spent a winter at Summerville, and often went in
to Charleston with Shot, sometimes by rail, sometimes in
a wagon. One day he drove in, and somehow or other lost
the dog in town. Shot went to the railway-station in
Charleston, boarded the train, and returned alone to Sum-
merville. The conductor watched him and told Harry
that he got off the train at Summerville like any other
passenger, only he did not give him any ticket.

Harry had the most ingenious hands that I have ever
seen. Not only could he carve pretty little heads out of
peach-pits and cherry-stones, and whittle all sorts of orna-
mental things, such as toys and work-boxes, but he was an
excellent cabinetmaker and made good furniture. At sea
he had learned to sew and knit and could make a pair of
trousers or net the most intricate kind of fish-nct.

He was a fearless rider and could take a horse over
almost anything. On one occasion he was in Newburgh
with a pair of horses that sometimes ran away, so he
thought he would give them a lesson. When they started
from Newburgh it was late at night and he had a free road,
so he let them run; when they seemed to tire and lag a
little he laid the whip on, and instead of turning In at his
own road he kept on, eight miles in all, to Marlborough.
At Marlborough there is an abrupt decline over a bridge,
then a flat road for about a mile, and then a long, long hill.
They went over all this distance, between nine and ten
miles, on a dead run, without let-up or mishap, but when
they struck that last long hill they gave in, only too glad
to turn their heads and walk quietly toward home. They

67

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

never attempted to run away again. Imagine the fun he
had — driving lickety-split, regardless of consequences, mile
after mile, up and down hill, over a rough narrow road in
the middle of the night ! It was characteristic of him —
he was afraid of nothing.

He is buried at Christ Church, Marlborough, near the
grave of his wife and Httle Emmie.

"Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."

As long as I can remember anything my best friend in
the family was my brother Gouverneur, named after Uncle
Gouv Wilkins. As a very little boy, when he was away
at school, I used to gather the best pears and other fruit
and save them for him. He gave me my first rifle and
taught me how to shoot it, and as soon as I was able to
carry a gun we used to explore all the woodcock swamps in
the neighborhood and across the river. Sometimes we
went to a swamp near Lattintown, where there was a fme
cold spring and a nice place to eat our lunch, while another
favorite resort was a large swamp back of Wappingers
Falls. We had a dog of Augustus Stebbins's for some time
and I remember his following a wounded bird for over four
hundred yards through this swamp, and then bringing him
in. Gouv was a walker who never tired; in Switzerland
he walked the fifty miles over the Simplon Pass in one day.
They tell me that in Florida he would start out with his
gun early in the morning and tramp all day, with no lunch
but a lemon. He was the best shot I ever saw. In Florida
Ned was his finest hunting-dog, a black-and-tan Gor-
don setter. He was once bitten by a rattlesnake and
Gouv carried him home two and a half miles in his arms
and nursed him back to health, though he bore the scar

68

MY BROTHERS

of the bite the rest of his life. One evening, w hen he was
very old, he went out to the orange-grove with Gouv, and
amused himself for a little while hunting the flock of quail
that lived there; then he came up to Gouv, lay quietly
down at his feet, and died.

Gouv was educated by our private tutors until he went
to "College Hill" at Poughkeepsie, of which I have already
spoken. They made a fine classical scholar of him, and
begged my mother to let him go to college, but there was
a good opening for him with Maitland, Phelps, so she put
him there. I think she made a mistake, for the "counting-
house," as it was called in those days, never suited him.
In fact, she soon realized this and sent him to live with
Isaac Conkling, who worked the Acker Farm for us on
shares, to learn farming, which he really liked. Isaac was
a fine old fellow and we were all fond of him. He was not
garrulous; driving back from Newburgh one day with
Gouv, after doing some shopping for his wife, he never
spoke the whole seven miles except once when he grunted,
"Durn them victorines!" and relapsed into silence. This
fashionable kind of ladies' cape was evidently expensive.

When my mother died she left Gouv as my guardian.
In the fall of 1854 I started for Trinity College. Gouv
went with me as far as New York and blew me off to a
lunch at old Delmonlco's, at the corner of Beaver Street.
I don't remember all we had, but I do recall there were
apple fritters with sherry sauce. At college Doctor Good-
win, the president, was not always, to put it mildly, pleased
with my conduct, and he used to write to Gouv as my
guardian and ask him to expostulate with me. But he
did not try this very long, for Gouv thought ever>-thing I
did was about right and always answered that he thought
Doctor Goodwin had better just talk the matter over with

69

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

inc. So you see after my mother's death I was practically
my own master, except in the matter of money, for Gouv
iicid the purse-strings until I was grown up. ^ ^

I think it was in 1870 that Gouv went to live in Florida.
He had often stayed at Hibernia, a dehghtful old planta-
tion house on the St. John's kept by Mrs. Fleming, and
became so fond of the Flemings and of the lovely place
that he fmally bought some land there and planted a mag-
nificent orange-grove, which was very profitable until the
great freeze of 1897, when all the trees were killed down to
the ground.

About the pleasantest part of these Florida winters of
Gouv's was his camping trips. Sometimes he went with
CaroII Livingston and very often with F. Augustus Peabody,
of Boston. Each of them had a Rice Lake canoe and they
took along a negro man who was an excellent cook and who
rowed the boat with their cooking kit, tents, etc. They
often went as far as the Gulf of Mexico and down the
coast, sleeping in tents, and except for groceries, hving
on the game and fish they killed. Wild turkeys were plen-
tiful, and both Peabody and my brother were splendid
shots, so they must have hved high. To call the turkeys
Gouv used to go out into the swamps at night, sometimes
standing up to his neck in water, with a "call" made from
the wing-l)one of a turkey. Lots of big gobblers would
come at his summons and light in the near-by trees. As
they travelled along they would come across natives who
could take them to good turkey ground. I remember Gus
Peabody telling me of a boastful fellow who joined them
as they walked along a road and began blowing about his
prowess in shooting. Suddenly two turkeys were flushed
and went sailing straight down the trail. Gouv killed one
with each barrel, but the braggart was too scared to get

70

MY BROTHERS

his gun off. It was on one of these same trips that Gouv
in walking across a swamp felt something writhe under his
feet. He gave a spring forward and, looking back, saw
an enormous rattler, its head up, ready to strike. He
shot it and when it was measured by Doctor W'yman, a
friend and associate of Agassiz, he found it was seven
feet long, the largest they had ever seen.

Gouv was the finest of men, temperate, honorable, and
straightforward, kindly, loyal to his friends— good to look
at, too, with his upright figure, ruddy face, and china-bhic
eyes. I loved him dearly. He died at Hibernia and is
buried in the httle churchyard there, a lovely, cahn spot.
A few years later I went again to Hibernia for the funeral
of John Neilson, my brother-in-law and a warm friend of
Gouv's. They are buried next to each other. In the eve-
ning— a swTet early-winter evening, with a light wind
whispering in the pine-trees and stirring the veils of gray
moss that drape their branches — I walked over to the
churchyard. Palms and roses were piled at the heads of
the two graves, side by side. It is a fitting resting-place
for my dear Gouv, and the one he would have chosen and
loved best.

71

CHAPTER IV

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR

"I watch them drift — the old familiar faces,
Who fished and rode with me by stream and wold."

— KiNGSLEY.

In the autumn of 1853, when I was seventeen, we were
all at Danskammer when my three brothers decided to
spend the winter in Charleston. I see now that I ought
cither to have gone to school again somewhere or entered
college, but my brothers thought it would be a good plan
for me also to spend the winter in South Carohna, particu-
larly as Mrs. Martin Wilkins, who Hved in Charleston, had
asked me to stay with her. My brothers suggested that I
could take my books along and study just as well there as
anywhere else. So a httle later I went by steamer to
Charleston; it was my first experience of the sea and I was
very seasick, but when I arrived I was delighted with the
semi-tropic climate of Carohna after the November land-
scape I had left at home. The Wilkinses received me at
their house in Charleston, a nice old-fashioned house Hke
many others in the town, with an entrance-hall running on
one side the whole length of the house, and the parlor and
other rooms opening on it. Mrs. Wilkins, who had been
a Miss Grimble, was a sweet and gentle old lady, a great
friend of my mother's. Her husband, Uncle Gouv Wilkins*s
brother, had died, leaving her with three sons and three
daughters: Gouverneur had just graduated from Yale and
was a planter, Martin was a lawyer, and Berkeley was in
business in Charleston; Eliza I knew already, for she had

72

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR

stayed with us at Danskammer, a charming girl just grow-
ing up, and the other two girls were still younger, Ixjth of
them pretty. The Civil War came on soon after they
grew up, the family suffered losses, and these lovely girls
never married.

The first thing I did when I arrived al I Ik- Wilkinscs*
was to put my Latin and Greek books in a closet for future
reference, with the result that I did not look at them once
until I returned to New York in the spring. A day or two
after I got there the family went to the country for tlic
winter, and as there were no other means of transport in
those days we drove in their carriage to their {plantation,
Kelvin Grove, near Rantowle's, about twenty miles from
Charleston. It was a rice and cotton plantation, but not
a very large one, having only about forty slaves.

Kelvin was near the plantation of Mr. Tom Lowndes,
whose pretty adopted daughter, Adela, afterward mar-
ried young Gouv Wilkins. These were typical combina-
tion rice and cotton plantations — wide, hospitable houses,
the kitchens off in separate buildings with enormous open
fireplaces where all the roasting and boihng was done.
There were private graveyards with quaint tombstones of
former proprietors, and broad ricc-fields intersected with
ditches, with reserves for water. Along the sedg^- banks
Enghsh snipe abounded and in the higher ground, in the
broom-grass, quail were plentiful There were also deer
and wild turkeys in the forest, where there were large
tracts of pine-trees, and the vast swamps were swarming
with ducks and alHgators. Bay-trees grew thickly along
the edges of the lakeHke reserves, and here was where we
found the most woodcock.

On the plantation was a nice httle village of comfortable
white cabins for the negroes. But there always was in

73

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

evidence a driver, as he was called, who was a superior
negro and carried a whip. The whips used were made of
hickory, with a solid handle that tapered off until it was
flexible. To this was attached the ten-foot rawhide whip-
lash. The driver always had it in his hand as he walked
about among the workers in the cotton-field, and if he spied
a loiterer the whip sprang out hke Hghtning, so that there
was no idhng. In the evening the hands were all assembled
at the cotton-house, where the cotton was stored. Each
hand's bag of cotton w^as weighed, and if it did not come
up to what he ought to have picked he had so many lashes
— not on his bare back, but even through his shirt it must
have hurt. It was taken as a matter of course, and no
remarks were made by the victims. One evening one of
the young negroes was caught kilhng a neighbor's pigs.
They had circumstantial evidence and wanted him to
confess, so he was brought out and whipped, pretty severely,
but he would not acknowledge it; perhaps he was innocent.

This was a plantation where the slaves were well
treated; on places where the owners were really cruel there
were, of course, terrible abuses. Here they had medical
attendance from Gouverneur Wilkins, who had studied
medicine for the purpose, a chaplain visited them at inter-
vals, and they were taught to read by the ladies of the
family. They were well fed, and on the whole they were
comfortable and happy. But they were slaves. Person-
ally, in spite of my close connection with the South, I have
ahvays detested slavery and felt the greatest pity for the
colored people.

The first morning after my arrival at Kelvin, Gouverneur
Wilkins took me out shooting on the rice-fields. I had a
nice little gun which had been a flint-lock belonging to my
grandfather, Colonel Armstrong, but which had been

74

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR

altered to a percussion-lock. It was i8-gauge and had a
gold thumb-piece with a crest, our "hand and dagger" —
an excellent gun, made by Nock of London. After the
rice is planted the fields are flooded at intervals with water,
which comes through locks from a vast reserve, or pond.
As I was there in winter the water was turned off and the
fields were comparatively dry; they were filled with EngHsh
snipe and the shooting was very fine. The snipe is a diffi-
cult bird because when he first rises and is comparatively
quiet he is too near to shoot; he then begins to gyrate and
dash from side to side, then sails away. Though not an
easy mark, this is the moment to shoot him. I was then
only a pretty good shot, but I rapidly improved with so
much practice. The best quail-shooting was at a place
called "the Winnows," a disused plantation belonging to
Mr. Tom Lowmdes, the next neighbor. On this pkice were
large fields overgrowm with broom-grass, interspersed with
small pine-trees. Here there were quantities of quail.
Gouv Wilkins had fine hunting-dogs, pointers, and Miss
Eliza Wilkins had a nice brown saddle-pony, which she
did not ride much, so she lent it to me and it was hke hav-
ing my own horse. I had him out almost every day. He
was broken so that he was not afraid of gun-fire, and
would stand so still that one could shoot from his back
just as well as from the ground. I often shot quail from
his back. I spent almost the entire winter with the Wil-
kinses, but as I went shooting almost every day I made some
return for their hospitality by keeping them well supplied
w^ith quail, snipe, doves, and ducks. The corn-stalks in
the fields are not cut as they are in the North, but the cars
of corn arc picked in the field and the stalks left standing,
and these immense fields of standing corn-stalks were a
fine cover for doves, which are excellent birds for eating.

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

The best shooting I ever did was to kill eleven English
snipe out of thirteen shots. I once had a good shot at a
wild turkey, but did not kill him; I only had No. 8 quail-
shot and it was too fine, duck-shot being needed. There
were almost impenetrable swamps adjoining the rice-fields,
swarming with ducks. I well remember my first duck. It
was a mallard, a drake, called in South Carolina an English
duck; he came flying over my head, and when I shot him
he fell directly at my feet. It was an event of my life.
The mallard is one of the handsomest ducks that fly,
gray with beautifully barred wings and iridescent head and
neck.

'Coon-hunting was a favorite night amusement. At
first I went out with some of the negroes who had 'coon-
dogs, but in a little while I thought that it would be fine to
have two dogs from home, so I sent to Danskammer and
had Wasp and Crib sent down, and they soon devel-
oped into excellent 'coon-dogs. We bought Wasp from
the Delanos' coachman. He was a thoroughbred black-
and-tan terrier, but the largest terrier I ever saw, very
muscular and a wonderful runner and Jumper. He caught
full-grown rabbits by running them down, and could jump
a board fence four feet high, just touching it with his feet
as he went over. He could jump up and take a piece of
bread from your hand stretched up to its full height.
Crib was a white bull-terrier, with a black patch over
his eye that gave him a sinister look. I was once out
with Wasp and Crib in the woods when we started an
otter, which took to the water in a canal in the woods.
We chased him some distance and at intervals he would
appear above the water and Wasp would jump into the
water right on top of him; fortunately he did not close with
him, because otters are dangerous beasts. Finally he got

76

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR

under a bank with the most awful growhng, and wc could
not dislodge him. When I took Wasp and Cril) home
to New York, the Wilkinses' colored coachman took mv
in the carriage with the dogs down to Charleston. Some
man came along and admired the dogs, and the old coach-
man, who also admired them, remarked: "Dem's not
ornary dogs; dem's nordern dogs." 'Coon-hunting was a
picturesque sport; two or three darkies would bring their
dogs, making, with Wasp and Crib, quite a pack. The
'coon, when disturbed by the dogs, woukl take to a tree,
then one of the negroes would light a torch of fat pine,
and the whole company, including the 'coon in the tree,
would be lighted up by the blaze; one of the darkies
would climb the tree and shake the 'coon down and the
dogs w^ould kill it. I always gave the 'coons to the negroes,
much to their delight. We never found a 'possum, which
they esteem even more than the 'coon.

There were also black and gray squirrels in abundance
on the plantation, and many rabbits. The Southern rab-
bit looks like the Northern, but the latter is a hare and
has a hairy foot, while the Southern cousin has a foot Hkc
a dog's. The snakes were the most unattractive feature
of that country. They swarmed everywhere, more par-
ticularly along the ditches of the rice-fields, which are
usually bordered with low bushes; these bushes were hter-
ally festooned with them. They were, I beheve, usually
harmless, but disgusting. One frequently saw black snakes
six or seven feet long hanging down from low trees, bii*
one had to get used to them, also to the quantities of alli-
gators in the swamps. When surprised the alligators
would take to the water and, either in a spirit of bravado
or curiosity, they would submerge entirely, except for the
extreme tips of their noses, which they left projectmg

77

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

about a quarter of an inch above the surface, and sail up
and down for a long while, without causing a ripple. I
frequently fired at them, but with no success.

The Wilkinses were most hospitable. One day I was
riding with Gouv near Rantowle's, when two gentlemen
came along and asked if there was any hotel near there
where they could spend the night. Gouv told them the
depressing truth, but then said that he would be happy to
have them accept his hospitality, and that if they would
go home with us he would look out for them. This they
did, ahhough perfect strangers.

Mr. William Haskell had a plantation near by and he
would sometimes go hunting deer w^ith us; he was an excel-
lent rider and looked well on his handsome thoroughbred
chestnut mare. I admired this mare so much that he once
lent her to me, and I rode down to Charleston and back,
twenty miles each w^ay. I went down in the morning, had
dinner there, and came home in the afternoon, forty miles.
We had many fox-hunts as well as deer -hunts. In Caro-
lina they only have the gray fox, which is not like the red
fox that will make a long run straight away, for he keeps
doubhng so that you may hunt him a long while in a con-
fined space. We never caught one, but it made no differ-
ence, because we had the fun of riding, and an occasional
rail fence to jump, but the obstacles w^re usually only
ditches or fallen logs. Sometimes the countrymen, "poor
whites," or "crackers," as they are called, would join in,
bringing their hounds. Every man had a dog or two, and
all rode little ponies, called "tackeys." These were com-
plete saddle-horses, very small but active and pretty, not
ponies but little horses. These "crackers" were a very
poor class, morally, intellectually, and physically, pretty
low down. Even the negro slaves despised them and

78

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR

called them "poor whites." They were wretched-looking
men, and as they lived in that malarial country winter and
summer, and had fever and ague all the time, they were so
weak and languid that they could hardly swing themselves
on the backs of their little horses.

One day Gouv Wilkins took me down to Mr. Hugh
Wilson's place on John's Island, about twenty miles from
Kelvin. This was a fine plantation, one of those where
they raised "sea-island cotton," a long-stapled cotton very
celebrated, and only raised, I believe, on the coast and
islands near there. Mr. Wilson had a deer-park of five
thousand acres, fenced in and kept cxckisively for deer-
hunting. He had a fine pack of hounds and several hunts-
men. Gouverneur Wilkins rode his fine brown saddle-horse
and I rode Eliza's brown pony, each of us equipped with
saddle-bags and carrying a gun. We arrived at Mr. Wil-
son's place in time for dinner and were handsomely enter-
tained.

Early in the morning of the second day of our visit at
John's Island we went deer-hunting. Several of the neigh-
bors joined in the hunt. The method they follow there in
hunting is to station the hunters at certain points where
they know from experience that the deer when driven out
always go. Sitting on my horse, I was stationed near a
sort of road or path, looking out over a part of the forest,
thinly wooded with tall pine-trees; I heard the hounds bay-
ing, and presently I saw a deer loping through the woods,
on its way to pass me about fifty yards away. I fired and
evidently hit him, for he slackened his pace, and the hounds
coming up they caught him after he had gone a few paces.
It was my first deer and it was the custom to mark with
blood the fortunate hunter when he bagged his first deer.
I was prepared to stand it, and one of the gentlemen began

79

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

to bathe his hands in blood preparatory to smearing it on
my face, when the others protested and they let me off.
Later in the day I shot another one, and in the evening
we rode home, twenty miles, reaching Kelvin late at night.
It was an all-day ride and rather too much for my little
pony. I have been deer -hunting several times since, but
these were the only deer I ever killed.

Mr. Wilson had known my grandfather, Colonel John
Ward, whose place was near by, for whom he had a great
respect and regard. I wish I could remember my grand-
father Ward. He seems to have been an ideal grandfather.
My mother often told us about the Christmas parties he
used to give in Charleston, how he played with the children
and told them dehghtful stories and kept them all in a
flutter of happiness.

Colonel Ward's grandfather, also named John, came
from England and was shipwrecked on his way to Carolina,
saving nothing but a fat gold watch with St. George and
the dragon on the back, which I now have. Colonel Ward,
who served in the United States army in the War of 1812,
was a distinguished lawyer and for some time president of
the Senate of South Carohna. The diary of Edward
Hooker, of Hartford, who chronicled his impressions of
the South in 1807, while a professor at the University of
South Carolina, describes my grandfather as president of
the Senate, "wearing a long Hght blue satin robe edged
with white fur." He goes on to say: "A more pleasing
speaker I have rarely heard; he has at command a rich
stock of words and ideas, and speaks entirely in the Sheri-
danean dialect, which is used by most educated Charles-
tonians. Mr. Ward is a small man — pleasant and face-
tious disposition, penetrating look, quick and graceful in
motion, dignified when in the chair but a little prone to
levity when out of it."

80

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR

My Grandfather Ward was a planter as well as a law-
yer. His plantation on John's Island was called Seven
Oaks from a huge seven-branched live-oak on the place.
I have a large dinner-set of pink Lowestoft china that was
buried on John's Island during the Revohition when the
British pillaged the neighborhood, after being driven out
of their earthworks in the battle of Stony Ferry. All
treasures that were not carefully hidden were stolen or
destroyed. It must have been quite a job to bury all
that china — over a hundred pieces.

Colonel Ward married Mary Somersall. In an Inter-
esting picture by Copley which I have she is represented
as a young girl standing by the seated figures of her mother
and grandmother, Mrs. Thomas Hartley. A little child,
a cousin, who was afterward Mrs. Deas, with a small
dog, complete the family group. The picture is unusual,
as it shows three generations of mothers and daughters;
the figure of the old lady is especially well painted.

My grandfather Ward is buried in Trinity Churchyard
in New York, next to the tomb of Alexander Hamilton.
His overseer, who begged that when he died he might be
buried near by, lies beside him. There is also a tablet to
his memory in the "Muniment Room" of Trinity. To
my mind it would add very much to the appearance and
certainly to the interest of old Trinity if the monuments
and tablets which formerly decorated its walls were put
back into the church. I have heard strangers remark that
in contrast to an English church of the same type the bare
walls of Trinity are most uninteresting.

I wish very much that I had been able to go to Seven
Oaks when I was staying with the Wilsons. My brother
Harry knew^ the place well and often visited there. He
told me that he had seen in the neighboring cottages old
tombstones of the Ward family used in front of fireplaces

8i

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

and front doors as hearths^ and door-steps. Mr. Wilson
was a very rich man at the time I stayed at his beautiful
old place, but the Civil War ruined him; he lost all his
slaves and his plantation, and his grandchildren were poor.
He was a fme man, a gentleman of the old school, who kept
open house and was an all-round sportsman. He not only
had a splendid pack of hounds and fme hunting-dogs, but
he kept beautiful game-cocks, each of which had his sep-
arate run. My brother Harry was very intimate at his
house and spent several winters there, and his son John,
a fme rider and shot, used to visit us at Danskammer.

This winter of which I am writing my three brothers,
Harry, Gouv, and Jack, spent in Charleston, varying their
stay there by visits to neighboring plantations. Jack was
a member of the South Carohna Jockey Club and of the
Charleston Club, and used to go to the Saint Ceciha balls,
all of which it was considered an honor to belong to. He
was good-looking, dressed well, and enjoyed the society of
that winter.

I was too young to go to the Saint Cecilias, and I only
attended one ball in Charleston, which was at the Haynes*.
Miss Hattie Hayne was a beauty, the daughter of the
celebrated Hayne who debated with Daniel Webster. The
Lowndes, on the plantation next to Kelvin, had a very
pleasant party, with dancing and good cheer, and there
were several parties in the neighborhood, to all of which I
went — there were some pretty cousins of the Lowndes's
named Brisbane — but my time was chiefly spent in shoot-
ing, fox and deer hunting, and as I was already fond of
sketching from nature I made several sketches of Kelvin
and the neighborhood.

I attended the races one day at the Annual Meet at the
Charleston Race Course, a celebrated course and a great
society event. During that year two famous horses had

82

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR

been competing at all the race-courses throughout the
country and creating great interest; they were Nina,
sired by Revenue, and Red Eye, sired by Boston, who
also was the sire of Lexington. The excitement over
their races was intense, partly because it was a contest
between the get of Revenue and Boston, great rivals.
If I remember rightly, Red Eye was usually the winner.
The day I was there Red Eye was entered in a four-mile
race, but as Nina was not on hand, and no other horse
dared to meet the famous champion, he ran the four miles
alone in order to win the purse. He was a splendid
powerful bay horse.

The earliest races in Carolina were in 1734 on a green
on Charleston neck, the prize being a saddle and bridle
valued at twenty pounds. In those early times the horses
were of the Chickasaw breed, a stock introduced into
Florida by the Spaniards, small but active animals. But
very soon fme horses were imported from abroad. There
was a famous horse called Abdallah, brought from
Arabia to Gibraltar and from there to Port Royal not long
before the Revohition, who was sixteen hands high and
had never been ridden until Mr. Frank Huger, being dared
to mount him, "put his hand upon the flowing mane of
the snorting animal, with one bound vaulted upon his
back, and sat hke an equestrian statue, unmoved!"

Flimnap, a black Godolphin Arabian bred by Sir
John Moore and later owned by Major Harleston, of Caro-
lina, was another great horse. He had a narrow escape
in the War of 181 2, for the British Major Tarleton was so
anxious to get hold of him that he actually hung a negro
stable-boy to a tree because he would not tell where he
was hidden in a swamp. Luckily the Redcoats rode away
in time for the boy to be cut down.

Before going home that winter I spent three very pleas-

83

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

ant weeks at my cousin Ellen Screven's place near Poco-
taligo, Castle Hill, named, I suppose, after Uncle Gouv's
place in Westchester of which I have spoken in a previous
chapter. I went up by a steamboat, stopping at Beaufort
for dinner with some relations of the Screvens. Part of
the way the boat ran out to sea and I was very seasick, but
quite late in the evening we left the sea and sailed along a
river, and when about midnight we landed I had recovered
and was fearfully hungry. At the landing a man was
waiting for me and we had a considerable drive before we
reached Castle Hill, arriving so late that the family had
gone to bed. I was cold and hungry, and I shall never
forget the bright fire and cheerful, warm dining-room, and,
best of all, some delicious wild ducks — they were teal — and
a decanter of sherry.

The Screvens were dehghtfully hospitable and let me
do just as I pleased there. They were still young, with
five httle children, and lived handsomely in extreme com-
fort. They had a stable of good horses, and I had a mount
whenever I w^anted one; and the shooting was excellent,
particularly ducks. There was a large reserve for flooding
the rice-fields, filled with flocks of ducks, and at the upper
end of it a river where blue-winged teal abounded. I
would go up this, shooting as I went, and then down; up
and down as long as you wished, all the time the birds
rising before you. Screven had a large rice plantation,
and to house his slaves had a good-sized village of white
cabins, where the negroes were comfortable and seemed
happy. These negroes had formerly belonged to Colonel
Ward, who had left four hundred slaves to my Aunt Mary,
Mrs. Gouverneur Wilkins, but only a few to my mother,
as she did not care to own slaves. The few she inherited
she set free. When I was staying with the Screvens I had

84

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR

a brisk little darky about my own age allotted to mc, who
brought water for my bath, blacked my boots, ran errands
for me, and was always at my command.

As Screven was then very prosperous, he was adding to
his slaves whenever he had a chance to buy a good one.
To show what they cost, just before I went there he Ix)ught
a carpenter for whom he paid thirty-seven hundred dollars.
The planters were then at the height of their glory. John
H. Screven served in the Confederate army, I think as
major. At the close of the war he was ruined, lost all his
slaves, and when I saw him later at Mr. Wilkins's place in
Westchester he had nothing but his bare land in South
Carolina. Some of his TurnbuII grandchildren now own
the plantation Castle Hill, and often spend their winters
there.

This winter at the South was delightful and one of the
pleasantest times of my life — no care and lots ot lun. There
was no continuous railway to Charleston in those days and
one had to travel back and forth by steamers, which, on
the whole, were excellent. Going down had been my first
experience of the sea. Returning, I left the South lookmg
like summer, the woods fdled with jasmine. I arrived
at New York on the 24th of April, and when I stepped off
the steamer there was deep snow on the ground. It was
at night, so I went to the Stevens House on Broadway
near the corner of Rector Street. It was a good hotel;
later occupied down-stairs by a branch of Delmonico's. I
was accompanied by Wasp and Crib, who were soon safely
at home at Danskammcr.

Martin Wilkins was a delightful fellow. He visited us
at Danskammer in the summer of 1855, at the same time
with Lewis TurnbuII and Elisha Tracy, both of whom
had just graduated from Trinity College. We all sparred,

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

except Martin, and used to adjourn to the garret, which
was an enormous room covering the whole top story of
the Danskammer house. This had a fine open floor and
Lewis TurnbuH and I had a series of set-to's there. We
sparred so briskly that both he and I got pretty bad black
eyes. We had decided that we must all visit West Point
and spend the day and night there, but we were almost
deterred from going on account of the black eyes, but I
tried my hand at painting them in water-colors so that
they were not very perceptible. We went to Cranston's
Hotel, but as that was crowded and no rooms were
available, they put four cots for us in the cupola and we
slept up there.

Long after this Southern winter of mine, in 1897, I got
a letter from Gouv Wilkins, whom I knew so well then,
speaking of the sad fate of Kelvin and all those other fine
old country places.

"When you visited Kelvin in 1853," he writes, "you
made a painting of the residence, and if it lacked the
element of beauty it was the fault of the house for you
certainly portrayed it correctly. I do not think we have
met since and what changes have taken place! My last
visit to New York was in 1858 and since then what changes
there — Fourteenth Street was almost out of town !

"Mr. Lowndes, my father-in-law, died penniless. In
1855 he bought Kelvin from my mother and also the Has-
kell plantation above it, and added them to his property
below, the whole costing him near fifty thousand dollars,
which he paid in cash. All of them together were sold in
1886 to pay his debts and brought at pubfic sale only
$7500. This, with the loss of two hundred negroes, ex-
plains his insolvency. He had a dwelling house on each
of the four plantations, and all were burned by the Federal

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THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR

troops, after the evacuation of Charleston and the coast
by the Confederates. The brick house at his home place,
which you will remember, was occupied for several weeks
as headquarters by Colonel Beecher (brother to Henry
Ward Beecher). On leaving he set fire to it and it and
all its contents were burned to the ground, leaving only
the chimneys standing, which the earthquake shook down.
At Kelvin they made a clean sweep, even the negro houses
were burned, and when I went there in the fall of 1865
there could not have been found enough plank to make a
soap box.

"Thank God, my home life is the best that I could
wish. Through all, my wife is as contented and cheerful
as in the early days of our married hfe^when she was sur-
rounded with every comfort."

87

CHAPTER V

AT COLLEGE

" River and race and game, gay leaping of brook and hedge :
Perils on happy heights, and pleasure nearest the edge:
Something we gain as we Hve: but youth has departed."

— Palgrave.

I entered Trinity College, Hartford, in September,
1854, and had been there only a day or two when I made
the acquaintance of Rhoades Fisher, a tall, gallant-looking
fellow from Texas with red hair, who asked me to room
with him at 32 Jarvis Hall. He didn't graduate, and
after he left at the end of the year I thenceforth roomed
there alone. Those were primitive days: not a bathroom
in the whole college, not even water in our building; it all
had to be brought from the yard. I bought a big wash-
tub, and a darky, an old fellow named Adams, brought
up a pail of water every morning and made my fire. He
was a character, and I became quite attached to him
during the three years that he ministered to my wants.
We were obhged to furnish our own rooms, and supply
our own hghts and fuel, though we had the luxury of a coal-
closet. Strange to say, in this inland retreat of ours the
beds were in two berths, hke those at sea, with curtains
that drew in front of them. We used camphene for our
lamps; I well remember filhng one, leaving the wick lighted
while I poured in the camphene, when suddenly it exploded,
and can, lamp, and all shot across the room, leaving a
trail of fire behind it and burning a broad swath in the
carpet. Outside my window hung a canary. This bird

88

AT COLLEGE

had appeared on the campus one afternoon after chapel,
and in a moment the whole college was in full cry after
him. I didn't make any particular effort to catch him,
but somehow he flew right into my hand; so I got him a
cage and cherished him for a long time. One day as he
was hanging there in the sunshine the string broke, and
down he fell, three stories, to the pavement, without being
hurt. That bird had a charmed Hfe. I Hved four years
in 32 Jarvis HaO, and just before I graduated I carved my
name and "Phi Kappa Fraternity" on the stone shelf
outside my window, and looked forward to my return in
years to come and finding it still there. Alas ! in a few
years old Jarvis was torn down, when the new college was
built, and all these old records are gone.

The old college had been built in 1824 — Washington
College it was called then, but in my day it had long been
known as Trinity. Seabury Hall was in the centre, with
Brownell Hall and Jarvis Hall at the ends; Seabury was a
classic building, designed by Samuel Morse of telegraph
fame, with large columns in front, and containing the dor-
mitories and classrooms. This group of buildings stood
at the head of College Street, just where the State House
now stands, overlooking the whole city across a wide ex-
panse of green lawn, and backed by a lovely wood through
which a green lane ran down to a picturesque little river
known as the "Hog." This stream meandered far back
into the country and we had splendid skating there in
winter. "Mile after mile," as an old Trinity man said,
"have I skated on its reaches with the red squirrel follow-
ing me on the banks."

During my first two years at college the president was
Doctor Goodwin, who later became head of the Theological
Seminary in Philadelphia. He was a scholar but a cold,

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

unsympathetic man; he was very handsome, and looked, I
have always thought, like one of Fra Bartolomeo's prophets.
We had a year's German with him — we actually read the
whole of "Faust"— but I don't know a single word of Ger-
man now. We also, I remember, studied Whewell's ''Ele-
ments of Morahty" with him (I believe I have the title
right), and thereby hangs a tale. There was a Jew whose
name I don't know, but we always called him Amsterdam, a
dealer in old clothes, cigars, pictures, and all sorts of things.
He also carried on a brisk little business in money-lending
— the tightness of the money market often constraining us
to pawn our watches and any other jewelry we possessed,
and for the same reason we did not often actually buy his
wares, but bartered our old clothes for his more interesting
objets d'art. Of course I — being I — managed to acquire
a lot of pictures by this means, and as I decorated my
room in other ways, it was considered one of the show-
rooms of the college. One of these pictures of mine was
a colored Hthograph of "Venus Rising from the Sea." It
was not an improper picture. I thought it would be good
practice to copy this picture in oil. So one pleasant, quiet
June morning I was busily engaged in painting, when I
felt a hand upon my shoulder and, looking up, I saw the
stern face of Doctor Goodwin gazing in horror at my
Venus. I don't recall now what he said, but his looks
were enough. His face bore the expression of one who
looks down from the sanctuary of Abraham's bosom on a
soul in perdition, and he gave me a good blowing-up as
soon as he found his voice. By the irony of fate, that very
afternoon we had our lesson on Whewell's "Elements of
Morahty." I was called up and flunked, as I couldn't
paint and look over my lesson as well, and when it became
only too clear that I could not recite, Doctor Goodwin

90

AT COLLEGE

roared in a voice of thunder: "If you had not been engaged
in reprehensible pursuits this morning, sir, you would prob-
ably have known your lesson! Sit down, sir!" I am
happy to say, however, that I was told by a friend in after
years that Doctor Goodwin "remembered me with pleasure
and affection," so perhaps he had forgotten our interview
about the Venus, or possibly through the mist of years he
was able to view it more leniently than on that June morn-
ing long ago.

I spent all my spare cash at college in hiring saddle-
horses. There was an excellent thoroughbred mare that I
liked especially, and on Saturdays we used to make up
parties and ride out to "Wadsworth's Tower" — afterward
owned by the Elys — where there is a lake on top of the
mountain. I remember riding there one Saturday with
Alexander Preston and some other fellows; I had a new
gray coat that I had never worn, and when Preston sug-
gested borrowing it I felt greatly honored, as I was a fresh-
man and he a senior, and it gave me real pleasure to have
him ride in it all day, but reflecting on it now it seems a
poor reason for giving up my brand-new coat.

Athletics were not much cultivated in those days, but
we had one of the first boat clubs in any college and had
two fast race-boats. We had two spirited races with the
town club of Hartford, winning the first but losing the
second because we broke a rowlock. I was stroke,
although the smallest man in the club. In 1858 the Col-
lege Union Regatta at Worcester was established by Har-
vard, Yale, Brown, and Trinity.

Sparring was one of my chief interests in college.
When I was seventeen I had been taught to box by Ottig-
non, the owner of the gymnasium in Crosby Street, an
enormous man over six feet high and weighing two hun-

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

dred pounds, but very agile, nevertheless. And now at
college I took sparring lessons from Charley Brewster, one
of the best sparrers I have ever seen. I began with him
in my freshman year and sparred with him all through my
college course, and he taught me that any ordinary man
could knock a bigger man down if he knew how to aim
his blow aright and how to keep his opponent from closing
with him. I got to be pretty good; in fact, Brewster said
I was "too good to spar with a gentleman !"

In my day hazing was rife in all the colleges; somehow
or other I managed to escape it, but I confess that I joy-
fully assisted in the hazing of others. In our sophomore
year we thought it advisable to haze a freshman named
Short. I don't remember any reason for this except that
his name and person were so incongruous — instead of being
short he was extremely long, being about six feet six. The
affair was arranged in this way. One afternoon, just after
chapel, we captured Short and rushed him out by the back
way, where we had a carriage waiting to take him down
into the town, where we proposed to try him for his alleged
offenses. The carriage got off all right and drove around
by way of the station. Where the triumphal arch now
stands was situated the jail, and next to it was a terraced
bank about ten feet high, on top of which ran a sidewalk.
I was on my way down to the trial when I heard shouts of
rage and saw Short approaching, sprinting hke anything
and making good time with his long legs. He had escaped
from the carriage and was being pursued by his captors,
but they had no chance of catching him, and I saw I was
the only obstacle between him and sanctuary at the col-
lege. He thought, of course, that with his great weight
and height he could run right over me as I stood facing him
in the middle of the sidewalk, but just as he reached me I

92

AT COLLEGE

stepped aside, put out my foot, and sent him rolling head-
long down the grass to the foot of the terrace. There I
managed to hold him until the other sophomores arrived
and secured him. We tried him — on these occasions we
had regular courts, judge, counsel on both sides, etc. — and
he was convicted of being too tall, and condemned to drink,
as he was a temperance man, three glasses of lager-beer.
Just as the penalty was being enforced his class found out
where he was, broke down the door, and after a free fight
rescued him. Short afterward studied for the ministry
and more than forty years later I met some of his family
in North Hadley, by whom he sent me affectionate mes-
sages, so he cherished no animosity.

A college character was ** Professor Jim," the janitor,
a fine old darky. He had been born a slave in the family
of Colonel Philip Rhinelander Robert, of Pomona Hall at
Yonkers, which afterward belonged to Sidney Morsc^ the
son of Professor Morse, and he used to tell us tales of
Aaron Burr, whom he had often seen at the house, and of
his adventures after he ran away to sea in the War of 1812.
Finally Jim turned up at Hartford at about the same time
that Bishop Brownell became the first president of Trinity,
and soon became one of the bishop's servants. Jim's
grand crack of the whip, as he wheeled the bishop's gig
close to the church steps when he drove about the country
on his visitations, has never been forgotten, nor the ele-
gance of his manner as he assisted the bishop to alight
and with a wave of the hand turned him over to the rector
and wardens in attendance. He was a little man with
snow-white hair when I knew him, and looked a good deal
like a monkey, but he had a certain dignity withak

"Professor Jim" was always popular with the students,
for if he caught them in a scrape he never told, but at the

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

same time he contrived to be loyal to the college. He
was a feature of Class Day, resplendent in a dress suit
and high hat, and was always presented with some token
of affection from the senior class. His speeches in return
are still remembered. One ran in part as follows:

"Gentlemen, our communion has been sweet together,
our words has been soft, and what you knows I knows and
nobody else knows ! How you worried and studied all
night after you'd been off, for fear you wouldn't get your
conditions — how you had to be dragged out from under
the bed, sometimes, to visit the faculty — how you got along
nicely till you run against chronics — chronics was hard !
Gentlemen, your secrets is mine ! Though you stopped up
the key-hole with putty and froze up the bell, I got along
somehow ! You're soon going to leave this splendid can-
vas— don't forget the high privileges that has been granted
you here, and the benefit of a Supreme Being you ought
to appreciate as gentlemen!"

At our Class Day the class was assembled on the lawn
in a semicircle in front of Seabury Hall facing the chapel
steps where the speeches were made. I suppose the
president sat in Bishop Berkeley's famous chair just as he
does nowadays, but I don't remember — the chair was not
such an heirloom then as it is now — neither do I remember
much about my oration. I was class orator, but I shall
never forget the splendid peroration of "Professor Jim's'*
speech.

"My dear young friends, we have come to parting and
you must remember that while you are acfvancing I will
be c/evancing. You will all be scattered all over the world;
some of you may go to Asia, some to Africa, some maybe
to the sandy shores of Arabia, but wherever you go, my dear
boys, my heart will go with you to any part of the State !"

94

AT COLLEGE

In my senior year an astonishing thing happened — I
was awarded the chemistry prize for the best essay "On
the Chemical Constitution, Properties, and Uses of Water."
No one w^as more surprised at my gaining it than \. The
award was made by Professor Jackson, Doctor Oliver, and
some other distinguished scientists of Boston, and one of
them told my friend Prescott that he Hked my essay be-
cause it was so evidently written by a gentleman — a strange
consideration in a matter of chemistry ! It has always
amused me to see my name in the college catalogue among
the winners of the Sheffield prize. I elected to take my
twenty-five-dollar prize in books, and my choice of Mrs.
Jameson's books on ecclesiastical art I have often found
useful in my profession. There were no schools of art in
those days in any of the colleges, and I don't think that a
single one of my fellow collegians could draw a line; so I
was always selected to do any drawing that was required,
such as tail-pieces for catalogues, specimens in natural
philosophy for Professor Brocklcsby, etc. In my senior
year I got a good deal of fun out of preparing and illustrat-
ing a catalogue of my fraternity, Phi Kappa, which we
published.

I fancy every one would have agreed tiiat the most

promising man in the Class of 'y^ was Elisha T- ; a

handsome fellow, of good family, with a fme education and
lots of ability, and quite well off. He and I roomed to-
gether in New York for a while after leaving college, and
he was awfully kind to me when I was ill. I remember an
odd labor-saving habit that he had. On Saturday nights
he would shave, take a hot bath, put on a clean "boiled
shirt" with the studs in place; in fact, dress himself com-
pletely, except for his boots and outer clothing, stretch
himself flat on his back, and go peacefully to sleep. As he

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

was able to sleep without changing his position a particle
he was all ready for church the next morning.

Later on he roomed with Joseph H. Choate, who was a
great friend of his. In fact, it was he who first introduced
me to Mr. Choate. Then came the Civil War and perhaps
army life made him restless; anyway, after that he went
steadily down in the world until at last his friends clubbed
together and got him into the Old Men's Home on Amster-
dam Avenue. He and Choate had started life pretty
evenly equipped; Choate ended his career honored the

world over and T died at almost the same time in an

old men's home. I wrote to Mr. Choate when he was
ambassador in London, asking him to contribute to the

fund for T , and he sent me fifty dollars, remarking in

his letter: "I have watched Elisha T 's long but sure

descent into the gutter with great interest and wonder; as
he seemed to have no vice it was a perfect mystery !"

But Mr. Choate put it too strongly. T never got

as far down as the gutter. He always preserved a neat,
pleasant appearance, and no one meeting him would have
thought him other than a gentleman of leisure in good
circumstances. I really believe the years he spent in the
Home were the happiest of his life. Luckily he was a
member of the Phi Kappa Chapter of Alpha Delta Phi,
and the Fraternity House at Columbia seemed to give him
everything he needed. He had a fund of anecdote and
sang good comic songs, and the young fellows grew really
fond of him. He died not long ago and I was present at
his funeral, quite an imposing affair, the Episcopal service
supplemented by certain fraternal ceremonies and attended
by all the brethren of the Columbia Chapter of Alpha
Delta Phi. His young friends spoke of him with regret
and affection. So perhaps his life was not such an utter
failure, after alL

96

AT COLLEGE

This story shows the good side of fraternity life, though
I can see the disadvantages of college fraternities as they
were in my time, how they cut you off from intimacies
outside and fostered cxckisiveness. But we stuck up for
each other on all occasions; a member of one's fraternity
could do no wrong; and loyalty through thick and thin is
a pretty good thing to count on in a friend.

My fraternity life and all its associations are among my
dearest recollections. I was a member of Phi Kappa,
founded in 1835; it was a senior society, i. e., one did not
wear a pin until senior year, and although boys became
members from freshman year up, their association with the
fraternity was kept a profound secret. The friendships
formed in it were something different from anything I have
experienced in after Hfe. The rivalry among the various
fraternities at Trinity was tremendous and the feeh'ng
intense; so much so that it was considered a deadly- insult
to even mention the name of a man's fraternity. If this
custom were trifled with in any way it was apt to be "a
word and a blow."

During the Civil War almost all the students of Trinity
went to the front, and the membership of the Phi Kappa
was reduced to one man, Hovey, afterward rector of the
fme old church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. This
splendid isolation made Hovey feci lonely, so he decided
to give up the fraternity and turned all the archives over
to a committee of the old graduates, by whom they were
burned, and joined a rival local fraternity called the L K. A.
It looked as if the Phi Kappa were extinct. However, in
1865, or thereabouts, eight or ten young men left St.
James's College in MaryLind and came to Trinity — St.
James's was also an Episcopal college and a very nice class
of fellows went there. It had long been a sort of custom
for men from St. James's to go to Trinity, and as many

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

of them had become members of Phi Kappa, the fraternity
was well known there and liked. These men got together
and decided that it would be a good idea to revive the Phi
Kappa, so they consulted me and I agreed to go to Trinity
and initiate them.

On my way up to Hartford I met Hovey in the train,
but I did not tell him of my errand. He told me how sorry
he was to leave the Phi Kappa — how fond he was of it —
how deeply he regretted that it had become extinct. I
hstened and made no observations. The boys were in-
itiated. Next morning when they all appeared with their
Phi Kappa pins it was a real triumph. Although I never
spoke of it again to Hovey, I think that he was sorry he
had been faint-hearted, for thenceforth the fraternity pros-
pered, and about 1880 it was merged in the Alpha Delta
Phi, one of the leading fraternities in Trinity and in many
other colleges. At one time there was a chapter at Harvard
and Joseph H. Choate was a member. Since his day all
the secret societies have been abolished there and Alpha
Delta Phi went with the rest.

Edward Coleman Jacobs was another of my college
friends — a nephew by marriage of Bishop H. C. Potter.
He was a talented fellow, made the Phi Beta Kappa, and
was reputed the best-dressed man in college. After grad-
uating at the Harvard Law School he went into the law
office of Mr. John H. Glover in New York. But the law
proved too sedate a mistress; he went West, travelled
among the Indians, and disappeared into space. It was
supposed that he had been murdered, but nothing was
ever known; only his clothing was found and his saddle,
marked with his name.

Horace C was about my most intimate friend. He

was the handsomest man in college, very well read, and

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AT COLLEGE

our finest orator for Fourth of July orations and poems.
He used to help me out with my compositions, and later
rewrote an article of mine, called "From Rome to Thrasy-
mene," an illustrated account of a trip I took in Italy in
1859. At the time we were both vastly pleased with the
result of his efforts, but I see now that he shrouded my
facts with such ample classic drapery that whatever local
color I had managed to get hold of was completely smoth-
ered.

I lost sight of Horace for years. One day I was riding
with Mr. Choate in Stockbridge when a boy passed us on
a bicycle, and Mr. Choate happened to remark that it was

young Horace C , who lived near by. So I jumped off

my horse and hurried across the road to see my dear old
friend. When he appeared I greeted him with effusion
and tried to talk about old times. But he only remarked:
"I scarcely remember those days, and I take no interest in
them whatever." So with a shake of his limp hand I took
my leave.

William W. Hayes, of Baltimore, was another handsome
and delightful fellow^ the best scholar in our class. He
could read an intricate problem in mathematics only once
and then go to the blackboard and write it down perfectly.
But he didn't stay long; his mother thought he was in too
fast a crowd at Trinity because, unhickily, he sent her a
photograph of his room with a bottle on the table; so he
finished his course at Kenyon College, Ohio. I met hmi
once only, several years later, and we had a fine talk about
old times and the Phi Kappa. He told me he still had
Phi Kappa painted on his trunk.

Ned Ferryman, Sidney Hull, and Alexander Preston,
all from Perrymansville, Maryland, had been friends from
boyhood and came to Trinity together. Preston was a

99

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

man of ability and became a good lawyer in Baltimore; he
married Miss Carroll of Maryland. When I have been
in Baltimore I have usually gone to see him. He kept
good trotting-horses and took me to drive in the park and
to lunch with him at the Maryland Club — "the grave of
reputations," as a friend of mine once called it as we were
passing. The cooking there is famous and one gets can-
vasback duck, crab salad, and fried hominy in perfection.

Then there was "Batt" Barrow, from St. Francisville,
Louisiana, a fine fellow with a beautiful tenor voice, who
never did a stroke of work or attended a recitation during
the time I knew him, so that at the end of his junior year
he left college. He was a devoted attendant on Miss
Nellie Marcy, daughter of General Marcy, of the United
States army; she afterward married General George B.
McCIellan. The last time I saw her was a few years ago
at an evening party at Mrs. William Draper's in New York.
She was still handsome in her old age and, as always, very
charming. She was at that moment carrying on an appar-
ently flirtatious conversation with Mr. John Bigelow, at
that time about ninety years old. Ah well, she was said
to be engaged to Batt Barrow in 1 856 ! I don't know why
they did not marry, because he was all that a woman might
admire in addition to being very rich, but I suppose he
lost everything in the Civil War and he died shortly after it.

After Doctor Goodwin our next president, or "Prex,"
as we used to call him, was Doctor Samuel Eliot. I loved
this man — the finest gentleman, the best scholar, and the
best Christian that I have ever known. He graduated at
the head of his class at Harvard, and had a peculiarly
refined and charming personahty. In his classes he put
every boy on his honor. We were great friends from his
first coming to Trinity till the day of his death. I owe a

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AT COLLEGE

great deal to him, to his kindly advice, his example in
every way; no young man ever had a better friend.

Professor Brocklesby was our teacher in mathematics
at Trinity. I became quite a friend of his and used to
draw for him queer objects, animalcuke and such things.
He was a most unworldly man and easily embarrassed.
Although such a learned mathematician, he once got so
balled up at the grocer's trying to solve the problem of
seven pounds of sugar at seven cents a pound that he had
to give it up and leave the result to the grocer. He had a
humorous turn of mind. In those days some of our South-
ern boys used to chew tobacco and, I am ashamed to say,
to spit on the floor. Professor Brocklesby reproved them
in the memorable words, now the dryest of chestnuts, but
original with him: "Those who expectorate on this floor
need not expect-to-rate high in this class."

Mr. Belden, one of the tutors, was another nice fellow
who had been at college with my brother Harry. He was
always kind to me, but on one occasion I was particularly
grateful to him. It happened in this way: The first two
years I was at college the bell rang at half past five in the
morning for recitation at six o'clock; then came chapel at
seven, with breakfast right after it. Of course in winter
it was pitch-dark when we started out at six, and as the
recitation-rooms were very badly lighted we used to take
our own lights, sometimes a piece of candle with or without
a candlestick, sometimes a small lamp. Often in wmtcr
the snow was deep, and as the recitation-room was in
another building we had to wade in snow up to our knees.
There was a boy in our class named Sam Johnson — he
afterward married Mary Verplanck— I think he was a
relation of Sir William Johnson, so celebrated among the
Indians in early colonial days. Sam Johnson had been

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

captain in Everest's Military School and rather bossed our
class. He carried a little swagger-stick, and as he was apt
to use it, he was considered a trifle arrogant; I liked him,
though — he was a good fellow. In class he sat next to me
on one of the low pine benches without cushions that were
our seats. Sam had a bit of candle which he put on the
floor opposite us, and I roHed up bits of paper and threw
them at his candle until I put it out. He relighted it and
remarked that if I did that again he would slap my face,
whereupon I did it again. He did not slap my face, but
said he would lick me after school; then there being a dis-
turbance Mr. Belden caHed us to order. Johnson and his
friend Strong Vincent went out first and I foHowed. As
I reached the stone hafl outside I saw Johnson with his coat
ofi" and Vincent standing by holding his coat and books;
Johnson squared off and came at me. He was twice my
size, but he didn't know a thing about boxing, so he did
not touch me in the whole fight, while I got in two or three
blows and the blood poured down his face. We closed,
but I got his head "in chancery," and he was quite helpless
while I rained blows on him. At this delightful moment
Mr. Belden rushed out and separated us; but I knew very
well that he had suspected what was going to happen and
had wasted a Httle extra time arranging the books on his
desk. At afl events, he did not come out until the fight
was practicafly over. That afternoon, skating on the Hog,
I got lots of congratulations for having ficked Johnson,
and felt just as pleased with myself as if I had not been
entirely in the wrong.

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CHAPTER VI

TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

"Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find.
Cooped in their winged sea-girt citadel,
As breezes rise and fall and billows swell,
Till on some jocund morn — lo, land and all is well."

— Byron.

The autumn after I graduated from Trinity College I
started for Cambridge, intending to enter the Harvard Law-
School, armed with numerous letters of introduction,
among them one to Mr. Longfellow and another to Doctor
Theophilus Parsons, dean of the law school, from Doctor
Samuel Ehot. On the way I stopped at Hartford to see
my old friends, but was taken ill there and returned to
New York, where I was laid up completely, and this caused
me to change all my plans. This illness had come from a
sprain, which I got the summer before when Jack and I
were on our way to New Hamburg to pay a visit to Mr.
Phihp Van Rensselaer. I chanced to see a snake in the
road, and in jumping down from our high box wagon to
kill it I gave my leg a wrench which in the end gave me a
good deal of trouble; at last I consulted my old friend
Doctor George Elliot— by this time I was awfully lame—
and he said I was run down and advised a long sea-voyage.

So we began to look for a sailing-ship and finally chose
the bark Celestia, a beautiful little clipper-built craft of
three hundred tons, with a cargo of grain, bound for Sicily
via Madeira, whence she was to return with a cargo of
fruit. Doctor Elliot, a charming fellow familiarly known

103

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

as "handsome George," bandaged me skilfully with what
he called a "spica bandage," a contrivance of which he was
very proud, warranted not to come off or loosen until I
reached Madeira, where I could have it renewed by another
doctor.

On a gloomy, cold, windy afternoon in late November,
Gouv, Jack, and I were rowed out in a small boat to the
Celestiay which was lying off the Battery. Several weary
hours, which we had previously spent waiting in a ship-
chandler's office in Water Street, had added to the sadness
of our day. My brothers watched me climb up the ship's
side and waved farewells.

I found three passengers on board: Mr. James O. Put-
nam, of Buffalo, a distinguished lawyer, who proved to be
a well-educated and agreeable man; his friend, another
lawyer, Mr. Noxon, of Syracuse, and the Reverend Mr.
Reynolds, a sad, gloomy, Presbyterian minister, who was
very homesick and took a pessimistic view of life in general.
He told me several times ''that to die to him would be
gain." Both he and Mr. Putnam were travelling for their
health; Mr. Noxon was the only well man among us. This
did not seem a very cheerful send-off, but after our sea-
sickness wore off — we were all seasick — I found the party
pleasant enough. I have forgotten to mention another
passenger, more cheerful than the others, a small black pig
from Africa, who was a splendid sailor and trotted briskly
about the deck, though how he maintained his equilibrium
on his slippery little hoofs was more than I could under-
stand. Captain Howes was a regular down-east skipper,
a Cape Codder, tall, spare, and athletic; his trousers were
short and he wore habitually a black frock coat, carpet
slippers, and ribbed woollen stockings; but he was a first-
class sailor and would stand balancing himself on the deck,

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TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

no matter how rough it was, directing a long Norwegian
how to steer, ordering him to mind the wheel and keep
the ship straight: "Keep your weather eye lifted, and
steer so that you could hit the eye of a mosquito." One
day he spied this hapless Nor^vegian, who was very un-
handy, far out on a dipping yard trying to reef a sail and
not having much success at it. He was leaning far over,
his person much exposed from behind, quite unaware that
the captain was watching him with disapproval. Suddenly
the captain dropped his carpet slippers, tore up the rigging
like a cat and, without uttering a word of warning, ran along
the yard and, by way of a gentle reminder, gave the poor
Norwegian a tremendous kick a posteriori that nearly
knocked him off into the wildly running sea.

Our cabin, only about a dozen steps down from the
deck, was small and square, with our berths around it and
the captain's room in the corner; in the centre was the
dining-table, above which the skylight opened on to the
deck. The sash was generally open, and when a large wave
came over, which happened several times, we were drenched
and the dinner well salted. The food was plentiful but
plain: huge joints of boiled mutton, corned beef and cab-
bage, etc. The captain presided at the head of the table
and carved, and, incidentally, picked his teeth with the
carving-fork. My berth was directly at the bottom of
the companionway, and at the foot of my bed stood a
barrel filled with most delicious red-cheeked apples. I
remember one day, as I crept up on deck feeling pretty
sick, I met Mr. Putnam holding one of these apples in his
hand (he was homesick as well as seasick), pensively regard-
ing it with a longing look and murmuring: "I wish I were
now where you grew !" It mattered not to him where that
land might be so long as it was dry.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

It blew a gale all the way across the ocean directly in
our favor, and although we only had a few of the sails up,
we ran very fast. The waves were mountain-high, and our
little ship tossed about like a cork, first trembHng on the
top of a great wave and then dashing down into a vast
abyss, where for a moment nothing was to be seen but the
huge green walls of water around us. For several days
we made nearly three hundred miles a day, and came in
sight of Madeira in eighteen days. As there is only an
open roadstead at Madeira and no real harbor, we could
not come to anchor; so for nearly five days and nights we
beat back and forth; again and again we would approach
the shore so that we could almost talk to the inhabitants,
and then run out of sight of land. In one of these trips we
saw a large brig dashed to pieces on the rocks, and saw the
people on board cast ashore and struggling up the cliffs.

At last there came a delightful calm, and we landed at
evening in a haven of peace and beauty. Never did food
taste so good as at the excellent hotel to which we went.
The first thing next morning we found our way into a
lovely garden adjoining the hotel, whose charming walks,
laid in colored flints in patterns, were strewn with oranges
and pomegranates, scattered by the late storm. There for
the first time I saw banana-trees laden with fruit and
tasted the dehcious custard-apple. Madeira seemed to me
then the loveliest spot on earth. Partly because it was the
first foreign place that I had seen, I was afraid when I was
about to visit it again forty years later that, after seeing
so many other famous places, I might be disappointed, but
I found it little changed and as dehghtful as ever. No
wheeled vehicles are used there, only little sledges drawn
by diminutive oxen, but they have delightful saddle-
horses, and I explored the Alpine-Iike tropical mountain

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TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

passes, with a "burroquiro," brandishing a horsehair fly-
brush, who clung to my horse's tail, keeping up, no matter
how fast I rode, and was ready to hold my stirrup when I
dismounted. Everywhere were flowers; even the smallest
garden was filled with color; the beautiful bougainvilica
over all, heliotropes and geraniums traihng on every wall,
and all our greenhouse plants growing wild. Altogether
it is an enchanting place with a most delightful climate,
without any frost or dew, and with an even winter temper-
ature night and day of about 70°.

We were royally entertained by the hospitable residents,
and as visitors were then rather rare and I brought excel-
lent letters to Messrs. Newton, Gordon and Cossart, the
great wine-merchants, we were invited to dine by Mr.
Cossart. Mr. Marsh, who had been American consul for
many years, was absent, but his vice-consul entertained
us in his lovely house, the porch of which was overhung
by poinsettias in full bloom. At these dinners we learned
what real Madeira wine was; it is not known there simply
as "Madeira," but by specific names such as "Sercial,"
"Bual," "Malmsey," etc., and great vintages are desig-
nated by their special years. When I rode through the
country the burroquiro knew where to stop and rest, and
wherever that might be a man always came out filling a
brimming glass from a pitcher of beautiful amber wine, a
few milreis satisfying him in return.

After a delightful visit in Madeira, our vessel having
discharged her cargo and being well supplied with quan-
tities of delicious fruit and great bunches of bananas hang-
ing in the rigging, we sailed away one evening over a calm
sea for our next stopping-place, Gibraltar. The first night
out, about three o'clock, when I was fast asleep in my
berth, I was awakened by loud and prolonged shouting by

107

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

some one in mortal terror. It was the mate at the wheel,
caHfng to the captain. I heard the captain leap out of his
berth and rush on deck, then came more excited shouting,
and then a deafening crash, as if a train of cars going at
full speed had run off the track and were jolting over the
ties. It was but a step from my berth to the deck. The
dawn was only just breaking, but I could see that every-
thing was crashing down. The masts and rigging of our
ship were being flung about, and all tangled up with our
rigging were the spars of a gigantic steamer, towering aloft
and looking as if she were right on top of us. It proved to
be the Great Britain, the largest steamer, I believe, then
afloat. (Her launching some years before had been a
great event; she was fuH-rigged like a sailing-ship, but had
all the appliances of a steamer as wefl.) It appeared that
the steersman on the steamer had been asleep, and waked
just before the ships came together. Our captain, with
great presence of mind, cafled out to him to put his wheel
hard up, at the same moment putting our wheel hard down,
with the result that the steamer went slightly to the right
and our vessel to the left, so that she struck us in the bow
instead of right in the middle, where she would have cut
us in two and sunk us at once.

So here we were, all lying perfectly still on a calm, misty
sea, fastened together ! In a moment the big ship's boats
were out and I could see them in the dim gray morning light,
manned with crews resting on their oars, for they thought
that we were about to sink and were coming to pick us up.
Already they were calling to us that they were bound for
Melbourne and were ready to carry us there. (When I first
ran on deck, when everything was crashing about us and we
thought we were going down, the only man who showed any
fear was the Reverend Mr. Reynolds, who seemed not at

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TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

all desirous of embracing this opportunity of gratifying his
pious wish, so often expressed, that "to die would Ix- to
him gain." He was apparently scared bhie.) There we lay
until daylight, when the condition of the two sliips could
be plainly seen. The steamer was but httle damaged, but
we were in such a state that she waited by us nearly all
day, until it was found that although dreadfully crippled
our ship was not injured below the water-line, and seemed
to be still seaworthy, and would not sink. The steamer
had struck us about twenty feet back of the bow; so our
figure-head and the whole of the bow and the bowsprit
carrying the jibs were gone, the foremast was cut off close
to the deck, the mainmast almost entirely carried away,
leaving only a stump large enough to support the mainsail,
and the top of the mizzenmast with its topsail was gone.
The men set to work with axes and chopped everything
free, so that by evening little but our hull remained. When
all this loose stuff had drifted away we found we had but
two sails, the mainsail and the slooplike sail on the miz-
zenmast, and only a part of the hull, as in addition to the
loss of the entire bow a great piece twenty feet long had
been torn off one side of the stern. When the debris had
been cleared away, the captain of the steamer came on
board and urged us to go to Melbourne with him, but we
declined, and feeling satisfied that we could take care of
ourselves, he sailed away and left us to our fate.

Later on the same day we sighted a fishing-smack that
came alongside, and after some talk with its captain Mr.
Putnam arranged with him to take him back to Madeira,
so he clambered down into the little boat accompanied by
his baggage, and that was the last we ever saw of him,
but we learned later that he reached ALadeira safcl> . lie
begged us to accompany him, but we preferred to stick to

109

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

our ship. On the second day our captain made up his
mind that his best course was to sail straight for Gibraltar,
about seven hundred miles distant, and asked us what we
wanted to do. We told him that we would trust the whole
matter to him and believed that he could bring us safely
into port. The sea was perfectly calm, with a gentle fair
wind following astern, and after only seven delightful days
we were safely at anchor in the splendid harbor of Gibral-
tar, where the advent of our strange-looking craft caused
some amusement.

Gibraltar was then, as now, a most cosmopolitan place,
the harbor crowded with wonderful ships from all four
quarters of the globe, and the streets gay with Arabs in
coats of many colors. I found the deck of the Celestia
was a fine place from which to make sketches, and I enjoyed
the two weeks we spent hving on the ship and visiting the
sights of the town, before we could find another bark
bound for Messina, our original destination. She was a
nice little vessel of three hundred tons, named the Emblem,
commanded by another down-east skipper. Captain Davis,
who proved to be a jolly man, witty and hospitable, like
many of these old-fashioned New England sailors. Like
the Celestia, the Emblem was bound for Sicily for a load of
lemons and oranges.

We were about a week going to Messina, for it blew a
gale all the way and was awfully rough. We were at sea
on Christmas Day. Among the few books I had brought
with me was a volume of Longfellow's poems just pub-
lished, and I read for the first time "My Lost Youth":
"The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." I also
had a copy of Murray's guide-book for South Italy,
and Mr. Noxon used to read parts of it aloud. In the
accounts of the galleries he always pronounced sarcoph-

iio

TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

agus with the accent on pha, which sounded so odd that
I have always remembered it; indeed, it is almost the only

thing that I recall about him. He and Mr. R remained

on the ship at Messina while she was waiting for her return
cargo and went back to New York in her. I stayed at
the Hotel Trinacria, a fine hotel in an old palace, well
kept but guiltless of a bathroom, like most of the Italian
hotels of that day. I visited it again with my daughter
in 1907 and took tea there, and found it still delightful,
but when I passed the site after the earthquake in 1908
not a vestige of it remained.

At Messina on this first visit I had a letter of introduc-
tion to Mr. Sanderson, a member of the great house of
Ingham and Company, the wine-merchants; he was an
accomplished man, who painted, and played the violin, and
spoke four or five languages. He was extremely polite and
took me out to his villa in the country, where after dining
with his beautiful Italian wife he showed me his charming
gardens and his groves of oranges and lemons. Mr.
Ingham, the head of the house, married the Duchess of
Santa Rosalia, a member of one of the most distinguished
families in Italy, with splendid palaces in Palermo. I heard
that when he introduced any one to her he said: "Allow
me to present you to the Duchess of Santa Rosalia, Mrs.
Ingham, my wife." The duchess could neither read nor
write, for like many of the great Italian nobles in that day,
she had no education whatever.

While I was at Messina I drove out in a cab to Scylla
and Charybdis, which seemed not at all a dangerous spot,
hardly more than a little ripple— perhaps it has gone oil
since classic times. The beggars there were peculiarly
offensive. It is at least a two-mile drive from there to
Messina, but one husky beggar, who was deaf and dumb

III

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

and could only emit inarticulate noises, followed grunting
behind my cab all the way, and in the end had to be
rewarded with a tip.

I went to Naples by steamer at night, lighted on my
way by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The lava was
pouring out from the side of the mountain, but it was still
possible to reach the crater, and I determined to go up,
though I was still lame from my illness and could not walk;
so I hired two bearers, who carried me in a chair up the
face of the cone, over the masses of recently discharged
lava. Standing on the top, we were able to look down
into the crater. It was a wild scene — "hell with the lid
taken off" — tremendous clouds of smoke circling around,
but no fire or lava. The lava-stream from the side, how-
ever, was flowing down into the plain, overwhelming houses
and vineyards in its way. My bearers then took me one
on each side and rushed me down the cone knee-deep in
ashes, an almost perpendicular descent, until we reached
the Hermitage, where we had lunch and **Iacrima Cristi"
wine, which is grown on the slope of the mountain. By
that time it was growing dark and on our way down we
passed near an expanse of lava, cool enough to walk over,
but the subterranean fire here and there glowed through
it and one seemed to be walking on a lake of fire. We
amused ourselves by twisting out bits of the still-burning
lava with sticks and pressing coins into them, some cop-
per, some silver. In coming down the driver overturned
the cab and I was thrown out, scattering my coins as I
fell, and, strange to say, when the man picked them up he
found only the copper and none of the silver ones !

If I were to describe the rest of my travels in 1859 it
would sound like a page of Baedeker, for I saw all the
usual sights. Like most young people, I kept a desultory

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TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

diary, and I find there an occasional note that may be of
some slight interest to-day. In Naples on Sunday the
church service was held in a room at the British Legation,
and you had to pay three carhni before going in, buying
your seat just as you would at the theatre. "The preaching
was the worst I ever heard and the sermons were always
about burnt sacrifices." After fifty years we still some-
times suffer from that kind of sermon.

The carnival was fine in Florence that year and some of
the turnouts were magnificent — four horses, with postil-
ions and outriders and everything in style. The ladies,
then as now, threw smiles and bouquets right and left, but
unluckily none of them fell on me. I remember being
shocked by the shortness of the ladies' dresses ! One im-
mense van was filled with men wearing lion masks over
their faces and dressed in the extreme of the English fashion,
loud checks, tiny straw hats with half-inch brims, and eye-
glasses, all of them engaged in attentively reading Mur-
ray's guide-books. This took immensely, as jokes on the
English were popular in Italy at that time.

I went by diligence from Florence to Bologna. At Bo
logna, when I went to some church or other to see some pic-
tures by Guido — I seem to have had a terrible liking for
Guido when I was twenty-three! — I saw before the altar a
splendid coffin containing the remains of the Princess Pepoli,
sister to Murat, who had died a few days before and was
lying there in state. Though I don't like Guido nowadays,
some of my admirations have remained unchanged; I am
pleased to find that my diary describes the statue of
Coleoni in Venice as '*the finest equestrian statue I have
ever seen." I added that he "was the first to use firearms
in warfare." Is this true, I wonder? It was in \'enicc
that I caught a glimpse of Taglioni at the post-office.

113

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

My stay in Rome I shall leave for another chapter, and
only one incident in Paris stands out clearly. I saw the
Emperor Louis Napoleon and Eugenie driving in a car-
riage, on the way to his great victories of Solferino and
Magenta. He was just at the height of his glory. They
passed close to where I stood; I saw that the empress had
been crying.

In London I spent days and days at the National Gal-
lery, looking up pictures I had known only in engravings.
My diary indicates that I was irritated at finding the
Turners hung next to the Claudes. "They stand no com-
parison with Claude Lorraine, notwithstanding Mr. Ruskin,
and are so imaginative that one cannot tell what they are
about." What would I have thought of the "Futurists"
and "Vorticists" of to-day! At the Vernon Gallery I
liked the Hogarths, naturally enough, and also the Land-
seers, but I hope it was as dogs and not as pictures that I
admired the latter.

At the Zoo I saw the two hippopotami presented to
Queen Victoria by the Viceroy of Egypt, and a "lovely col-
lection of serpents." I went to hear Spurgeon hold forth
to seven thousand people at the Surrey Music Hall, but
thought him an unctuous oily "Chadband" kind of a fel-
low and wondered in what his power lay, though he had a
strong pair of lungs and the gift of the gab. I thought
Charles Kean in "Henry V" better worth seeing. And I
was thrilled by the horses and turnouts in Hyde Park; it
was the height of the season and one day I saw thirteen
four-horse drags collected there, driven by various well-
known men — a club on the way to Greenwich to eat a
whitebait dinner — and I was surprised that these scions of
the nobility looked, in their cutaway coats and brass but-
tons, for all the world like coachmen.

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TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

My greatest day in London and one of the best-remem-
bered of my whole life was Derby Day. I shall describe it
rather fully, for some of the details may have changed in
fifty years. It was the second day of the Epsom meeting
and was more than usually crowded. I had a splendid
seat in the grand stand, overlooking the whole field. An
American lady happened to be sitting next to me, and I
remember hearing her ask an English lady whether the
horses ever trotted, having our American trotting-matches
in mind, and I was amused at the English lady's answer:
**No, they gallop just as fast as they can." The course
was of turf, about two miles and a half long, and it was
cleared by a hundred policemen in an incredibly short
space of time, though it was covered with people, and,
w^hat w^as more, it was kept clear. The horses first walked
past the grand stand and then ran back and took their
places at the starting-point; people did not seem to take
much interest in the starting. In front of the grand stand
was the betting-ring and I saw a man there who had staked
twelve thousand pounds. In the first race, half a mile,
there w^ere eleven horses started and it was won by
Orchehill ridden by Fordham. The second race, about
two miles, was the "great event," in which thirty-three
horses were entered and thirty ran; it was won by Musjid,
ow^ned by Sir Joseph Hawley and ridden by Wells. I
never saw anything equal to the excitement as the thirty
horses rushed by. Musjid only won by a short distance
and there were a dozen close behind. Another race was
run by three horses and won by Fisherman, ridden also
by Wells; it must have been a great feather in his cap to
have won two races on the same day. This was the most
beautiful race I ever saw, the horses running neck and
neck.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

But, on the whole, the horses were not quite as fine as
I had expected them to be, and I thought that they would
have made a poor show in one of our four-mile races at
home. I picked out the winning horse in three out of the
four races that I saw, and might have won my fortune had
I bet.

The racing was splendid, but I enjoyed the excitement
of the motley crowd even more; lots of ginger-beer stalls,
boxing-matches, running-matches, nigger minstrels and
thimbleriggers. West End swells and East End paupers,
all gathered together. Every available means of trans-
portation was forced into service — horses that had evidently
never been in harness before and others that seemed likely
never to be there again. The city was deserted and all
the world at Epsom. In the evening I went to the cele-
brated cider- cellars, where law cases were tried, and heard
the Sickles case very well argued. To my mind, if ever a
murderer deserved to be hung it was Sickles.

I was young enough to envy the Eton boys playing
cricket out on the meadows and rowing on the river. Their
race-boats were splendid, finer than anything we had in
America then, some of them with ten oars, and the rowing
the finest I had ever seen, although we thought we rowed
well at home. I walked some distance out into the coun-
try and met some boys bird's-nesting, others fishing and
shooting, and all having such a nice time that no wonder
I wrote in my diary: '' It seems worth while to go to a school
like that."

I shall not dwell on my trip to Ireland or my stay in
the Engfish lake country, for I want to tell you about my
most delightful visit at Mr. David Maitland's place in Scot-
land. I have spoken before of my godfather, Mr. Maitland,
a devoted friend of my father and mother. After making

ii6

TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

a fortune in America he returned to Scotland and bought
back the old family place, Barcaple, in Kirkcudbrightshire,
that had gone out of the family. His brother Joseph went
to Australia and, I beheve, made a huge fortune there in
sheep.

I went by the coach to Castle Douglas and found Mr.
Maitland waiting there for me when I got down; although
we had not met for several years we recognized each other
at once. He had not changed very much, his cheeks were
still flushed with health, and he had the elastic step of a
young man, as he was accustomed to shooting and fishing
and could walk his ten miles as well as ever. As always,
he was very well dressed and the picture of neatness, wear-
ing a gray morning suit and gaiters, and was addicted to
the very same enormous standing collars that I remem-
bered, with a check cravat tied in a bow.

Barcaple had been a wild half-moorland farm, about a
thousand acres, which Mr. Maitland had drained and put
in beautiful order; the house itself was of stone, surrounded
by lovely lawns, shrubbery, and trees. In the charming
garden were thousands of rhododendrons and all the new
shrubs and trees lately introduced from China, and at one
time there were Cherokee roses from South Canjh'na,
though he said he had never been able to grow them in
New York.

The first thing I saw when I went into the parlor was
my father's miniature and a Httle drawing of Danskammer
by Wheatfield. I wonder if the latter is still in existence.
(Not long before his death Mr. Maitland sent me the
miniature, and two large silver pitchers that my mother
had given him; they have stood on my sideboard ever
since.)

Mr. Maitland's dinners were as good as th6y had always

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

been in New York, and every evening after family prayers,
which were attended by all the servants, the butler would
bring in a silver tray, with Scotch whiskey, sugar, and lem-
ons for a "night-cap." I was interested in seeing in the
stables the chestnut mare, Jessie jMorland, now very old,
sired by Sir Henry and raised by my father at Danskam-
mer, which Mr. Maitland had taken to Scotland. He told
me that he had had more than a dozen fine colts from her,
some of which had been on the turf, and that he kept her
as a memento of some of the happiest days of his life.

His game-preserve was magnificent, a great moor, pur-
ple with heather, through which ran the River Dee. As
one walked about grouse would rise under one's feet. In
the month of June when I was there quantities of pheasants
were setting under the shrubbery in the lawns and gardens,
so tame that Air. Alaitland could lift them up while they
were on their nests and examine the eggs. Scattered over
the moor we saw the graves of the old Covenanters, whose
names were preserved by "Old Mortality's" faithful chisel.

"Gray, recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places;
Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep and homes of the silent vanished races
And winds austere and pure."

The scene of "Guy Mannering," also, was laid near
Barcaple, in the ocean caves. I saw Campbell's beech-
tree — "Woodman, spare that tree" — still standing in the
garden of one of Mr. Maitland's friends, Mr. "Watty"
McCuIIough, and another day we went to Lord Selkirk's
place, St. Mary's Isle, and took afternoon tea with the
family. They showed us the silver on the table, which
was the same tea-set that John Paul Jones had stolen on
one of his raids; his father had been a gardener on the

ii8

TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

Selkirks' place. Lady Selkirk said that the tea-leaves were
still in the teapot when he returned it, as it had been
picked up from the table when they were at tea. (Perhaps
I ought not to speak of it as stealing, for he did return it !)

On Sunday we went to the Established Church. The
kirk had a two-story pulpit, in the upper part of which the
minister held forth, while in the lower the precentor was
stationed with a tuning-fork and set the tunes for the
hymns and psalms. They had a canny arrangement for
saving time. After the morning service and sermon were
over, we had a recess and went out into the graveyard to
eat our lunches, which we had brought with us; then we
went back into the church and had another service and
sermon, in this way saving a long drive. But it was a
pretty wearisome performance.

One Sunday morning in Scotland I was sketching, sit-
ting out in a field by myself some distance from the high-
way, when a party of men on their way to church happened
to pass along the road. They stopped and watched me for
some time; then an oldish man climbed laboriously over
the fence and, crossing the field to me, said: "Young man,
do you know that you are breaking the Sabbath?" I said:
''What business is it of yours?" He said: "It's my busi-
ness to warn you of the error of your ways." I answered
ungratefully that he would probably celebrate the Sabbath
by getting drunk, and after looking at me a moment in
sour silence he went back to his friends.

Mr. Maitland took me to Caley, one of the most
beautiful places in ScotLind, belonging to Murray Stewart,
but I enjoyed most of all my visits to Stewart Maitland,
my godfather's nephew, who lived near by. Mrs. Stewart
Maitland was an American, a Miss Lynch from New ^'ork,
daughter of Dominick Lynch, and an intimate friend of

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

my mother, who was godmother to one of the girls. Their
house was modern, but there was an old ruin on the place,
Compstone Castle, after which it was named. They were
all so hospitable that I spent day after day at their house
with their large family of children, and had the time of my
life. We went on delightful picnics, often to bathe in the
sea at a place called Burn-foot. I remember I carried little
David into the sea in my arms. He was a baby then, but
afterward he was head of the family, and now, if he is still
living, he must be a gray-haired man and, alas ! all those
other dear people have long been in their graves. But it
was a happy time to remember and it warms my old heart
to recall it.

It was not the shooting-season, but we had splendid
walks over the moor, the heather elastic under one's foot.
There was fme salmon-fishing in the Dee, but it was not
the season for that either, for the dry weather had sent all
the salmon to the sea; however, there were certain things
that could be killed out of season and Mr. Maitland had a
gamekeeper who kept ferrets. So he gave me a gun and
I used to walk all over the place with the gamekeeper.
He would put one of the ferrets into a rabbit-burrow and
presently a rabbit would come kiting out and I would
shoot it — ferrets are trained not to attack and eat the rab-
bits, but only to drive them out of their holes. In a strip
of marshy ground we killed several ducks and in an orchard
grown up with fern a great hare started up. I remember
how long his legs looked as I shot him; he was an enormous
one, the first I had ever seen. We took him home and
the next day he was served up in hare soup.

Dundrennon Abbey, a magnificent old ruin, belongs to
the Alaitlands, and there all of the family are buried. My
godfather showed me the spot where he was to be buried,

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TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

and doubtless he now lies there— that line old man with his
leonine head, snow-white hair, and ruddy face. Dundren-
non was the last house where Mary Queen of Scots stayed
on that sad journey to England whence she never returned.

While I was at Mr. Maitland's I went to Kirtleton,
my grandfather's old country place in Dumfriesshire. You
will remember that Colonel Armstrong was a Scotchman.
He was a direct descendant of the much-sung Border chief-
tain Johnnie Armstrong, executed by James V of Scotland
when he undertook to pacify the realm. It was not alto-
gether surprising that he should have begun with my ances-
tors— the old chronicle says: "The Armestrongges of Lid-
dersdaill had repoorted presumptuously that thay woodc
not be ordoured, naither by the king of Scottes thair sov-
eraine lorde nor by the king of England, but after suche
maner as thaire faders had used afore thayme." More-
over, **the said Armestrongges had avaunted thaymselves
to be the destruction of twoe and fifty parisshe churches
in Scotteland, beside the unlawful and ungracious attemp-
tates by thaym committed withynne Einglande."

So Johnnie and all his men were captured — although he
was "als guid ane chiftaine as evir was upoun the borderis
and sustained the number of XXIIII weill-horsed gentilmen
with him" — and safely hanged on growing trees on the
little sandy plateau at Caerlanrig, where no trees grow
to-day — the ballads say that it was because of the un-
just sentence that the trees withered away. Johnnie's old
ruined tower of Gilnockie still stands on the Tweed near
Canobie. I made a little drawing of it. I also made a
sketch of Kirtleton, when I went there one day to sec
what the old place was like. It belonged at that time to
the Honorable Mrs. Murray, but when my brother Gouv
went there in 1871 he found it rented to a farmer named

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Franklin and no longer kept up as a gentleman's place,
though the farm was in fine order. Mrs. Franklin was very
pleased to see Gouv and gave him a glass of wine. An old
sheep-dog greeted him in a friendly way and she remarked
that he did not usually speak to strangers, but was wise
enough to know that Gouv had a right there.

I met a Doctor Carlisle while I was in Scotland, who
lived near Kirtleton and was able to tell me lots of
anecdotes about my family, especially a festive old party
called "Ned of the Heuck," my grandfather's brother and
sheriff of the county. He was once at dinner with his
friends when it was announced that the house had taken
fire, whereupon he said to his guests: "Let's have another
drink, and then go and put out the fire !"

When I left Barcaple Mr. Maitland blew me off to
a trip to Edinburgh. He wouldn't let me pay for a single
thing, and when I protested he said: "Just think how many
times your horses have been to Newburgh for me!" We
travelled by stage-coach on top, and Stewart Maitland
went with us. On the way we passed Glenae House, a
fine place on a hill surrounded by beautiful w^oods, belong-
ing to the Dalzells, which Mr. Maitland pointed out to
me because my grandfather's sister, Anne Armstrong, had
married Robert Dalzell. While we were in Edinburgh we
dined with Mr. Maitland's brother, who had the title of
Lord Barcaple, given him when he was solicitor-general of
Scotland; another brother had received the title of Lord
Dundrennon after the abbey that belonged to them, but
neither title was hereditary. The Maitlands are a dis-
tinguished family; the Earl of Lauderdale is head of the
house, and Admiral Maitland, who carried Napoleon to
exile in St. Helena, was an uncle of my Mr. Maitland.

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TRAVELS AND A SHIPWRECK

Of course I went to Melrose, and while lunching at the
inn I met a Mr. Pringle who lived at Galashiels, an elderly
gentleman who seemed to take a fancy to me and asked
me to go home with him and spend the night. I accepted
his invitation and we arrived at his house in time for dinner,
and afterward we went out in the long Scottish twilight
to a club that he belonged to, where they had a bowling-
green, and there on a closely clipped lawn I played my
first and last game of bowls with several of his elderly
friends. They were interested in me, a young American,
and were most kind and hospitable. Later in the evening
we all assembled at Mr. Pringle's house, where we gossiped
and drank hot whiskey punch and talked about Bobby
Burns. Next morning at breakfast I noticed the haivd-
some silver on the table and said jokingly to my host:
"You ought not to ask strangers like myself to your house,
you might lose your spoons !" We were sitting at a round
table, he, his maiden sister, and myself, and at this remark
I felt him kick me under the table; evidently he did not
want his sister to know that I was a perfect stranger. The
Scotch are exceedingly hospitable and I think particularly
so to Americans.

After bidding good-by to Mr. Maitland at Edinburgh
I took a fine walking trip through the Rob Roy country,
stopping at Strath Ire, whence the MacGregors sent out
the fiery cross to rouse the clans, and where I made a
sketch of Rob Roy's grave and an old ruined cottage near
by. I made the acquaintance of an artist sketching at
Loch Vail, and took a walk with him, finding him a pleas-
ant fellow from whom I was sorry to part. I learned
afterward that he was Noel Paton, a well-known Edm-
burgh painter. I remember writing to my brother that

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Paton got three or four hundred pounds for his pictures.
I fancy I was already hoping to persuade my family that
an artist's career was not always a disastrous one.

My walk took several days. The twilights were so
long that I could read my guide-book easily at half past
nine o'clock, and in the evening I would stop at some
quaint little inn, where sometimes I got delicious broiled
salmon-steaks for supper, and sometimes oat-cake and
whiskey and nothing else whatever. I finished my Scottish
experiences with a trip to the Pass of Glencoe. I am told
that this sad valley is unchanged after the passing of fifty
years.

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CHAPTER VII

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A ^'OUNG MAN

"This Is the end of town I love the best.
O, lovely the hour of light from the burning west —
Of light that lingers and fades from the shadowy square."

— Gilder.

I heard to-day, 1917, that old Delmonico's, on the cor-
ner of Broad and Beaver Streets, was closed; It moved there,
I think, in 1846, and I do not remember the time when it
was not open and flourishing. It is sad that Delmonico's
and Florian's in Venice should both be closing on account
of the war. This place of Delmonico's had a flavor of
Italy about it because of the marble columns at the corner,
which had been brought, it was said, from Pompeii. I
beheve the original Delmonico brothers had a pastry-shop
in William Street in 1828, where the '* female members of the
family dispensed bonbons, pates and confections," but of
the branches in my remembrance the one at Broad and
Beaver Streets is the father. They had a "quick-lunch"
counter with a fascinating array of tarts, eclairs, and rum-
cakes, and it was my favorite lunching-place for years. It
was at this Beaver Street place that I took kmch with my
dear Gouv the day before I entered college and had such
good apple fritters; we had a table on the Beaver Street side.

There used to be a branch in the Stevens House on
Broadway near Rector Street; later they had a place in
the Grinnells' old house on the corner of Fourteenth Street
and Fifth Avenue, where they had a fine ballroom, and it
was here that a famous ball was given — the "Morris and

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

HoIIins Ball." I remember going to an entertainment
there when a collection of pictures was raffled for the
benefit of the Sanitary Fair in 1864. All the artists con-
tributed, among others Oliver Stone, who gave a sketch
he had made of Miss Helen Neilson, afterward my wife.
Mrs. Lewis Rutherfurd knew a great many of the artists,
and when she asked Stone if he would make a sketch for
the fair, he said he would if Miss Helen Neilson would sit
for him. Mrs. Rutherfurd was the mother of Stuyvesant
Rutherfurd, who changed his name to Rutherfurd Stuy-
vesant when he became Mr. Peter G. Stuyvesant's heir.
He got a third of "Uncle Peter's" estate, which included
the Bowery farm of old Governor Stuyvesant; Hamilton
Fish got another third, and the rest was divided among
the other nephews and nieces. Most of this property was
on Second Avenue, and I have heard that if "Uncle Peter"
had been wiHing to part with some of his real estate. Second
Avenue, at one time a fashionable street, might have been
the main avenue of the city instead of Fifth. Stone's pic-
ture was won in the raffle by Mr. Walters, of Baltimore.
I have often wondered what became of this little portrait
of my wife. The Sanitary Fair, which was given to raise
money for war relief in the Civil War, was held in Union
Square and was a tremendous affair for those days.

It was, I think, in the Chambers Street building, before
Delmonico went there, that a murder was committed that
made a vast stir at the time, partly because the murderer,
Colt, was a member of a well-known family. An "oblong
box" — as it was called by the newspapers until the term
became a household word — being shipped from New York
to New Orleans attracted suspicion because of its odor, and
was found to contain a dead body. Colt, whose office was
next to that of the murdered man, having been seen through

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NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

a keyhole wiping blood off the floor, was convicted and im-
prisoned in the Tombs. But the prison took fire, and though
a charred body was found in the cell occupied by Colt, it
was suggested that this had been substituted for that of
Colt and that he had escaped, but it was never proved.
Judge William Kent was the presiding judge at the trial,
and I believe that when the skull of the murdered man was
brought into court, Judge Kent was so horrified that he
resigned his position, dreading a hke experience again. I
am writing all this after the lapse of so many years that
the details may not be quite correct.

Another cause celehre, so to speak, in society, was the
murder in 1850 of Doctor Parkman by Professor Webster,
both belonging to excellent Boston famihes. My wife and
I were once at a dinner in Rome when this murder was
mentioned, and it was found that two of the guests, Mrs.
Van Schaick and Arthur Dexter, were relations, the one of
Parkman, the other of Webster. Webster, who was pro-
fessor of chemistry at Harvard, killed Parkman in the col-
lege laboratory, because he got tired of being dunned by
him for some money he had lent him. "He called me a
scoundrel and a liar, and went on heaping on me the most
bitter taunts and most opprobrious epithets." He killed
him with a stick of wood, cut up his body, and succeeded
in burning most of the remains in the laboratory, except
the teeth. I remember a detail almost too disgusting to
repeat — the janitor of the college was an important wit-
ness, because he had discovered blood-stains on Webster's
floor by industriously tasting all the likely spots he could
find in the building !

An interesting letter describing the trial, from Bishop
Eastburn to John Neilson, my wife's father, shows the
intense feeling at the time.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

"When at last the tidings came," he writes, ''that he
was to die upon the gallows, it quite overcame me. Noth-
ing that we know of in the annals of crime exceeds it, con-
sidering all the circumstances. Being favored by the offi-
cers with one of the best places I have attended the trial
through as great a portion of it as my duties would allow.
It was an awful scene, witnessed by a dense and excited
crowd of the most distinguished persons of all professions.
Webster preserved through the whole a calmness which
was anything but favorable to him, and when the Chief
Justice asked him if he had anything to say before he
delivered his charge he made a few remarks which affected
everybody with the most perfect conviction of his guilt.
He was hard, cold, vapid, empty; and his profession of
confidence *in his innocence and in his God' only strength-
ened the evidence which the trial had brought out against
him. It was an awful spectacle.

"What a singular event in the course of Providence
that the very teeth which Dr. Parkman had had made in
order that he might be present at the opening of the Medi-
cal College, for which he gave the ground, should convict
his murderer. The utter feebleness of acquisition without
principle was very eloquently put by the Attorney General
and illustrated by reference to Eugene Aram and Dr.
Dodd."

Doctor Eastburn, Bishop of Massachusetts, was the
leader of the "Low Church" party; they say that when
Upjohn, the architect, built the Church of the Ascension
in New York he wanted a chancel such as is usually seen
in Gothic churches, but Doctor Eastburn, at that time
the rector, insisted on its being shallow, so that there
"would be no room for High Church doings."

Bishop Eastburn, in another letter from Boston, speaks

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NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

of seeing Thackeray when he was in this country in 1852.
"I had last Sunday a distant view of the distingue Mr.
Thackeray in Trinity Church. He is a rough, blufl-Iooking
man. The other evening at the Mclodian Mr. James, the
novelist, delivered a eulogy on the Duke of Wellington;
he made a most prodigious failure. There were 1500
present." A little later he writes: **We have had a nice
treat in Mr. Thackeray's lectures. His pathos is fully
equal to his humor, and his elocution so perfect — being
English ! Our young lads and soi-disant orators, who 'saw
the air with their hands' may learn from him that elo-
quence is not in paws and elbows but in the intonations
of the voice. His recitation of Addison's 'Soon as the
evening shades prevail' was charming."

Dickens made a great sensation when he came to
America in 1867. Of course, like everybody else, I went
to hear him read, but I do not remember being particularly
impressed; he did not read well and was rather common
looking. When he made his first visit here in 1842 I was
too small to remember him, but there is an amusing para-
graph in an old letter of my Aunt Margaret Salter's to the
commodore.

"I heard from George Elliot that Foster went to the
Boz Ball and was delighted. There were 3000 persons
there. He says it was the chief topic of conversation
everywhere beforehand and the result quite fulfilled their
expectations. It was repeated the next evening. When
Boz and his wife entered people filed off each side and let
him walk up the middle of the room. They say that
28,000 stewed oysters were eaten that evening, and 10,000
pickled, 4000 kisses, 6000 mottoes, and 50 hams and 50
tongues. I am afraid at this rate oysters will become
scarce !"

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

A little later she writes: "The Boz mania seems to be
subsiding in New York. He has been quite sick and has
refused all public entertainments in Philadelphia — he says
he wants to shake hands with the Americans in their
homes. The poor man must be tired shaking hands and
going to balls and parties."

I remember well an old New York character, Captain
Labouche, famous for his great age. He used to go regu-
larly to the Church of the Ascension, and as he was deaf
he had a chair placed for him at the head of the aisle and
made his responses in a very loud, squeaky voice. He had
been a soldier of Napoleon. When he reached his hun-
dredth year some of his friends subscribed to a fund to give
him a yearly income, thinking, of course, that it would
not be for very long, but he lasted ten years more. Strange
to say, he was addicted to the use of opium and had grad-
ually increased his dose of laudanum until he was able to
take half a tumblerful; at a dinner given in his honor, when
they drank his health, he responded in his favorite beverage.

This old gentleman, however, was a youngster com-
pared to an ancient inhabitant of Fishkill, Engelburt HofF,
a Norwegian, a tenant of the Verplancks, whose age is
vouched for by the most reputable authorities. He lived
to be one hundred and twenty-eight. The Gentleman s
Magazine of London mentions his death and age at Fishkill,
in 1765, and adds that he had been one of the Life Guards
of William OL He distinctly remembered hearing of the
news of the execution of Charles I when he was ploughing
a field in Norway.

There used to be an old Frenchman about Marlborough,
not so very long ago, who was called "Waterloo Frank'*
for the odd reason that he had been born on the retreat
from Moscow.

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NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

A tragedy of the time I am recalling, about 1858, was
the death of Lawrence Waterbury's little daughter Kitty,
a child of thirteen, who was a great friend of I lelen Neil-
son's. Mr. Robert Roosevelt, the President's uncle, came
one day to the Waterbury place on the Sound to invite
the family to go out for a sail, but finding them all gone
to a fair he took with him Kitty and her governess, I think
named Miss Cherrytree. It got rather rough and his two
guests W'Cnt down in the cabin; suddenly a squall struck
the little boat and she went over. Being on deck, Mr.
Roosevelt and his man were saved, but the two in the
cabin were lost, for the door was fast closed by a wave.

About i860 Mr. Daniel Le Roy built a house in West
Twenty-third Street near Fifth Avenue, and at the same
time Mrs. Neilson, my wife's mother, bought a lot from
Stuyvesant Rutherfurd, 237 East Seventeenth Street, on
Stuyvesant Square, and built a house that cost over fifty
thousand dollars. Mr. Le Roy's house was smaller and
not nearly so fine as the Neilsons', but about 1870 he sold
his house for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and
the Neilsons' house was sold for forty-seven thousand five
hundred — another instance of the changes in values of
New York real estate. Mrs. Daniel Le Roy was my wife's
aunt, a charming and extremely dignified old kidy, but I
believe in her youth she had been exceedingly sentimental.
They say that when she was a young girl she once made
some currant jelly, and being in a pensive mood she wrote
on the labels of the jars, "this was made by poor Susan,"
as she felt sure she was doomed to an early death. As a
matter of fact, she lived to a fine old age.

Mr. Hamilton Fish, my wife's uncle, remembered many
interesting things about New York, and when I went to
see him, as I often did, in his house on Stuyvesant Square,

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

on the corner of Seventeenth Street and Second Avenue,
I liked to get him talking about those old times. I once
told him that he ought to get some good writer to come
and talk to him, so that his reminiscences might be pre-
served, and he said he had often thought of doing so, but
unluckily he never did.

Mr. Fish went to a school kept by Mr. Bancel, and an
excellent school he said it was. Mr. Bancel was a kind man
who sometimes played marbles with him and the other
boys. In his old age Mr. Fish still seemed really flattered
and pleased at the honor that Mr. Bancel had done him
in playing marbles with him.

Mrs. Fish's sister, Mrs. Griffin, was also a most agree-
able person to talk to about old times. She was an efficient
member of the Sanitary Commission in the Civil War,
which was the Red Cross of that day, and when young
was considered quite advanced in her views; she was ac-
tually a friend of Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister
Emily, the first women doctors in this country, and was once
reproved by a member of her family for allowing her step-
daughter, Mary Griffin, to wait in the carriage outside
their house while she went in to call — *'a young lady should
not even have been seen outside the house of such persons !"
Nevertheless, in her old age Mrs. Griffin was an anti-
suffragist and abhorred telephones. (I have always been
a little impatient with people who think that women ought
not to vote.)

The Honorable Charles Sumner was once staying at
the Fishs' house at Garrisons when I was there; he was
an old friend of the family and a tremendous talker, ac-
customed to holding forth at great length and having every
one hsten with deference and in silence — though Mr. Fish
was a good talker himself. We were at dinner, and Mr.

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NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

Sumner began telling us all the details of Lincoln's death,
at which he had been present, relating it circumstantially
and impressively. Gradually he worked up to the most
dramatic point in his story — when Mrs. Lincoln threw
her arms around her husband and cried in heart-rending
tones, "Live, ah live! — Live, ah live!" It was in the eve-
ning and the lamps were lighted on the table and the win-
dows were open — we were all listening in breathless silence,
a silence interrupted by a piercing shriek from Edith Fish
— she had found a June bug entangled in her hair, and Mr.
Sumner's dramatic climax was completely spoiled, much
to his disgust.

One of the best mayors New York ever had, Mr. Smith
Ely, was an old friend of Mr. Fish's. He was intelligent
and agreeable, and I have had many interesting talks with
him at the Century Club. He told me he had known Mr.
Fish for many years, ever since the time that he was a young
man in Mr. de Peyster's law office, and had always so ad-
mired him that although a Democrat himself he always
voted for Mr. Fish whenever he ran for office. Mr. Ely
was a very rich man, but he once told me that he never
kept any accounts except his check-book. He was a bache-
lor and lived not far from the Century Club, and every
day after his dinner he would stop at a little ice-cream
saloon in Sixth Avenue for his dessert of ice-cream.

Mr. Ely told me an interesting anecdote about Daniel
Webster. A well-known man gave an evening reception
for him; the many distinguished guests all assembled, an
hour or so went by, but still Mr. Webster did not arrive.
After an uneasy interval, a servant whispered to the host
that some one wished to see him at the door; he went out
and found Mr. Webster in a carriage with several other
gentlemen; he had been dining and was then so much over-
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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

come that he was unable to speak, in fact, he was quite
insensible. A gentleman who knew him well, suggested
that if a tumbler of raw brandy and cracked ice were ad-
ministered to him he would soon be all right. Sure enough,
as soon as he began to "suck on it," as Mr. Ely expressed
it, he began to revive and by the time he had drunk the
whole glass he was quite himself and went into the house.
All the guests were presented to him and he appeared to
be his usual self, and the whole affair passed off without
further difficulty.

When Daniel Webster visited England, the English
were much impressed by him. Some great man said of
him, "that every word he uttered weighed a pound," and
another that he "looked like a cathedraL" My brother
Gouv once heard him speak at Poughkeepsie, and was tre-
mendously struck by his splendid address. But he knew
just when to use his powers of oratory. I have heard that
he was once engaged in a very important case, with eminent
counsel opposed to him — it may have been Rufus Choate
— the question was in regard to a patent on some car-wheels,
and the wheels were brought into court. The counsel on
the other side made a long and eloquent speech, explain-
ing the whole case thoroughly and ending with an impas-
sioned appeal. When Webster got up he merely pointed
to the wheels and said in his grandest manner, "Gentle-
men of the jury, there are the wheels!" and without an-
other word sat down. He won the case.

I can remember Mrs. Daniel Webster well. She was
an aunt of the Robert Morris girls, and I used to see her
at their house, where she was always known as "Aunt Web-
ster." She was also an aunt of Mrs. Newbold Edgar, who
was a Miss Appleton of Boston. This Mrs. Edgar was a
handsome woman and very attractive, and was at the Mor-

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NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

rises* a great deal. "Aunt Webster" was a tall, stern old
lady — she was then a widow — the kind with whom one
never felt quite at ease, but she was polite to me and once
asked me to a dinner party.

A w^II-known figure on Broadway about i860 was Walt
Whitman. I often used to see him, generally on the west
side of Broadway near City Hall Park. He was a great
walker, a large shaggy man, wearing a loose shirt open in
front wath no cravat, showing his hairy breast. He would
stop often at the corners and gaze at the sky. At this time
nearly every young lady in New York wore a bright-blue
silk dress, of the shade called mazarine, a scarlet camePs-
hair shawl, and a white bonnet; it was really absurd to
look about a church and sec dozens of girls all dressed ahkc.
Of course, all wore hoops. This was also the era of the
horrid little green caterpillars we called "measuring
worms," dangling on webs from the trees, so that it was
impossible to walk along the street without having them
drop all over one. Many of the trees in New York were
cut down at this time in an attempt to get rid of the pest,
and the disagreeable little Enghsh sparrow was imported
for the express purpose of eating up the worms. The
remedy was worse than the disease.

In those days the place to get good chocolate was at
Effray's on Broadway and Ninth Street. It must have been
about 1880 that Huyler opened a little shop on Broadway
near Seventeenth Street, where at first they only sold pLiin
candy, such as toffee and butter-scotch; they had a liberal
way of keeping the candy uncovered on the counter (cus-
tomers were expected to munch a little while waiting for
their packages), which was most attractive to the young. It
was a good advertisement and there was much lamentation
when the custom after some years was given up. In 1880

^15

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Dean was just across the street from this place of Huyler's;
they had in their window a "make-beheve" mould of wine
jelly made of amber glass, much admired by my children.
I think that at first it was displayed in the window of their
new place on Fifth Avenue, but I have not seen it there
for some time. The wedding-cake when I was married
was made by Dean, and for old times' sake we ordered some
cake from there when my wife and I celebrated our Golden
Wedding Day in 191 6.

I well remember the excitement over the prize-fight
between Yankee Sulhvan and Tom Hyer, though I did
not see it myself. Sullivan was a celebrated English prize-
fighter, and came to America with a great reputation. Hyer
was a native of Newburgh, a young and somewhat inex-
perienced man, but known to possess fighting abifity. The
betting among sporting men was very heavy and the ex-
citement and interest throughout the whole country was
intense. They had great difficulty in selecting the ground,
for then as now it was against the law, and the pohce were
following them around determined to stop it. However,
they finally outwitted the police and the fight took place.
Hyer immediately outclassed his opponent and won easily.
A friend of mine, Mr. Marrin, attended the battle, and he
told me that each time that Hyer struck SuHivan the blood
flew out in a spray all over the prize-ring.

I saw the Prince of Wales when he arrived in New York
in i860. I was stationed in a window up-stairs in Broad-
way just below Fulton Street. He was a sfight, pretty,
boyish figure. The next time I saw him, he was driving with
the Princess of Wales at the Ascot races in 1869, and I often
saw him in Paris in 1878, an elderly fine-looking man, al-
ways wearing the decoration of the Legion of Honor when
he was in Paris.

In the winter of 1863, I was boarding in Thirty-third

136

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

Street near Fifth Avenue, when I was taken very ill with
pleurisy and a touch of pneumonia. As soon as the Robert
Morris family heard of my illness they insisted upon my
going to their house, on the northwest corner of Thirteentli
Street and University Place — the house is still there but
fallen from its high estate. I was invited to stay as long
as I liked, in fact, until I was well. I had grown very inti-
mate with the Morrises and felt at home there, so I ac-
cepted their generous invitation with alacrity. The family
consisted of Mr. Robert Morris, one of the sweetest-tem-
pered men I have ever known, his son Edgar, and three
daughters, Kate, Cornelia, and Nellie. Kate had just been
married to Henry Delafield Phelps, a college friend of mine
at Trinity.

They were all heavenly kind; no one could have been
sweeter or more devoted than they were to me. I went
right to bed as soon as I arrived, and lay there for many
weeks. I had a small room on the third floor looking out
on Thirteenth Street; the wall-paper had a fixed pattern
on it and I remember how I used to count those spots, lying
in bed, across and back again over and over, until I was
too weak to do it any more. When I got better I would
look out of the window into Thirteenth Street and watch
the careless passers-by and wonder if I should ever again
like them walk the streets a well man. But there were
also very pleasant hours. Not only were the Morrises so
good to me, but other friends were kind and sent mc all
sorts of good things and flowers, so that I can look back
on those weeks of illness with real pleasure. I often look
up as I pass through East Thirteenth Street, and I can
still see the window of my little room where I wiis so ill,
but, through the friendship and kindness of those dear peo-
ple, so happy. Alas, all of them are gone now !

University Place was then a handsome street, mostly

i37

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

occupied by fine private houses all the way down to Wash-
ington Square. Mr. James de Peyster lived on the same
block with the Morrises; Mr. WiHiam H. Aspinwall had a
handsome house and gallery of paintings of the old mas-
ters on the corner of Tenth Street; Mr. James Brown was
on the corner of Eleventh Street; James Renwick, the archi-
tect of Grace Church, lived there, and so did the Emmets;
lower down were the New York University and the Union
Theological Seminary. Gus Schermerhorn's house, next
to the Society Library, is almost the only one left there
now.

The Goelet house on the corner of Broadway and Nine-
teenth Street was swept away only a few years ago; there
are many people who remember the brown house, very
dreary-looking in its latter days, standing back from the
street in a neglected garden, where pheasants were some-
times to be seen, and often a cow trying to get a little
pleasure out of the dusty grass.

Doctor George Elliot, my doctor, was a delightful fellow
and charming companion; I think I owe my life to him,
for he was one of the then new school and treated me with
great skill. He used to stay with us at Danskammer, and
I remember that we always gave him one of the two rooms
on either side of the front door, for the windows had black-
walnut shutters on the inside, and he liked to close them
at night to keep out the sound of the crowing cocks. The
father of George and Daniel Giraud Elliot was a member
of the firm of Foster, EHiot and Company, of 6§ South
Street, established in the latter part of the eighteenth cen-
tury. They were old-time merchants, owning their own
ships and often carrying their own cargoes; one of their
ships was named the Rebecca after Mrs. Elliot.

Gus Van Cortlandt was a cousin of the Morrises — his

138

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

father had changed his name from Morris to Van Cort-
landt — and he was in and out of my room all the time. As
he was then studying medicine, he was much interested in
my case. He was a rough, hearty fellow who had been a
sailor for a time, and who retained a loud seaman's voice.
Without consulting Doctor Elliot, he conceived the idea
that a blister on my side would be good For me, so I allowed
him to put on an enormous blister and keep it there until
there was a swelling like a great bladder, which so much
disturbed Doctor Elliot that he positively forbade Gus ever
to prescribe for me again.

I must have been at the Morrises' from Christmas time
until the spring. I was practising law when I was taken
ill, and my long illness was a great interruption. Just be-
fore, I had conducted and settled a case in favor of Mr.
Samuel Bowne against the Staten Island Dyeing Company.
It was for diverting the water from a spring on Mr. Bowne's
place, and for my services I had received a fee of four hun-
dred dollars, a nice wad to pay my doctor's bill.

In June, after leaving the Morrises, I went for a long
visit to the Bancroft Davises, who had rented our Dans-
kammer house and were living there. I had a nice saddle-
horse to ride in the morning, and when I came in about
eleven they made me drink cream; then I would go out
in the garden with Mrs. Davis, armed with a pair of garden
shears and a basket, and we would cut roses along the wide,
old-fashioned garden walk.

Once when I was staying with the Davises, it may
have been this time. Miss Cochrane, a relation of Mrs.
Davis and a charming girl, was staying there also. She
had beautiful hair, which I remember particularly because
of an odd little incident. One evening, sitting on the porch
in the twilight, we all got talking about bats, speculating

139

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

idly whether ft were true that they sometimes became en-
tangled in women's hair. Miss Cochrane must have gone
to bed with her mind running on bats, for during the night
she had a bad dream, and in her sleep she got a pair of scis-
sors and cut off one of her two beautiful long braids of hair.
You can imagine her consternation the next morning.

Mrs. Davis was one of the loveliest and most culti-
vated women I have ever known. She was withal a great
lady. Her mother was Miss Gracie, and her father, James
G. King, a distinguished citizen of New York. He was
one of three brothers, all educated in England, one of whom
was the Governor of New York and the other, Charles
King, was president of Columbia College. Some years
ago I designed and built a monument for the King family,
a boulder on their old family place in Massachusetts, on
which was fastened a large bronze tablet bearing the names
of all the distinguished members of the family. It was
an imposing list.

Bancroft Davis went to Danskammer for his health —
he had broken down from overwork and was supposed to
have only one lung, but country hfe completely restored
him. The Davises were much given to hospitality and
kept open house at Danskammer, liking it there so much
that later they bought land from us, and Richard Hunt
built them a beautiful house in the style of Fontainebleau,
costing about a hundred thousand dollars. This lovely
place, "o'erlooking the tranquil bay," was afterward sold
to the Rose Brick Company, and has now entirely disap-
peared— all made into bricks ! One of Richard Hunt's
most successful houses is the gray Vanderbilt house on the
corner of Fifty-second Street and Fifth Avenue — I wonder
how many of the passers-by have noticed the little figure
of Hunt himself, as ''Master Builder," perched on one of

140

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

the pinnacles. The paving stones of the sidewalk in front
of this house and of the two brownstone Vanderbilt houses
on the block below are the largest in New York— I dare
say in the world.

After graduating at Harvard, Mr. Davis went as secre-
tary of legation to London, and then into partnership
with Judge Kent, Dorman B. Eaton, and Henry E. Taiier,
who were then engaged in a very large law business. He
was also correspondent of the London Times in New York
for years. When he retired and went to IWc in Newburgh,
he was found to be so public-spirited and useful in the neigh-
borhood that they sent him to the New York Legislature,
and from there he was selected by Hamilton Fish to be
his assistant-secretary of state and later was appointed
minister to Berlin. He was the American agent who con-
ducted the case for the Alabama Claims before the Geneva
Tribunal, and later in life was judge of the Court of Claims
in Washington and reporter of the Supreme Court.

The firm of Kent, Eaton, and Kent — later Eaton, Davis,
and Taiier — was an important one. They were all notable
men. Dorman B. Eaton was a fine lawyer and a public-
spirited man, very active in the prosecution of the Tweed
ring and in the matter of Jay Gould. He so excited the
enmity of these people that he was attacked and sand-
bagged in the street, and was so badly injured that he
never fully recovered.

Henry E. Taiier, another partner, was a handsome and
delightful fellow, a great friend of mine. He had a reall\
beautiful face, although he had lost an eye. It happened
when he was a boy living in a basement house on the south
side of Washington Square— I think it was number 48,
which was removed when Sullivan Street was opened.
Taiier was standing in the street in front of his house when

141

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

a rowdy boy passing by insulted him and they had a fight.
Some masons happened to be mixing some quicklime near
by, and the rowdy picked up a handful of lime and thrust
it in his face and blinded him in one eye for life. Jim Morris
was in Tailer's class at college, and he told me that Tailer
could see more with his one eye than any other boy with
two; he graduated at the head of the class.

Eaton, Davis, and Tailer had much important business.
Among other things they were counsel for the Erie Rail-
way, which had gone into the hands of a receiver, and they
managed the whole matter of reconstruction and putting
the road on its feet. The stock got as low as five dollars
a share, and the firm knew positively that it would rise
enormously as soon as the affairs were settled, but they did
not think it right to buy any stock, because of the con-
fidential relation they held to the road. They all had high
ideals.

Old Daniel Drew was a client of theirs. He was a power
in Wall Street at that time and made an enormous for-
tune, all of which I believe he afterward lost. He was
a funny-looking, shabby,- shambling old man, something
between a Methodist parson and a broken-down farmer,
and never gave any appearance of wealth. He had begun
life as a drover and in early times used to drive herds of
cattle down to Carthage Landing, opposite Danskammer.
Drovers in those days did not use banks, but kept all their
money in their pockets in a huge roll called a wad.

I studied law for a year in the office of Eaton, Davis,
and Tailer at 45 Wall Street. Judge Kent had formerly
been a member of the firm, when it was Kent, Davis, and
Kent. The first day that I entered the office he took me
into the law library and handed me a book, saying, "Begin
on that." It was the first volume of Kent's Commentaries,

142

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

written by his father, Chancellor Kent. Judge Kent made
me his secretary to take notes for the cases in which he
was referee, and this was a good and Interesting experience
for a young man, as many distinguished men argued cases
before him. Judge Kent had a private room for his refer-
ences and shared it with a grave Spanish don, a lawyer,
who was seldom there. This gentleman had adorned his
walls with two vile landscapes, sunsets. In those days
men were often to be seen in the streets with pairs of such
pictures, all painted in the same way by the hundred, usually
sunsets, which they sold for five dollars apiece, including
the frames. Such were these landscapes. I had a fellow
student about my age, named Newell, and we played many
pranks with the don's furniture and pictures. We took
large red notarial seals and improved the sunsets by past-
ing them in and adding long rays of white chalk to repre-
sent the setting sun. Newell was a bright, amusing fellow,
and after hours we used to have fine wrestHng matches.
He afterward distinguished himself by marrying the no-
torious Adah Isaacs Menken, an actress especially well
known in her famous part of Mazeppa. I once saw her
in this play. She had a beautiful figure and in the great
scene she was bound on the back of a fiery black steed,
"a Tartar of the Ukraine breed," and dashed across the
desert landscape, clad in flesh-colored tights. She exxited
much admiration ! This actress had a picturesque career;
I believe she took "Mazeppa" all over the world. Her
matrimonial history was equally varied. She began by
marrying Mr. Menken; then she became the wife of Heenan,
the prize-fighter, and was divorced; later she married my
friend Newell and was separated from him; and ended,
they say, by fascinating the Emperor Louis Napoleon.
I had a great admiration for Judge Kent, and it was

143

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

because he was one of the Whig presidential electors that
I cast my first vote for Bell and Everett in i860. I
remember that Judge Davies, who also lived at Fishkill,
said to Judge Kent at this time that he was sorry that he
was an elector on that ticket and Judge Kent replied:
''Speaking after the manner of men, I don't care a damn !"
The Davies pew in church was directly in front of the
Kents', the two judges sitting one behind the other, much
to the annoyance of Judge Kent, who remarked that it
worried him because Judge Davies made the responses so
slowly that in the Creed, when everybody else was "ascend-
ing into heaven," Judge Davies was still "descending into
helL"

I was in New York during the Draft Riots in 1863. I
came up-town on a stage the afternoon of the first day they
began. As the stage neared Houston Street we were horri-
fied to see a colored man chased by a great crowd of people
running frantically down the street. He caught the bus
just in the nick of time, burst open the door and flung him-
self in, his face streaming with blood and his clothes half
torn off his back. The stage drove on at once and he escaped.
Colored people all through the city were in the greatest
danger. Edward Ketchum, a friend of mine living on Madi-
son Avenue, had a colored butler in his house who had been
threatened, and the Ketchums were afraid that some of
the Irish, who were the chief offenders, would attack the
house. So several of Ketchum's friends, myself among the
number, sat up all night watching, armed with revolvers,
but nothing happened. The Irish got up this riot. They
objected violently to the draft — they don't like fighting
as much as they think they do — and insisted, with their
usual logic, that the negroes were responsible as the war
was being fought to set them free.

I was living at this time in Thirty-third Street near

144-

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A ^'OUNC MAN

Fifth Avenue. I heard that the Colored Orphan Asylum
on Fifth Avenue was on fire and hurried up there to see if I
could do anything, but when I arrived there was nothing left
but smoking ruins. As I walked back down Fifth Avenue,
near the corner of Twenty-ninth Street I saw a mob of
toughs who had burned and looted a house near by and
were carrying off their spoils; a ruffian in a red shirt, open
at the neck and smeared with blood, had a rosewood table
as his prize, and another of the gang was carrying the mari)Ie
top of the table on his head. A friend told me he saw the
books from Mr. Choate's library scattered all about the
streets. Just across the street from this crowd walked a
dozen policemen. As they got directly opposite the mob,
they suddenly turned, ran across the Avenue, each police-
man seized a rioter by his collar and began belaboring him
over the head with his club. In a moment the crowd had
abandoned the booty and before you could say Jack Robin-
son the street was clear — I never saw a neater piece of work.
I found the whole block front on Broadway between Twenty-
eighth and Twenty-ninth Streets on fire. The buildings
were two-story wooden affairs and the rioters had broken
in, built fires on the floors, and burned the whole block
down.

The next day I was standing on the corner of Park
Place and Broadway, watching a crowd of people gathering
in front of the Tribune Building. Park Place was almost
empty, except for a dray waiting at the corner without a
driver, a whip lying on the floor of the dray. Suddenly
the crowd burst into loud shouting and a negro man came
flying across the City Hall Park with a crowd of about a
hundred men — they seemed a thousand — close after him.
He caught sight of the dray, leaped into it, snatched up
the whip, laid it furiously across the horse's back, uttered
a wild yell, and lashing the horse into a gallop outdistanced

145

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

his pursuers and disappeared down College Place. If he
had been caught he would doubtless have been strung up
to a lamp-post, as so many poor negroes were in those ter-
rible days.

Any one, even a clergyman or doctor, seen with a negro
was in danger. They tell of a colored man trying in vain
to find a clergyman who would bury his dead child, until
some one said: "There is a little parson named Dix who
isn't afraid of anything, you might try him," and Doctor
Dix came up to the scratch. In fact, Doctor Dix's friends
said he rather enjoyed driving to the cemetery with the
colored family, at the risk of his life.

All law and order were abohshed — awful crowds of
horrible-looking men thronged the streets — for several
days the city was in a state of anarchy as in the time of
the French Revolution. All the militia were at the front
and no troops were available, but at last, in about three
days, some soldiers came, the Seventh Regiment among
them, and order was restored. Doctor Stuyvesant Morris
was in the Seventh at that time, and he told me that as
they marched through the streets they were sniped at from
the windows and brickbats were thrown at them; it w^as
pretty dangerous, but he said he did not mind the danger
so much as a large rent he got in the seat of his trousers.
Some cavalrj^ also appeared and tethered their horses in
Union Square amid bales of hay and other fodder scat-
tered over the ground, until it quite looked hke a be-
leaguered city.

The following letter, written at this time from the front
to Miss Neilson, is curiously interesting:

"... The scarcity of news has left me no alterna-
tive but to wait until something occurred worthy of note.

146

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

I have waited. Something has occurred, and I will pro-
ceed at once to make you acquainted with the main facts
in the case. The country about Columbus does not at
this time harbour any part of the Rebel Army, but is in-
fested by gangs of 'Cut throat Guerrillas,' who never lose
an opportunity of plundering and murdering all who fail
in their path; and not content with kiUing, perform all
manner of Barbarities upon their victims, such as cutting
off hands and heads.

"Not being in favor of such cruelties, and knowing
that if we submitted to them, we were never sure of our
lives, I determined to pay them ofT in their own coin. I
am not naturally a 'bloody-minded' man, but I think that
a determined course of action often saves many lives. Find-
ing that one of the most notorious leaders, named Forbes,
had been bushwhacking some of our men, I determined
to make an example of him which his brother murderers
would not soon forget. To make a short story, I sought
Forbes, found him, put a bullet through his skull, and
then ! ! ! now don't faint, cut his head off! ! ! and carried it
back to Cohimbus, where I was hailed with joy for deliver-
ing the Country of such a pest. The General commanding
thanked me, and all our officers likewise, and all agreed
if others had followed my example, bushwhacking had
ceased long ago. I am to have my vignette taken in my
Butternut dress which I use in scouting, with some of my
Blood hounds, and will send you one."

I was still living in Thirty-third Street when I heard
very early one morning the dreadful news of Lincohi's as-
sassination. One could hardly realize it was true until
one went out into the street and black began to grow upon
the houses — there did not seem to be one that was not

147

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

shrouded in mourning. Indeed such Copperheads as re-
fused to display any signs of grief were in danger of having
their windows broken. I never saw anything like it — the
sorrow was almos-t universal, the feeling bitter and intense.
I heard of an old farmer driving back from Newburgh,
meeting a Copperhead, and telling him that Lincoln had
been killed. The traitor said, ''I'm glad of it," where-
upon the old farmer leaped out of his wagon, attacked the
other man, and nearly killed him. But this sort of thing
was the exception. People who had hated Lincoln seemed
all at once to come to their senses and realize what manner
of man it was that they had been vilifying. It is almost
impossible at the present time to believe the kind of things
that Lincoln's enemies used to say about him, even more
absurd than the things Wilson's enemies say to-day. A
specimen is a paragraph in an old letter of 1861 — "What
can be said for Lincoln now, after his flight by night dis-
guised in a Scotch cap, to escape assassination at Balti-
more, on the faith of that old driveller Scott?" (How funny
Lincoln would have looked in a Scotch cap, if this tale had
been true !) I am thankful to say that I have had the sense
always to admire both Lincoln and Wilson, though I failed
to vote for Lincoln the first time — a lifelong regret.

I suppose it is pretty much forgotten that President
Andrew Jackson once had an attempt made on his life.
Mr. Murray, my father's friend of whom I have spoken
in a previous chapter, happened to be in Washington soon
after and was told all about it. It seems the President
was attending the funeral of a member of Congress when
an insane man only a few feet away fired at him twice, using
two pistols, as he stood under the portico of the Capitol.
But each time the pistol missed fire. After the man had
been secured, the pistols were carefully examined — both

148

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

were new and both were properly loaded with ball and
powder, yet both caps had been exploded without igniting
the charge! The bystanders told Mr. Murray that the old
soldier never flinched but went straight for the assassin
with a stout stick he always carried, and would doubtless
have finished him off single-handed if he had been alone.

In 1864 I bought a thoroughbred mare that I named
Lucile, as Owen Meredith's poem was then my favorite.
I paid seven hundred dollars for her, which was a great
price for me, in fact the most I ever paid for a horse; but
she was a beautiful mare, although scarcely broken. I
took her to Tallman's stable, corner of Broadway and
Thirty-eighth Street, where I kept her for two years and
completed her education by riding her out over the pave-
ments to Central Park and exercising and training her there
until I got her thoroughly broken to the saddle. But she
was a hard one to manage, and frequently ran away with
me in the park. One day she started near the reservoir
and ran down near the pond where they used to keep swans;
there is a rather sharp turn there and she was going so fast
that I could not bring her round the turn, so I kept straight
on over the remains of a wire fence lying coiled up in the
bushes, in which she caught her feet and dragged the whole
thing out into the driving road, but she did not get me off.
She was a bay, sixteen hands high and beautifully made,
one of the handsomest horses I have ever seen. I sold her
after two years for five hundred dollars to a wine merchant,
who was so pleased at getting her that he gave John, my
groom at Tallman's, a box of wine as a present. He had
bought her for his son, who could not ride her however,
and I believe was thrown. But she never got me off her
back through all my experience with her, though I rode
her nearly every day for two years.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Freelance was another horse of whom I think with af-
fection. He was a thoroughbred two-year-old, by im-
ported Babrownie, that I bought at auction at Jerome
Park for three hundred dollars. I did not attempt to ride
him until he was three, when I took him to TaHman's stable,
where they had a back lot for exercising. I don't know
whether he had been ridden before or not, but he gave no
evidence of having been broken at all and would buck-
jump all over the lot, but in a little while he sobered down
and I got him perfectly broken. I taught him to jump,
and he jumped well and he was very fast. I rode him at
Jerome Park in several races, carrying one hundred and
fifty pounds — these were called 'Svelter weights." When
I went to Rome I had to dispose of him, so I left him w^ith
Will Crosby to sell for me and he sold him to John Minton
for two hundred dollars; he was then five years old, fifteen
hands high, and a perfect saddle-horse to my taste.

Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Fish celebrated their Golden
Wedding, December 15, 1886, and had a reception in their
house on Stuyvesant Square. I remember at this recep-
tion I met Gouverneur Morris, of Morrisania — not the
young writer of that name but his grandfather — and he
told me a characteristic anecdote of Doctor Richard Morris
of Westchester, who was fond of practical jokes. Doctor
Morris met Gouverneur and asked him if he w^ould like
a quarter of beef; of course he said he would. "Well then,"
said Doctor Morris, "drive out to my place to-morrow and
I'll give you one." So the next day Gouverneur appeared
at the Morris house and "Uncle Richard" took him out
into a field and pointing to a dead cow lying there said:
"There's your quarter of beef, she died yesterday, help
yourself."

150

VHE

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

"Uncle Richard" was a splendid old gentleman, a good
sport. He always kept a barrel of whiskey in the cellar,
and he had a fine flock of game-cocks as well as trotting
horses and bull-terriers. The doctor owned a celebrated
trotting mare Stella, whose grave in Westchester is still
marked with a stone and whose portrait used to be well
known in a colored engraving published by Currier of Nas-
sau Street, of "Stella and Whalebone," a matched pair
of trotters, making record time. He had a famous bull-
terrier named Terror, who once dashed at me from under
his chair, as I was crossing the lawn to speak to the doctor,
and fastened his fangs in my leg; luckily he only succeeded
in tearing a long strip in my new gray trousers. It was
a little embarrassing, as I had only come for a morning call,
but one of the girls offered to mend it for me, so I borrowed
a pair of nether garments from one of her brothers, and
she very deftly mended the rent so that it could hardly
be seen.

When the doctor and his brothers, Gus Van Cortlandt
and Robert, were just approaching manhood, they went
abroad together, and went to Paris and were presented at
court. All three of them were very handsome, and greatly
resembled the royal family, so much so that this likeness
to royalty was much remarked. The King said jokingly
to one of them apropos of this likeness, "Was your mother
ever in Paris?" but the young man answered naively, "No,
sire, but my father was."

Young Nicholas Morris, one of Doctor Morris's sons —
always called "Cola" — was lost at sea. He was in the navy
and went on a voyage to the South, whence he never re-
turned. His ship, the man-of-war A /6am-, was never heard
of again. Curiously enough, the last port she touched at

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

was Pensacola — "think of Cola!" For many, many years
**Aunt Lillie" thought that every knock at the door or
foot on the stair was her son come home.

Pelham, Doctor Morris's place in Westchester, was re-
nowned for its hospitahty. I remember very well the first
time I went to Pelham. I was living at 44 Union Square
when I was asked up there to spend a week-end. I remember
I hesitated on Friday about going, as I did not feel much
Hke it, but a lady who was staying in the same house said
to me, "You'd better go, you may meet some one you like."
Ladies are apt to be match-makers even when they are
speculating with the unknown and, sure enough, I met
my future wife there. Miss Helen Neilson, whom I had
never seen before. She and her sister Julia were staying
at Pelham, and also Miss Pauline SpofFard, Miss Molly
Williamson, Harry Redmond, and Robert Barry. Besides
Stuyve and his three sisters, Lou Morris was there, home
on furlough. They ahvays had a house party when he came
home. The next day was Sunday and we all went to church
at St. Peter's, Westchester. Coming out of church I spoke
to my future wife for the first time — I was never introduced
to her. It was at the old Morris place at Morrisania that
my father met my mother for the first time, and it was
during this same visit at Pelham that Julia Neilson met
Robert Barry whom she afterward married. So you see
the Morrises have played quite a part in our lives ! In the
evenings at the Morrises' we used to play round games, and
on Sunday evenings we all said the catechism, taking the
questions in turn. Some of us knew it all except "our duty
to our neighbor." (I remember how hard it was when my
mother gave me the catechism to learn on hot Sunday after-
noons, and I don't think I ever mastered the latter part

152

NEW YORK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN

of it, particularly "What desirest thou?"— this was a
sticker.)

I was married to Helen Neilson on the sixth of Decem-
ber, 1866, at her mother's house on Stuyvcsant Square,
by the Reverend Doctor John Cotton Smith of the Church
of the Ascension.

And we celebrated our Golden Wedding on December
6, 19 16, at 58 West Tenth Street.

153

CHAPTER VIII

ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

"Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed was
Two suns to have, which one road and the other.
Of God and of the world, made manifest.
One has the other quenched, and to the crosier
The sword is joined."

— Dante.

My first sight of Rome was on the twenty-seventh of
January, 1859. Happily there was no railway in those
days, so the diligence took me from Civita Vecchia to Rome
across the Campagna. I remember seeing a lot of French
soldiers drilhng on the beach at Civita Vecchia — Italy and
France went to war with Austria that following summer.

I had often heard of the ** desolate" Campagna, and
expected to see an arid waste, but I soon changed my mind,
and from that day, throughout a long after-experience, I
never ceased to love and enjoy its endless charm. That
first morning was one to be remembered, delicious as only
an Italian winter's day can be; under a soft haze the land-
scape melted away in almost imperceptible folds and tones,
in varied gradations and shades of opalescent and silvery
color, touched here and there by a line of the first fresh
green of the wheat-fields, or a faint glistening spot of water.
All was remote and solemn. In the distance, the turrets
of an old castle of Julius the Second peered through shadowy
groves of stone-pines above vast tan-colored marshes; the
fields we passed through were scattered with grass-grown
mounds, the remains of long-forgotten cities once great
and gay — now dwindled to low hills, where scattered flocks

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

of sheep, guarded by great dogs and shepherds leaning on
their staves, were silhouetted against the soft bhie-gray
sky. An almost deserted land, a great silence enxeloping
it, only broken now and then by the long-drawn-out and
monotonous song of some passing driver of a wine-cart,
in a conical hat and red waistcoat, his little horse decked
with colored ribbons and pheasants' feathers, tinkling bells
and profuse brass mountings, all to keep off the assaults
of the evil eye; or by the hoarse cries of a wild rider in sheep-
skin breeches, carrying a long iron-pointed goad, where-
with to urge his train of black, sad-eyed bufTalo, drawing
a huge block of white marble, perhaps for some sculptor
in Rome.

The Campagna was then owned by a few great nobles
and their vast estates were diversified by many bits of
ancient ruins, but nothing modern — no villages and but
few houses. An occasional wine-shop displayed its famihar
bush above the door, showing that wine was to be had with-
in, and here and there a group of farm buildings huddled
around a tall mediaeval tower, in the distance the long gray
broken lines of the old Roman aqueducts marched across
the plain.

So our day passed. Suddenly our vetturino, with a
crack of his whip, shouted "Ecco Roma !" and we saw shin-
ing in the extreme distance, like a great pearl, as Story
calls it, that grew and grew, the splendid dome of St. Peter's I
And it was a dramatic moment when our horses dashed
through a tall archway directly from the quiet Campagna
into the Square of San Pietro, and there was the honcy-
colored facade of Bramante's basilica embraced by its
grand colonnades, and the Egyptian obehsk Hanked by
the noble fountains, flinging high their spray that drifted
across the square in silvery clouds.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Rome was a very different place then from what it is
now. Then the moss and dust of ages lay thick over every-
thing; nothing had been repaired for a thousand years.
The interior of the Coliseum was then a green law^n. It
had been consecrated as a church, and stations of the cross
stood around its outer edge; the walls w-ere bright with
wallflowers and many low-grow^ing plants, and with all sorts
of shrubs and traihng ivy — so many that a book has been
written on the flora of the Coliseum. There had been but
little excavation in the Forum, which was mostly covered,
many feet deep, with the accumulated soil of ages. The
ivy-clad \\alls of the palace of the Csesars rose at the right,
and long rows of faflen porphyry and granite columns from
some ruined temple lay along its sides. The baths of Car-
acalla had been blown up at some remote time, and were
now huge masses of ruin overgrown with vines and flowers,
most beautiful and picturesque.

In 1869 when I again saw Rome it was still almost un-
changed, but when the Italians took possession in 1870
they dug away the soil of the Coliseum, stripped all the
vines and flowers from the ruins and cleaned it up, and
archaeologists have been busy ever since removing the sur-
face of the Forum in order to expose the pavement. The
beautiful masses of ruin covered w^ith verdure were re-
moved from the floor of the baths of Caracalla, and the
whole interior is now bare and uninviting and used as a
museum of antiquities. AH this is doubtless more interest-
ing to the antiquarian, but far less pleasing to the artist
and the man of taste.

I found most of the little common things of Rome un-
changed in ten years, when in 1869 I saw it again. Naz-
zarri still sold his confections on the corner of the Piazza
di Spagna, with the bookshop of Spithoever opposite; there

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

too was the American banking house of Maquay, Hooker,
and Company, the latter name softened to "Signor Okeri"
by the Italians; Keats's house at the corner of the Spanish
Steps looked just the same, and on the steps lounged, as
of yore, the gayly dressed models waiting for custom, and
apparently the very same beggars and cab-drivers tormented
the passers-by. The same little antiquity dealer, rather
more mouldy than before, displayed his wares in the Via
Condotti, opposite the historic Cade Greco. In the centre
of the square was the same old fruit-stand and the foun-
tain with its flock of glass ducks sailing on the little lake —
all was unchanged.

I was appointed Consul to the Papal States in March,
1869, ^^^ with my family left New York in April for Rome;
but I was given a summer's leave of absence before settling
down there, because the State Department at Washington
considered the climate of Rome unhealthy during the sum-
mer, an impression which I never took any pains to re-
move. So during the four years of my residence in Rome
I had leave of absence in the summers, which we spent in
Switzerland, the Austrian Tyrol, the Italian lakes, and
Venice. Considering that we travelled with nurses and
children, we were rather adventurous. In those days there
was no funicular to the hotel on Monte Generoso at Lugano,
and I remember our party made an amusing caravan, each
trunk on a separate mule, and the nurse on horseback carry-
ing the baby in her arms.

Before going to Rome I wrote to my vice-consul, Pietro
Calvi — whom I had inherited from my predecessor Mr.
Cushman, the nephew of Charlotte Cushman, the great
actress — to engage an apartment and a consular ofiicc for
me, but when I reached Rome, I found both unsatisfac-
tory. The apartment was at 68 Via Capo le Case, a nice

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

situation, but it had no other recommendation — any one
who is famihar with Roman furnished apartments will
know just what it w^as like. Our padrone had ransacked
the auction-rooms for bits of broken-down furniture, faded
gaudy carpets and curtains, chairs and tables with glued-
on legs that dropped off when you touched them, and which
you were obliged to pay for. This was soon remedied when
we began to collect really good old furniture, but the con-
sular office looked like an art gallery crammed with hideous
copies of the old masters, and the stairway was lined with
them, my landlord calmly informing me that they were
all for sale and that I would probably like to dispose of
them to my countrymen, but to his despair I promptly
ordered them all away.

The next year we moved to the old Palazzo Zuccari,
number 64 Via Sistina, which was built by the brothers
Zuccaro, well-known artists of the sixteenth century. It
stood next to the Tempietto near the top of the Spanish
Steps, and was a picturesque old palace, built of a pale red-
dish brick, originally covered wath w^hite stucco which had
partly fallen away; and as it had not been painted or re-
paired since it was built, the whole had mellowed to a beau-
tiful tint of delicate light pinkish-gray, and from the numer-
ous crevices of the w^alls sprang various plants, tufts of
wallflowers and little shrubs. The front door and entrance
were on the Via Sistina and the house ran through the block,
so that the real front was on the Via Gregoriana. Our
padrone was named Zuccaro, a descendant of one of the
painters, a shrinking little man w^ho seldom appeared and
lived modestly in the basement. The Honorable Mrs.
Bruce, lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, lived on the second
floor and our apartment was on the third. The arched
hall and winding stairway were broad and well lighted
and frescoed all the way up by the Zuccari in the Raphael-

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

esque manner. Against these oFd and faded frescoes a slight
green lattice had been placed and over it trailed green cac-
tus, covered with scarlet blossoms tliat bloomed the winter
through.

It was a delightful apartment. To Ik- sure, we had
only one servants' room; and all the water in the house
had to be carried to the second floor from a fountain in
the courtyard, but we didn't mind that. It was easy enough
to get a man to do that or anything else for one in Rome.
If we needed a servant it was only necessary to mention
it to a friend and several would immediately appear, only
too glad to come for whatever wages we chose to gK-e.

Roman servants are very affectionate, and become
attached to a family in a wonderfully short time. I re-
member returning to Rome, after a trip to Naples during
the great eruption of Vesuvius, and being greeted with
almost frantic joy by the servants, who rushed out into
the street and surrounded our carriage, and began kissing
our hands and arms, and anything they could reach. The
accounts of the loss of life in the eruption had alarmed them.
The cook, whom we hardly knew by sight, was in floods of
tears.

From our balcony we looked over the w hole of the city,
spread out like a map. It was one of the finest \ lews in
Rome and wonderful at sunset. There was the yellow
Tiber winding through the city, here the Castle of St. An-
gelo and St. Peter's dome; while far beyond kiy the dch"-
cately colored Campagna melting into the distant moun-
tains. Our palazzo was such a quaint old place that I used
to remark that the flights of rooks liked to settle there,
when they flew up from the old half-ruined church-tower
below, and chatter together for a while, before they went
to roost in the trees of the Villa Ludovisi.

Our drawing-room was called the Camera Giuseppe,

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

because its walls were frescoed with scenes from the life of
Joseph, by Von Hoffman, a pupil of Overbeck — I believe
these pictures have since been removed and sent to Munich.
One of them, a desert scene where Joseph was being sold
by his brethren, with a train of camels in the foreground,
was really fine. They were mentioned in the guide-books
and visitors often came to see them. I was once showing
them to a party of Americans and one of them, a lady,
looked at the picture of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, mod-
estly placed over a door where it would attract the least
attention, and remarked naively:

"I always thought that Joseph was a great fool."

Over the front door of the palace was a shield bearing
the arms of the United States, and the rooms of the con-
sulate adjoined our apartment. As there was then no rep-
resentative of the American Government in Rome except
myself, I had charge of the Legation and its archives. A
fine library belonged to the Legation, so that the large room
of my office was fined with books, and this gave it a fiterary
flavor. Calvi, my vice-consul, was a Roman lawyer; he
was also a poet and pubfished his verses ; and he had prac-
tised in the Roman courts, where all the pleadings were
then in Latin, so he spoke and wrote Latin fluently and
astonished the Romish ecclesiastics, who often came to
the office to execute documents, by his rapid writing in
Latin. He spoke Engfish well but sometimes turned curious
sentences. Once when I was away in the summer, he wrote
me of the death of a near relative, at the same time dilating
on the extreme heat, and remarked:

"Heat and affliction are very corroding virtues, I ex-
perience both in the highest degree."

Another time he wrote to me, after I had come back
to America, that he hoped when I saw Mr. Nevin, the rec-

i6o

ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

tor of the American Church, his presence would "awake
in me all Roman feelings," and added:

"The American Church in the Via Nazionale is the great
religious event of Rome. The Union Church, patronized
by Mrs. Gould, and the South Baptist Convention arc
making strong efforts, but they all feed stomachi coi mac-
cheroni, instead of souls with Gospel."

Unsolicited by me, the government supplied me witli
a consular clerk, Richard H. Savage, who had lately grad-
uated with distinction from West Point, but who because
of failing health had left the army and come to Rome. He
wrote French with perfect accuracy, but spoke it with a
vile accent, and was not much use to me, as Calvi did all
my extra work. In a few months he tired of the job and
went off to Egypt, ostensibly to join the Khedive's army,
but failing in this returned to Rome for a little while and
then drifted away and I never saw him again. He was a
good recounter of adventures in California, and was after-
ward author of several books, among them "My Oflicial
Wife." He has been dead for several years.

On my way to Rome in October, 1869, I happened to
be stopping in Bologna at the Hotel Brun. I was sitting
in the reading-room and near me was a group of Amer-
icans discussing American consuls in Europe, much to
their disadvantage. Finally one of them remarked:

"What can you expect when they appoint such a per-
son as they have in Rome now! ^'ou would think a man
like Secretary Hamilton Fish might at least select a gentle-
man— this Armstrong, who is at Rome, is a sort of a horse-
jockey — rides in public races at Jerome Park and all that
sort of thing— I call it downright disgraceful ! What they
ought to have in Rome is some one who is a judge of art
and literature, not a sporting man," etc., etc.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Later I met the speaker and found him to be a very
nice fellow, and got to know him well; but I never referred
to this conversation and only trust that he revised his first
opinion of me — he was a Mr. Stokes Boyd, of Philadelphia.

It was part of my duty as consul in Rome to seal the
cofFms of Americans who died there, for the city govern-
ment would not allow them to be removed until they were
sealed, and incidentally I learned what exorbitant charges
were made to families after a death. It was very expensive
to die in Rome, for if any one happened to end his days in
a pension or hotel all the rooms had to be papered, painted,
and refurnished at the expense of the family. The bankers
also had understandings with the undertakers and did not
spare their charges, and they usually had an assistant whose
special duty was attending to funerals. One of them had
a ghoul-hke old man, named Ercole, who was sometimes
invited to functions other than funerals. On one of these
occasions, seeing him in the distance with his arms some-
what extended and with a calculating expression in his
eye, Fred Crowninshield said:

"See old Ercole over there, taking time by the fore-
lock and measuring that man for his cofFm!"

American consuls are supposed to attend to all sorts
of business for their countrymen, whose requests are often
unusual and amusing. Among others, I had a letter from
a lady who asked me if I could find and send her a pair
of rubbers that she had left in the American church the
winter before; strange to say they were found and forwarded
to her, by Ziegler our faithful sexton, who was equal to
almost any emergency. I once got a letter of eighteen pages
from a crazy man, and another from a collector of postage
stamps in Ohio, asking me to send him Roman stamps.
Another time the police sent to me to admonish an Amer-

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

ican, who was leading a dissipated life and wasting his
money; and I remember being appealed to by some ladies
w^ho had been missing things from their ajDurtment for some
time, and at last noticed a trap-door in tlu- roof through
which they found their landlady was in the liabil of com-
ing down at night and walking off with anything she hap-
pened to fancy.

During my residence in Rome I introduced several
hundred Americans to His Holiness, Pio Nono. These
Papal receptions were frequent. The visitor's name had
to be sent in a w-eek beforehand, in return came a permit
stating when the applicant should appear, and I sent my
vice-consul to present him; I never went myself. Al-
though I presented so many Americans to the Pope, I was
never actually presented to Iiim niyself. I had an appoint-
ment for a private interview, but at the last moment was
ill and could not go, so I put it off, and then Rome was
taken and I was no longer consul to the Papal States, so
finally I never went at all.

I frequently saw him walking on the Pincian Hill. He
always w^alked in a hollow square formed by his guard,
followed by his gorgeous carriage. All the people fell on
their knees as he passed. My little daughter Margaret,
about three years old, a pretty child with a bright color
and fair hair, was walking there one day with her Itahan
nurse, who, of course, went down on her knees as the Pope
passed; but little Margaret, when she saw this benevolent-
looking, handsome old man in his beautiful robes, escaped
from her nurse and ran out to him and took his hand. When
he caught sight of the httle creature close beside hmi the
kind old man stooped down and kissed her and patted her
on the head, remarking "E bella, e buona, e cara," and
gave her his blessing, and then she trotted back to her nurse,

163

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

who was so alarmed at her audacity, and yet so overwhelmed
by pride and joy, that the child never forgot it. A favorite
game after that was to dress up in a paper cocked hat and
long cloak and play she was a bishop.

Pio Nono was really a beautiful man, if I may use the
term, graceful and majestic in his carriage, with a very
fair, pink and white complexion, black sparkling eyes and
snowy-white, abundant, curling hair. He did not look at
all old, in spite of his silvery head, which, far from taking
aw^ay from his brilliant look, seemed to accentuate it.

The popes must get pretty tired of functions. On Can-
dlemas, Pio Nono was carried about the church on a plat-
form borne on men's shoulders, from which he blessed the
people, but it swayed so that he was often seasick and could
not have enjoyed it as much as did his faithful subjects.
Fortunately he was able to leave the curing of diseased
animals to St. Anthony — on the seventeenth of January
all the sick cattle and broken-kneed horses in Rome were
taken to the church of St. Anthony, where they were
sprinkled with holy w^ater by the priests and made whole.
Another curious ceremony was on St. Agnes' Day, when
two Iambs, dressed in red ribbons, were placed on the altar
of her church, and then given to the nuns to rear, their
wool, when they were shorn, being donated to the Pope
to be woven into a pallium for a bishop. It must all be a
survival of some ceremony of the Vestal Virgins; I wonder
if it is still kept up. In Holy Week two priests in lace vest-
ments appeared in our house, and went through every room,
blessing it and expecting a douceur in return. Every house
in Rome used to be blessed in this way once a year.

From a very good place in St. Peter's I saw the pro-
cession at the opening in December, 1869, of the Ecumenical
Council, which declared the Infallibility of the Pope. Six

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ROME- CHURCH AND STATE

hundred bishops and cardinals marching along, from the
Vatican to St. Peter's, all gorgeously dressed; the Eastern
bishops looking more like Arab chiefs than Christian pnl-
ates, in gowns of many colors carrying tiaras set with Jewels;
the Western dignitaries in purple and lace, with w hite-and-
gold vestments, and each with his silk mitre in his hand;
the Pope bringing up the rear. They were escorted by a
French regiment, the Papal Zouaves, and the Swiss Guard,
the latter in brilliant steel hchnets and cuirasses, and knee-
breeches of red, yellow and black stripes. After the open-
ing ceremonies the doors were closed to the public. The
council dragged on for months, several of the old bishops
dying before it was over, for many of the clergy were op-
posed to the doctrine of infalhbility. There was a saying
that ''the bishops came to Rome shepherds and went home
sheep." But in the end the Pope won out— it is strange
that he should have been given this vast increase in spiritual
power just at the time that he was to lose the temporal.

In my intercourse with the Vatican, which was con-
siderable, I often had private interviews with Cardinal
Antonelli, who generally received me alone in the evening
in a private room. He was always polite and quite willing
to talk and be obliging, when he could conveniently do
so. He was very shrewd-looking, with piercing black eyes
and a pale face, and usually sat behind a desk, with his
head bowed and resting on one hand, looking at one from
under his black eyebrows in a sort of catlike and watchful
way that gave him a rather sinister look. At the time of
the opening of the Ecumenical Council, I thought that as
I had charge of the American Legation, and there was no
American diplomat at Rome, the cardinal might assume
that I held a quasi-diplomatic position and give mc a seat
in the council; but he very politely but firmly declined,

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

with many apologies, saying that none but actual diplomatic
representatives could be so honored. He wrote me many
long letters in his own handwriting, mostly about trifling
things. I think that he was fond of letter-writing; indeed,
they say that he was one of the most profuse letter-writers
in Europe, and consequently his autographs, of which I
have kept several, are not as valuable as ordinarily would
be those of so distinguished a man.

Pere Hyacinthe spent a winter in Rome about this time.
It was after he had left the Romish Church — he had been
a priest — and was now married and a professor. He was a
fine-looking, attractive, and agreeable man. I never heard
him preach, but he was said to be a remarkable orator.
His wife was a handsome, rather common woman, of about
thirty — I think she had been a corset-maker, or something
of that sort.

The winter of 1870 was very gay and my wife and I
were so busy enjoying ourselves that we had no time to
think of the cares and worries of life, but, all the same, we
were rather glad when the spring came and we did not have
to go out somewhere or other every evening. I remember
a very grand ball at the French Embassy, where the dia-
monds and dresses were gorgeous and the number of princes
and princesses quite overpowering. The rooms at the Co-
lonna palace where the ball was given are very fine, and
the music and flowers were beautiful, but the Americans,
only about a dozen of whom were asked, were astonished
to find that the supper consisted of only tea, chocolate,
cake, lemonade, and candy.

At last the rush of Holy Week and the splendid Easter
ceremonies at St. Peter's were over, foHowed in the incon-
gruous Roman fashion by fireworks, horse-races, and iHu-
minations. St. Peter's was beautiful, strung all over with

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

little lights — although, of course, it was before the day of
electricity — so that the outline of the wonderful dome could
be seen sparkling for miles away across the Campagna.

Mrs. Armstrong to her mother, Mrs. Neilson, New York

Rome, June 19, 1870.
"... Last Thursday was a great festival here, with a
splendid procession around the Square of St. Peter's, monks
in white and monks in brown, priests in white and in black,
and black with huge red crosses on their breasts, bishops
in their white robes and mitres, a band of music, the Pope's
guard in splendid uniforms on horseback, cone-shaped
canopies representing the greatest churches in Rome —
the basilicas — with magnificent crucifixes carried before
and after them, and then the Pope, carried on a large plat-
form with a canopy over him. He is supposed to be kneel-
ing at an altar, and his drapery is arranged to look as if
his legs came out behind, but in reality he is sitting, as it
would be too fatiguing for him to kneel so long. Another
day an altar was arranged in the Corso, and as it was just
before dusk all the candles shone very prettily in the pro-
cession and on the altar."

The last spree of the season was the Artists' Festival
at Cervara. It had been forbidden for the previous ten
years, so this time it was gotten up with unusual care. The
German artists were the principal performers, though others

I joined in, making a motley crowd, dressed in every variety
of absurd and picturesque costume — Arabs, Druids, In-

{ dians, Greeks, Egyptians — some mounted on horses, but
the greater part of them astride of donkeys. They assem-
bled at an earl}- hour at one of the gates and marched in
procession to the Tor degli Schiavi, that fine ruin on the

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Campagna, where they breakfasted and then went on to
Cervara. The caves there are exceedingly picturesque, cut
out of the solid rock, and here they danced, acted little
plays, and rode most entertaining races — fifty or sixty
horses and asses, with gayly decorated riders, speeding
up and down a meadow for an hour or so, while the lookers-
on dotting the hillsides applauded uproariously. Our party,
a jolly crowd of intimate friends, took our lunch under the
shadow of a great rock, prolonging it until twilight fell,
when an immense dragon crawled heavily out of one of the
caverns and was quickly despatched by a nimble St. George,
mounted on a stick, w^hose comic victory brought the pag-
eant to a close. Then home across the lovely Campagna,
of which one never tired, its delicate colors ever changing
into something even more enchanting.

When all these festivities were over, and spring had
really come, most of the bores — the newspaper correspon-
dents, the importunate Americans with their strange de-
mands on the Consulate, and the tourists in general — left
Rome and we settled down to two calm months of charm-
ing weather and the pleasantest life in the world. It was
like June at home, every old ruin draped with flowers and
the air so sweet that it reminded me of the Danskammer
apple-orchard in full bloom. The longer I lived in Rome
the more I loved it !

In the autumn of 1870 the Franco-Prussian War was at
its height — the battle of Sedan was on the first of Sep-
tember. It seems strange now to remember that the sym-
pathies of most Americans were with the Prussians, per-
haps because it was the French who had declared war, but
partly for the reasons implied in the letter from the Reverend
Mr. Nevin given below. Mr. Nevin, rector of the Amer-
ican Church in Rome, had tried to join the American Am-
bulance Corps in France, as he felt it was his duty to do

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

so on account of the experience he had had in our Civil
War, but, for the same reason, he realized just what such
an offer implied in the way of hardships and horrors.

The Reverend Robert J. Nevin to D. M. A.

Geneva, Sept. 13, 1870.

". . . The French empire has gone like a dream. No
voice to say a word for it. The Papacy goes the same way,
at least its temporal power. Both have provoked their
fate, and Christianity is the better for it. The world and
the Devil went a little too far this year, at both Paris and
Rome, and have come to great grief. I shall consider it
a blessing to our social life, even if it come in a sharp dis-
guise, if the influence of Paris be so broken that it no longer
controls the world's society, and I am willing to sacrifice
something in the gayeties, and bonnets, and charming
toilettes of our girls. Even if Paris be bombarded I shall
not grieve greatly over the vandalism.

They have not called upon mc to come to Paris. I
expect the chairman of the American Ambulance Corps
skedaddled before he got my letter. Communications seem
now to be cut, and I breathe freely. I know it would have
been bad to do hospital work, before a winter's work in
Rome, but I could not help offering to go, so sad were the
tales of unrelieved suffering. Now especially, since the ma-
turing of affairs in Rome, I am glad not to be called on. I do
not anticipate resistance in Rome and hope to hear in a day
(;r two of its quiet occupation by the Italian forces, which
will be the surest safeguard against revolution within."

My wife had a friend in Paris of whom she was ver}'
fond, Miss Gabrielle Goffard, a niece of M. Chez d'est Angcs,
who had a lovely country place at Ville Neuve St. George,
where we once spent a night, as well as a fine house in Paris.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

He was not only a distinguished lawyer, a senator, and a
commander of the Legion of Honor, but he was a collector
of objets d'art, and his house was crowded with splendid
things. When the Goffards returned to Paris after the
war was over they found their own house uninjured, but
there was little left of Ville Neuve St. George — every bit
of furniture, bronzes, pictures, and porcelain was either
broken or burned.

When I first visited Italy, in 1859, war was imminent,
France and Italy being united against Austria, a.nd as I
passed through north Italy I saw troops drilling in every
town; in a previous chapter I have spoken of seeing Napo-
leon in Paris, on his w^ay to the great victories of Magenta
and Solferino. But there was to be a different finish to
the war of 1870, though Italy was again to come out on
top. The temporal power of the Pope, long tottering to
its fall, had been sustained only by the artificial prop of the
French army, and when Napoleon was obliged to withdraw
his troops from Rome to use them against the Prussians
every one knew that the end of the Papal States was near.

In August, 1870 — a memorable date in the history of
Italy — I was staying with my family in Bellagio at the
Villa Giulia, a palace on Lake Como belonging to the King
of Belgium, at that time used as a hotel. It was a lovely
place, surrounded by lawns and gardens, shaded by ancient
horse-chestnut trees, and there was such a variety of nice
subjects that I spent most of my time sketching. I re-
member making a study of a group of peasants' cottages,
with ears of yellow corn festooned between the windows
in their gray stone walls. Over my head, where I sat, a
large fig-tree spread its branches and every now and then
dropped a luscious purple fig on the pavement beside me,
all ready to be eaten — in fact, they almost dropped into
my mouth.

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

Broad grassy avenues led away from the villa, out to the
top of the cliffs overlooking the lake, and at the end of one
of these avenues I made another sketch, where two weather-
beaten stone posts, flanked by giant cypresses, guarded
a flight of stone steps that led down to the water. From
this spot there was a divine view, across Como to Cadenab-
bia and the blue mountains towering above it; but the
view from the other end of the avenue was just as lovely.
Here was a little Greciar^ temple, a sort of summer-house,
and I was sitting there one peaceful August morning paint-
ing a little picture — I have it still, a small steamer plough-
ing its way across the blue water, leaving a broad wake
behind it. I was thinking what a long, pleasant summer
lay before me — thinking of anything rather than war —
when a telegram was brought to me summoning me to Rome.
War had been declared by the Italian Government against
the Papal States, troops were marching toward Rome and
were about to attack it.

As there was at that time no other ofFicial in Rome rep-
resenting the United States, I felt it my duty to go there
at once; so my dreams of a long summer hohday were
dashed and I started for Rome, leaving my family at Bel-
lagio.

All went quietly and well until the third morning, when
the train stopped at a little station and the passengers —
there were but three — were told that the train could go
no further, as the tracks had been torn up by the Italians.
We found ourselves on the Campagna, about twenty-five
miles from Rome; it was a deserted spot and there were
no signs of a conversance of any sort and nothing to be had
to eat; but after exploring the neighborhood I found a
wretched little hut, inhabited by a ragged old peasant,
owner of a rickety box-wagon without springs or scats,
drawn by a half-starved horse, whose dilapidated harness

171

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

was tied together with bits of string. As I was at his mercy,
I had to promise him an enormous price, I have forgotten
what, to induce him to take us to Rome. Then I returned
to the train and offered the hospitality of the wagon to
my fellow travellers, which they were very glad to accept
and cheerfully shared the cost of the wagon with me. They
were pleasant young fellows, who proved to be connected
with the Austrian Legation at Rome, a little patronizing
in their manner, asking me how I expected to get into Rome.
I told them that I had my American passport and thought
I should have no difficulty, but they seemed doubtful and
assured me of their help and protection, as being in the
diplomatic service they would certainly have no trouble.

The driver put strips of rough board across the wagon
for seats, and we filled the rest of it with our luggage. It
was now about ten o'clock and we went on our way. We
had had no breakfast except some luscious black and yellow
grapes that a boy brought us on the train, so after a while
we were glad to see a little "osteria" with a bush over the
door, but it proved to have no wine, nor even bread. The
only thing they could give us was three of the smallest
eggs I have ever eaten, and when I asked for salt they
brought it on a vine leaf, perfectly black, just as it had
been dug from the soil; so we stood in the road and quickly
devoured our little eggs, saltless and breadless. We could
not, like Robert Louis Stevenson's amateur emigrant, "line
ourselves" very comfortably with these eggs, and we got
nothing more to eat that day. It was scorching hot and
the long white road was dusty. The Campagna at that
season was burned to a uniform tint of light-tan color, with
occasionally a strip of green along the water-courses, but
it was beautiful as always, the wide yellow plain dissolv-
ing into the blue and pink of the distant mountains. When

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

at last we reached the old Nomcntano bridge we saw Rome,
dominated by the dome of St. Peter's, and the Italian army,
sixty thousand strong, their tents dotting the hills and regi-
ments of cavalry drilling on the plain.

All was bustle and confusion at the Porta Pia, where
we wished to enter. The front of the gateway and the walls
on either side of it were piled high with sand-bags, and in
front of the gate itself and ahiiost obscuring it was an earth-
work also strengthened by sand-bags. After a long alter-
cation with our driver as to the amount of the "buona
mano," which in Italy no matter how much you pay is
never enough, one glance at my passport by the ofhcials
assured me of a prompt and polite invitation to enter; but
when my Austrian acquaintances presented their passports
their reception was quite different, so our relative positions
were altered, and much to their chagrin and in spite of my
entreaties and assurances they were obh'ged to remain out-
side of the walls all night, and when I met them in Rome
the next day their patronage of me had ceased. But they
were good fellows all the same, and I recall our long day
together with pleasure in the retrospect.

Having my apartment all ready at 64 Via Sistina, I felt
quite at home. I had my breakfast at the Caffe Greco and
my dinner at the Hotel d'Angleterre, and I allowed the
keeper of the hotel, as I was his guest, to put up the Amer-
ican flag, which he seemed to think would be a protection
from the northern invaders. There were no travellers and
few Americans; all the studios were closed; one could not
communicate with the outer world at all, either by letter
or telegraph, and I did not receive any word from my family
for several weeks— Rome was hermetically scaled. It was
dull and very quiet, but I rather enjoyed it, for I had plenty
of time to sketch; and there was little else to do, except

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

to interview stranded Americans who wanted the protec-
tion of the American flag; it was surprising how many turned
up whom I had never heard of. Among those who asked
for protection were the American students at the American
College and at the Propaganda, who, of course, had a right
to it; and I was as liberal as I could be in according every-
body such privileges, but I had to draw the line at the ap-
phcation of an American lady, the wife of a distinguished
Roman official, for she was no longer an American citizen.
She was very indignant and threatened to complain to
Washington.

In the summer in most of the Italian cities the shops
are closed nearly all day, except early in the morning and
in the evening, and the streets are deserted, save for a few
people crawling along the shady side of the street, because
the Italians fear the sunshine in summer as much as the
shade in winter. But even then Rome was unusually quiet.
We supposed, as it proved later, that the people as a whole
were in favor of the Italian Government, but there were
no demonstrations or disturbance, and although the troops
were busy drilling they showed no evidence of excite-
ment.

The day before the attack came, I went to the grounds
of the Villa Medici, to the top of a hill where one had a
view of the encampment of the whole Italian army. This
hill is apparently an artificial one, covered with trees and
approached by a long flight of steps from the *'Bosco,"
adjoining the other grounds and gardens of the Villa Medici,
which is occupied by the French Academy of Rome; over
the door of the academy is this inscription :

"Napoleon le Grand
Les Arts reconuaissant."

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

The Bosco is a lovely wild overgrown spot, gay uith flowers
in spring, especially cyclamen, and giving charming vistas
between gnarled ilex trees over the old walls of Rome and
the Villa Borghese — the very place where one would expect
to see nymphs and satyrs sporting in the shade. Ahhough
I never met any such charming creatures, one seldom went
there without finding some artist sketching, or posing a
model under the trees.

When I arrived at the top of this hill, I found there a
number of Papal Zouaves with field-glasses, watching the
Italian troops and discussing the result, as they expected
an attack soon. The Zouaves were attractive, dashing
young fellows, a cosmopolitan lot of all nations, Americans,
English, Irish, German, and French, many of them of noble
families. These boys chatted very pleasantly, were gay
and hopeful and did not seem at all cast down at the prospect
of a battle with a great army. Poor fellows, they did not
realize what humiliation a day would bring forth for them.

Early next morning at five o'clock, on September 20,
1870, heavy cannonading began. Calvi became much ex-
cited, and said that he felt very warlike and that it was
grand, and suggested that we should go up on the roof and
see the fun; but when we reached there, although the noise
was deafening, for the firing was quite near, we could see
nothing because of the intervening buildings. In a few
minutes something whizzed through the air right between
us and he exclaimed:

"What was that?"

I said, "A bullet."

Whereupon he said he did not feel so much interested
after all and suggested that we descend, which we accord-
ingly did, and as we went down through the skylight we
saw where a bullet had lodged in the casing through which

175

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

we had just come up. We found later that a shell had burst
in the Terrys' apartment and done a good deal of damage.
Calvi and I then walked out through the Via Sistina
to the Piazza Barberini, where the ground was strew^n with
bits of shell, some of which we picked up. The firing by
this time had ceased; it lasted in all only about two hours.
From the Piazza w^e walked up toward the Porta Pia and
on the way passed the Villa Buonaparte, through the grounds
of which the Italians had entered at ten o'clock by a gap-
ing fissure that they had soon made in the old Roman wall,
which was not at all prepared for modern artillery. I saw
there a Papal Zouave lying dead on his back under an ilex
bush near the gate. Nearby w-as one of those long, narrow,
straight, paved streets with a tiny sidewalk and high walls
on either side, and this was lined on both sides as far as
one could see, perhaps a quarter of a mile, with Italian
bersaglieri, in single file, wdth their rifles grounded. Pres-
ently there appeared the Papal Zouaves, without arms,
marching tw^o and tw o, very much dishevelled, among them
my acquaintances of the day before; and as they passed
the Italians kept shouting, '*Viva Italia!" and "Verdi!"
which stands for Vittorio Emanuele Re d' Italia, and mak-
ing a singular rolhng sound under their tongues that was
like distant thunder, spitting on the Zouaves and thump-
ing the butts of their guns on their toes and offering them
every indignity. It was pitiful to see these poor fellows
hopping about to avoid the blows; it w'as shocking and
humihating. Among them was a young man whom I had
often seen, Charette, who belonged to a noble family —
one lock of his black hair was perfectly w^hite and he w^as
said to be very proud of this, as it had descended in his
family as a distinguishing mark for many generations: he,
poor fellow, was hopping about and trying to protect his

176

ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

toes with the rest. The next day the Zouaves were all as-
sembled in the great Square of St. Peter's and expel Ic-d
from Rome and we never saw them more. The whole afTair
was very different from the gallant defense of the Quattro
Venti of Rome by Garibaldi in 1849.

As soon as it was known that Rome had surrendered,
there was a perfect irruption of Italian flags; the colors
seemed to float from every window and above every tower —
the people had evidently been making and secreting them
for a long while.. Crowds paraded up and down the streets,
mad with joy. The soldiers, looking very friendly and
cheerful, were welcomed and embraced, kissed and cheered
by every one they met, and the public squares were soon
filled with cavalry horses tethered to every projection,
and piles of hay and other fodder scattered all over the
pavements. It looked like war, although there had been
little of a real battle.

The streets soon assumed their normal condition, ex-
cept that there were no more gorgeous cardinal's carriages
or papal processions; but, instead, the Royal Guard of
Prince Humbert, mostly Roman nobles, in their gay uni-
forms and mounted on splendid horses, or troops of Ixt-
saglieri, with their great bhick hats plumed with cocks'
feathers, trotting along at double quick — as the old song says :

"Voi altri bersaglieri,
Ch'avete le gambc buonc,
Andiamo pigliar Roma!"

Yes, Rome had changed. It had jumped from the mid-
dle ages into the present and, alas ! lost much of its pic-
turesqueness. But there is no doubt that the people were
delighted at the change. The vote for the Italian Govern-
ment was forty-five thousand for and forty-five against.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

With the advent of the Italians the population was
soon increased by sixty thousand and it was difficult to
house the newcomers; so much so, that there was a wild
speculation in land and building. New shops were opened
and remained open on Sunday — Papal Rome was the most
moral city, in appearance, that I have ever known — in-
deed, ultimately so many houses were built that the supply
outran the demand, land decreased in value, and some of
the new buildings were never completed. In this specu-
lation many of the nobility were involved with disastrous
results, among them the Borghese, who, I understand,
were almost ruined.

Rome was not actually made the capital of Italy until
the next summer, and then there were great rejoicings
throughout the country. We were in Venice at the time.
Flags were hung from every window, meeting and crossing
in an archway over the narrow streets, San Marco was
wonderfully illuminated, and everywhere little printed
bills were stuck up expressing sympathy with Victor Em-
manuel. One of these read: "Glory to God for having
given such long Hfe to Pius IX that he is able to see Rome
made the capital of Italy."

After the taking of Rome the Vatican was closed to
sightseers, and only a few permits were given me by Car-
dinal Antonelli; so few that it made it rather awkward
for me having to discriminate among all the Americans
who clamored for them.

An old prophecy had foretold the destruction of Rome
by an earthquake on the tenth of November, 1870, and a
good many people were really anxious until that day had
passed with nothing worse than a very bad thunder-storm.
Another prophecy declared that no Pope could rule longer
than St. Peter's twenty-five years, so although Pio Nono

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

was Pope much longer than that, they said that it did not
really count, as he had lost his temporal power.

King Victor Emmanuel never came to live in Rome, but
merely visited it for a short time, wlien he had an uproari-
ously enthusiastic reception. I saw him drive through the
Via Sistina, accompanied by a mihtary guard. He was a
very fat, red-faced man, of regal manner, bowing grandly
right and left as he passed.

Shortly after Rome was taken, I was promoted from
being Consul to the Papal States to be Consul-General for
Italy at Rome. This increased mj' work a great deal, as
the consul-general has charge of all communications from
the consuls, including the forwarding of all accounts of
their offices to the department of state at Washington,
and he has to see that all such reports are correct before
forwarding them — at least that was the way in my tinie.
Mr. Marsh, the American Minister, resided in Florence
and did not come to Rome until the following year; so I
still remained in charge of the Legation and attended to
any business connected therewith, both with the Vatican
and the Italian Government.

One of these extra duties of mine, usually performed
by an accredited minister, was presenting Americans to
Prince Humbert and Princess Margherita, who had come
at once to Rome and estabhshed their court at the Quirinal.
I presented a great many that winter, and I also continued
to present my countrymen to the Pope. Both Prince Hum-
bert and Princess Margherita were simple and gracious at
their receptions; she struck me as especially charmmg—
young and handsome, with a most sweet expression.

I had a private audience with Prince Humbert, gomg
one afternoon by appointment to the Quirinal. After regis-
tering my name in an anteroom, an attendant took me to

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

the prince's library, where the prince was sitting alone;
he immediately got up and shook hands with me and asked
me to take a seat, and, as he was smoking, offered me a cigar.
We talked about twenty minutes before I got up to go, when
he walked with me to the open fireplace, where we warmed
ourselves and he continued to smoke and talk, and when
I left he went ahead of me to the door and opened it him-
self. It was just like any pleasant call of one American
gentleman on another. Outside a single attendant was
waiting and walked with me to the gate. I often saw Prince
Humbert riding at the Hunt on the Campagna. The horse
that he habitually rode was an immense animal, seventeen
hands high, that looked as if it could, jump anything, but
I heard that he was not allowed to take any chances and
that he was obliged to ride with circumspection, so royalty
has its drawbacks in this as in many other ways.

The opening of the first Parliament in Rome was an
important event which many grandees attended. The Em-
peror of Brazil was present in the royal box. He was a
fine-looking man in civilian dress set off by a pair of bright
green gloves with immensely long fingers.

Mrs. Armstrong to Her Mother

Rome, April 17, 1O71.
". . . Last Thursday I was presented to the Pope. I
went with the Wetherills and took fittle Margaret. A great
many persons were presented; we all waited in a large
hall, and the Pope came in and went around the room,
saying a few words to each person as their names were told
him. He took fittle Margaret right up in his arms, and
then she kissed his hand. Then he went to one end of the
room and made a little address and blessed us all, and all
the rosaries, crosses, etc., that we had with us, and our

180

ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

families and our travels. I had a number of rosaries, whicli
the servants at home will vakic. He is a very fine-looking
old man, sweet and pleasant in his manner. His eye is
bright and keen still and he does not look at all infirm or
broken-down.

The next evening Maitland and I went to a party at
the Quirinal. When we first went in we were received by
the Princess, and after a little while she led the way, through
a handsome suite of rooms, to a pretty little theatre where
we had private theatricals, a little Italian play and two
in French. The acting was very good indeed, and between
the acts ices were handed. When the play was over the
Princess went first and we all followed her through some
other handsome rooms to the supper-room, an immense
place with a table all around three sides, so that we could
all sit down. We had a delicious supper, the waiters were
all behind the tables and handed everything. After supper
the Princess bid good evening and left first, then we all
came away.

The other morning, before I was up, Mrs. Wilcoxen
rushed over to ask me to come at once to see her baby as
it was very ill. I hurried, but before I got there the baby
was better. I don't know what they would do if they were
to lose that baby."

Mrs. Wilcoxen and Miss Niles were Americans, the
daughters of Doctor Niles, who left them an enormous
fortune, but only for life unless they had children. .Mrs.
Wilcoxen had been married for many years when the child
of whom my wife speaks was born. If this little heir had
not appeared on the scene, the property would have been
inherited by a cousin, a young man who was with them in
Rome. My wife once laughingly said to Miss Niles: "I

i8i

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

should think you would be afraid your cousin would want
to poison the baby." But she answered quite seriously,
"Oh, no, he is Jar too good!"

Miss Niles afterward married General Badeau, and her
wedding in New York was a tremendous affair. She and
her sister were twins and were supposed to be the originals
of the twins in Eugene Sue's "Wandering Jew."

The Reverend Robert J. Nevin was appointed rector of
the American Church in Rome about the same time that I
went there in 1869, and remained there until his death, in
1906. He was about thirty, having lately entered the minis-
try, his ordination being delayed by his service in the Civil
War as captain of a battery in the United States army,
where he distinguished himself. He was a charming and
interesting gentleman, a gallant, manly fellow, full of enthu-
siasm and energy.

The Papal government did not allow any Protestant
services to be held inside the walls of Rome, except at some
of the foreign legations, so the American Chapel was out-
side the walls, very near the Porta del Popolo and opposite
the entrance to the Villa Borghese. It was a large upper
room, furnished with chancel and altar, ahvays well fdled
and in the season thronged with Americans. When the
Itahan Government came to Rome, Doctor Nevin decided
to raise funds to purchase land and build a church within
the walls, to be called St. Paul's. There is no church inside
the walls of Rome dedicated to St. Paul, and Pere Hya-
cinthe remarked that it was strange that the apostle should
have found his way back into the Eternal City "via Amer-
ica." When it came to buying the land in Rome and a
site on the Via Nazionale was selected, it was found neces-
sary to buy a much larger plot than was needed for the
church alone; so several of the American residents clubbed

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

together, myself among the number, and took a deed for
the rest of the plot. I remained an owner of this bit of
the Eternal City for several years, but on leaving Rome
I sold my share to WiUiam Haseltine, another of the orig-
inal purchasers. In digging the foundation of the church
many interesting objects were discovered, among them some
very large amphora?, one of which was presented to Grace
Church, New York, I beheve by Miss Wolfe, and now stands
in the rectory grounds. It is a curious change of scene for
this old jar, that once heard the rumble of Roman chariot
wheels and now echoes to the jangling bells of Broadway's
cable-cars.

Miss Catherine Lorillard Wolfe was a hberal friend
of St. Paul's and also of Grace Church, when Bishop Henry
C. Potter was rector. Doctor Nevin and Doctor Potter
were very intimate and in Rome were seen together con-
stantly. The Romans nicknamed them "Romulus and
Remus," because they were both "suckled by a Wolf."

I held every position in the American Church at Rome
except that of rector. I w^as clerk of the vestry, treasurer,
senior warden, and vestryman, and in Doctor Nevin's ab-
sence had to hunt up stray clergymen to officiate in his place.

Nevin had hosts of warm friends and a large acquaint-
ance among distinguished people throughout Europe. Not
only was he celebrated for his genial hospitality — always
giving his guests the choicest vintages, for he was one of
the best judges of wine in Italy — but no man was ever more
kind-hearted and generous to the poor of all denominations.
There was a great deal of typhoid one winter in Rome and
Mr. Nevin spent night after night sitting up with sick people,
for we had no trained nurses in those days; not long after
this, he raised some money to get trained nurses in Rome,
such as they already had in England.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

He was a discriminating collector of objects of art in
a large way, making the most of the great opportunities
he had during his long residence in Italy, which he knew
from end to end, and bringing together many fine pictures
of the primitive school, as well as books, marbles, china,
glass — anything that caught his fancy. I believe that for
a Bellini of his, inherited by a relation in America, he was
offered two hundred thousand dollars. He was a fine horse-
man and together we explored the Campagna pretty thor-
oughly, but he did not think it expedient for a clergyman
to ride at the hunt and never did so. He was a mighty
hunter and traveller throughout Europe, in India, and the
\\ ilds of America and Mexico, spending several vacations
hunting grizzlies in the Rocky Mountains. In South Africa
he knew Cecil Rhodes, who gave him every facility for
hunting big game, and one fine summer he spent in the
Olympic Mountains with Waldo Story. As a result his
collection of heads and hunting trophies was nearly un-
equalled.

I have many pleasant associations with Doctor Nevin.
One summer we took a long walk, with Henry Van Schaick
of New York, through the mountains from IschI, starting
at dayhght and getting back to IschI at eleven at night,
having accomphshed forty-two miles. We visited the beau-
tiful Konigsee together, and saw a chamois far up the moun-
tainside, and we went to Munich and Augsburg and picked
up some nice bits of old stained glass. The Franco-Prus-
sian War was just breaking out and we found all the pic-
tures and statues in the art galleries of Munich had been
moved away and hidden, for fear that the French would
imitate the great Napoleon and carry them off to France —
the Germans were not then so sure of the conquest that
they afterward achieved.

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ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

Doctor Nevin to D. M. A., Rome

New ^'ork, June, 1872.
... Oh my dear fellow, you cannot imagine how
infinitely flat N. Y. society is after Rome. No lions, no
distinguished literati, artists, or soldiers. Ail young people
who talk about the same things and are apt to give you
their impressions of the Rhine and the Colosseum, as a
novelty in conversation, if they happen to have been across
the Atlantic. Be careful. Do nothing that will precipitate
you rashly into this city.

Doctor Nevin to D. M. A., New York

Rome, March, 18-4.

"... Last Sunday I was forced into a controversial
attitude by a series of miserably evasive and disingenuous
sermons which M'gr Capel has been preaching. I think
I have brought around to their bearings two or three women
whom Capel's eyes had been unsettling in their faitli, and
General McCIellan came in to-day to thank me. I met
Capel at Mrs. Bruce's that evening — a large party, M'gr
Howard, now Archb'p, being present. They being two to
one, and Bishops at that, they undertook to put me down,
the more so as they were trying to capture two of the guests
present. After they got tired of firing bombs at me I felt
free to prick them with uncomfortable questions.

As soon as the soup was off, Mrs. Bruce began by say-
ing that she heard M'gr Capel hadn't done much this trip,
that it had hardly paid him for coming. But he assured
her he had seven persons under instruction, one an impor-
tant man, a member of the Gov't, and turned to me with:

*I really think, my dear Mr. Nevin, the wisest thing
you could do would be to become the eighth.'

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

I contented myself with saying that I hoped, in the
interests of Christianity, all the seven were Unitarians
or Quakers, (in allusion to Mrs. Hicks, who is reported to
have entered our Church and to be on the point of marry-
ing Dr. Howland,) which he took perfectly and seemed to
enjoy in private, no one else understanding it.

Theodore Roosevelt has promised us $500. Crownin-
shield is my staunchest friend; there is something very
manly and true about him. Ticknor runs the Union Chapel
under Mrs. Gould. No one married here since Miss Craw-
ford, though at one time we had some hopes of Wurts. Miss
Annie, that was, is said to be keeping up a perpetual cooing
with her young man in a cottage by the sea near Naples.'*

Via Napoli 58, Rome, MaVch, 1898.

"... Pierpont Morgan is here and has been with me
the last hour. It is wonderful the certainty of his think-
ing in business matters. He is chairman of our trustees.
We have had no meeting for three years, and a lot of ques-
tions had come up that perplexed me; he settled every-
thing at sight, hitting instantly conclusions which it had
taken me much thinking to reach. It is discouraging. How-
ever, I can ride a horse or shoot a rifle better than he can.

Ward is mounting my S. African heads in London, stein-
bock, roan and sable antelope, hartebeeste, wildebeeste,
and giraff^e; I foolishly did not bring back any zebra skins.
Do come and spend next winter in Rome."

Rome, July 4, 1900.
When the glass was put in Grace Church Dr.

had conceived the idea of having each window by a diff'er-
ent artist, and in a diff'erent style, 'so as to represent in
a Catholic way the art of the ages.* I am afraid he has

186

ROME— CHURCH AND STATE

not grown much beyond this; hkc many great men he sticks
to his ideals though they might better Ix- relegated to the
past.

I have the Fourth of July dinner— the German Am-
bassador, the Ministers of England, France, Belgium, etc.,
and Baron Blanc, the Itahan sec. of foreign affairs. I hope
they will all keep the peace. The Chinese business has
made things very sensitive over here. England begins
to see how heavy will be her bill for tlie Chamberlain raid
on the Transvaal, and Russia and Germany are sailing
ahead, delighted to see England in a back seat, and awak-
ening mistrust all along the Hne. Don't invest in foreign
securities just now, and keep our Government out of any
combined war on China.

Haseltine's death has caused a sad gap here. Give my
love to Marshall and cheer him up, and greet all the good
'Centurians.'

Affectionately yours, R. J. Ne\in."

St. Paul's is a fine Gothic edifice, built from Street's
designs, the stained glass by Clayton & Bell, and the mosaics
by Salviati of Venice from the- designs of Burne-Jones —
altogether a noble monument to the memory of Doctor
Nevin its founder. He died alone in Mexico, where he was
travelling when his end came; I do not even know where
he is buried. It was sad that he could not lie in Rome,
the scene of his long, useful, and happy life, in the lovely
spot hallowed by the ashes of Shelley and Keats, under
the shadow of the dark cypress trees and the pyramid of
Caius Cestius.

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CHAPTER IX

SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

E le campane si sentono sonare,

E si sente sonare in cielo e in Roma.

One of my first duties on reaching Rome in October,
1869, was to care for the effects of Thomas H. Hotchkiss,
an American artist who had lately died in Sicily. I had
never known Hotchkiss but he had many warm friends,
among them Coleman and Vedder, who spoke of him with
admiration and affection. He was a landscape painter,
and his pictures of the Roman Campagna, to which he
devoted years of study, are not only true to nature but
wonderful in drawing and color and filled with the most
dehghtful feeling and sentiment. Even his important pic-
tures were painted, I beheve, entirely out of doors. He
was quiet and retiring and but httle known, because he
was absorbed in study from nature, and he painted few
large pictures; indeed, he produced little in that way until
a year or two before his death. When he was just on the
threshold of fame he died suddenly, leaving literally thou-
sands of sketches. He had a great future before him and was
one of the most promising artists America has produced.

I know httle of his life and learned that little from the
friends who loved him. He was born at Hudson, New York,
of very poor and very ignorant parents, and his childhood
was not a happy one. Even when very young he showed
talent for painting, in which it is needless to say he had
no encouragement. He once went to a country fair and

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SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

bought some paints and brushes, but when he tof)k them
home his family destroyed them, thinking that they were
implements for gambling. He was still a little boy whi-n
they put him to work in a briek-yard, and being a delicate
child the hard work and exposure, and perhaps insufTicieni
food, planted the seeds of the malady that ultimately caused
his death. As soon as he was able to escape from this slavery
he fled to New York in opposition to the wishes of his family,
who cut him off and never had anything more to do with
him. He was friendless, but happening to know the pic-
tures of the late A. B. Durand, he appealed to him, and
Mr. Durand befriended him and allowed him to work in
his studio. How and why he came to Rome, w hich thence-
forward was his home, I do not know. One of his lirsl-
rate things, a view of the Tor degli Schiavi in the Gimpagna,
was bought by the late Charles H. Marshall, of New ^'ork;
and another, a mountain view near Perugia, is owned by
Wilham H. Herriman, of Rome. But his chief fame was
among artists.

Some of his finest w'ork was done at Taormina, where
a favorite subject was that most beautiful ruin in the world,
the Greek Theatre. A few of its marble columns arc still
standing in front of the great amphitheatre, but its chief
glory is the wonderful view seen through and beyond its
gigantic red brick arches and walls, relieved against the
turquoise sea and sky. The lovely coast-line of the straits
of Messina winds away for miles; Point Naxos of the Greeks
is in the foreground; and beyond lies the broad undulatinu
plain, variegated with the many-tinted verdure of almond
orchards and vineyards; and still beyond are the slopes
and peaks of Mount Etna, rising ten thousand feet above
the sea, shining white with snow like Mont Blanc, with
wreaths of smoke from the crater drifting across the sky—

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

altogether, one of the most entrancing and romantic views
on earth, never the same, always changing, always beau-
tiful.

It was here that Hotchkiss was spending the summer
of 1869 with John Rollin Tilton, the artist, when he died
of a hemorrhage of the lungs. It was at night, Tilton heard
a shght sound and went to him, and he died in a few mo-
ments in his arms. When I was in Taormina a few years
ago I asked the old **custode" if he remembered Thomas
Hotchkiss. His face hghted when he said that he well re-
membered "Signor Tommaso," and also "il signor inglese,"
meaning Tilton. Saying, "I will show you where he lived
and died," he led me to a small stone house that stands on
the highest point of the theatre, and showed me the room,
now used as a museum for art objects found in the place and
filled with delicate broken bas-rehefs, fragments of statues
and marbles, jars and other ancient bits — all quiet and
peaceful, the windows looking out over the wide landscape
that he knew so well, a fit setting for the spot where that
fine soul passed away. He fills a nameless grave at Mes-
sina, for it was never marked by a stone and the earth-
quake has probably obfiterated the cemetery, but his body
has mingled with the soil of the Italy that he loved and
depicted so beautifully. He was a great painter and it is
pathetic that so few know anything about him, not even
his name.

When I came to look into his aff"airs I found that he
had some debts in Rome, so I had an auction sale to which
all the artists flocked, for he had collected many valuable
things during his long residence in Rome. The prices ob-
tained were so high that a sufficient sum was soon realized
to pay all his debts, and the rest of his things were sent to
New York and sold by the public administrator. As Hotch-

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SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

kiss was little known there, they sold for trilling sums, but
this made no diflerencc, as I beheve his family felt so bitterly
toward his memory that they decHncd to receive the money
and it went to the State.

Among his effects were two most interesting pictures,
attributed to Piero di Cosimo. The National Gallery had
offered Hotchkiss a large price for them, which he had re-
fused, and when his sale was held in Rome many of the
artists hoped to buy them, and were much disappointed
to find that they were, to be sent to New York. I wrote
to my friend Robert Gordon to look out for them and buy
them, which he did, and presented them to the Metropolitan
Museum. This was during the reign of General di Cesnola,
who appreciated tliem so little that he put them in the
cellar, where they remained for more than thirty years en-
tirely forgotten, until about ten years ago, when they were
discovered and brought to light, being heralded as a re-
markable discovery and making quite a sensation. No
one knew where they had come from. As I was familiar
with them — they had hung in my office in Rome for nearly
a year — I wrote an account of them in the New York Times,
and they were pronounced by experts to be certainly by
Piero di Cosimo. They may now be seen in the Museum,
and are in excellent preservation, never having been re-
stored. They are painted on wooden panels each about
eight feet long; one a woodland scene, with satyrs and
monkeys, and the other a rocky shore, with figures landing
from galleys. Browning lived in the Palazzo Barberini
when Hotchkiss had his studio there, so that he doubtless
knew Hotchkiss, and I have amused myself by thinking
that his poem, "Over the sea our galleys went," might have
been inspired by one of these interesting pictures.

Among other valuable things in Hotchkiss's studio were

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

several very large and beautiful Etruscan vases, which had
been acquired by him in a curious way. He happened to
be sketching on the Campagna one day, near where some
men were digging out an old tomb, looking for buried
treasure. When they left in the evening, he entered the
tomb and chanced to lean against the wall, which gave way
and disclosed another chamber containing these magnificent
vases. He immediately returned to Rome, got a cab, drove
out there and secured them. These vases were also sent to
New York and what became of them I do not know ; they
were probably bought by some one who did not reahze their
value, which was a pity, as they were museum pieces.

Speaking of the Metropohtan Museum reminds me
of a peaceful Sunday morning in Rome, when I was sitting
in the garden of the Palazzo Zuccari, my little children
playing about me — a garden surrounded by high moss-
grown walls, over which hung orange trees covered with
fruit, with beds of purple violets under them. From the
garden some steps led down into the Via Gregoriana, through
a green door set in the open mouth of a huge rococo head;
any one famihar with Rome will remember it.

I had been thinking for some time that an art museum
in New York was a sorely needed thing, and on this lovely
morning the idea came to me that it would be a good plan
to write to Robert Gordon, in New York, and tell him what
I thought a museum ought to be and urge him to take the
matter up; so I inflicted on him about twenty pages. Not
long after, I heard from him that the good work was really
to be begun, and when I returned to New York I found
the Museum already estabhshed in the old Douglas Cruger
house in Fourteenth Street. Of course, when I wrote to
Gordon the project was already in the air, but it is a pleasure
to feel that I was one of the first to suggest it.

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SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

It was a pity that a scheme I had at that time could
not have been carried out. I suggested that a room in the
new Museum should be decorated and furnished like a real
"cinque cento" room, where various articles of that period
could be arranged as if they were actually in use. As I
wrote to Mr. Gordon: "The ordinary museum displays
its treasures in a white-walled room, with huge windows
letting in a blaze of light; here in a row of prosaic glass
cases the poor antiques lie and shine like flowers torn up
by the roots."

Such rooms as I had in mind, showing the every-day
life of a period, are to be seen in many museums now; but
if the Metropolitan had taken up my idea then, and lx)ught
the necessary fittings, such as woodwork, stained glass,
tapestry, etc., many rare and wonderful things could have
been secured — such objets d'art were cheap fifty years ago.

Mr. Gordon was one of the founders of the Metropolitan
Museum and the treasurer for many years. He is one of
my oldest friends. In a letter I got from him two or three
years ago. he mentions that "the first dollar ever given to
the Museum" had been given by him. Not long ago he
gave the Museum a fine picture by Wyant, at the same
time presenting a beautiful picture by Sanford Gilford to
the Century Club, of which he is a member. Mr. Gordon,
Joseph H. Choate, and Theodore Weston are the only ones
left of the original founders of the Museum.

In 1869, Rome was the Mecca of American artists and
there was a large colony of them there, many of whom were
very successful, as American art was then the fashion.
Among the painters were Elihu Vedder, Charles Caryl
Coleman, William Haseltinc, Charles Dix, George H. ^'ewcll,
George Inness, T. Buchanan Read, Frederick Crown in-
shield, William Graham, William Gedney Buncc, John

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

RoIIin Tilton, George Healy, and Messrs. Freeman, Terry,
and Chapman, about most of whom I shall have something
to say in detail. The two last named were members of
the old Sketch Club of New York, out of which grew the
Century Club.

Hcaly painted a nice portrait of my little Margaret
in Rome, more successful than his portraits of children
usually were, though he painted men well. She did not
mind sitting, for he kept her amused in all sorts of funny
ways, such as wearing a pen-wiper in the shape of a doll
on top of his head all the time he was painting.^ Healy
painted any number of celebrities, among others Pio Nono.
I got Mrs. Freeman to take a cast of little Margaret's hand
in plaster and I have it still — a dear little hand.

The sculptors included William W. Story, Randolph
Rogers, Franklin Simmons, Miss Harriet Hosmer, and many
others— the late lamented Rhinehart being the most promis-
ing and talented of them all. In fact, there were so many
of them that we thought there was to be a great revival
of sculpture in America, but none of it came to much.
Mozier, the American sculptor, who lived in Rome for about
twenty years, died while he was crossing the St. Gothard
Pass and was buried in Rome while I was there.

Miss Hosmer was a pupil of Gibson, the famous Eng-
lish sculptor. In 1859 I ^^'^^^^ to his studio in Rome to see
his "Tinted Venus," that everybody was talking about.
It was making a great sensation in the art world and as
I was too young not to be influenced by the general opinion
I was much impressed. It was colored so like life that when
the man took off the cloth the creature really seemed to
be alive — it must have been an awful thing! Gibson, I
fancy, made stacks of money out of it, for he charged seven
hundred pounds for cutting a copy.

Randolph Rogers was in his glory in 1869, a handsome,

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SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

shaggy man with a leonine head. He had lately made a
statue of Nydia, the blind girl of Pompeii, which had a
great popular success, particularly among Americans, who
ordered many replicas for their houses. She was depicted
as listening intently, groping her way with a staff. I once-
went to his studio and saw seven Nydias, all in a row, all
listening, all groping, and seven Italian marble-cutters at
work cutting them out. It was a gruesome sight.

But Rogers's most profitable trade was in soldiers' monu-
ments; after the Civil War he had orders from towns all
over the United States. These monuments were all pretty
much alike, usually consisting of a shaft in the centre with
realistic military figures at the four corners, and as they
were situated far apart and were not likely to be compared
with one another the figures also were generally "much
of a muchness," but could always be distinguished from
each other by the weapons they carried. Infantry, for
instance, was armed with a rifle; cavalry with a sabre;
artillery with a rammer; while a naval hero was supported
by an anchor, or some other nautical emblem. It was part
of my duty, when a monument was finished, to examine
it and give a consular certificate, stating that it was the
work of an American artist resident abroad, in order that
it might pass through the United States Custom House
free of duty. So Rogers would show me the work and give
me the necessary description; but even he himself was
sometimes confused as to the rank or calling of the various
figures, particularly if they were not yet armed with their
distinctive weapons. I remember his once being in doubt
and calling to his attendant, "Giuseppe, what is this?"
Whereupon Giuseppe promptly supplied the vacant hand
with a rammer and Rogers said: "Ah, I see, it is artillery,
it is all right."

But he was a good fellow, perfectly frank and straight-

195

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

fonvard about his work, with so many pleasant qualities
that one readily pardoned him for treating his work rather
as a trade than an art. He was, I think, entirely devoid
of artistic feehng in regard to antique things and freely ex-
pressed his pity for all of us who were wasting our time and
money in collecting such "objets d'art." I remember once
showing him a fifteenth century plaque, decorated with a
graceful little figure, beautifully posed and freely drawn
by some old painter, and he criticised it mercilessly, seeing
no beauty in it.

"Look at that leg!" he said. "How badly drawn it
is !" — and, in a way, he was right, but to one with the eye
of an artist it was charming.

Once at Perugia, where Rogers w^as spending the sum-
mer with a little colony of American artists, Coleman,
Yewell, Vedder, and others, all of whom were enthusiastic
collectors of "roba antica," he and George Inness picked
up what they considered the most hideous piece of old pot-
tery imaginable and with much formality presented it,
as a joke, to one of the ladies of the party; but it turned
out quite the other way — she was delighted to have it.

Many of my friends had studios in the Via Margutta,
a little street running along the foot of the Pincian Hill,
where there was a settlement of artists from all parts of
the world. I painted at times in the studios of Coleman
and Vedder and worked in the evenings in the life school,
called "Gigi's Academy," which was a good-sized, semi-
circular amphitheatre, seating about a hundred students.
Gigi was the proprietor — I never knew his surname — but
all he did was to exact his fee each month and provide a
good light, heat, and a model, and also — for two soldi —
large hunks of coarse bread, called "moulika," for rubbing
out marks. The model was sometimes a young woman

196

SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

clothed only in a mask, or sometimes without it; sometimes
a naked Arab, or a peasant boy. We had no regular ar-
tistic criticism, but worked out our own salvation as best
we could, except that we profited by the very frank opinions
of our neighbors, usually more wholesome than compli-
mentary. We had, however, the very real advantage of
seeing the work of others, some of it very fine. Many great
painters had w^orked there, among them Fortuny and Vil-
legas. Fred Crowninshield was usually my companion
on these occasions; he would stop at my house in the eve-
ning and we would go off to Gigi's together. I remember
a pleasant party that Mrs. Crowninshield gave one winter,
with a puppet show and ''Jarley's Waxworks," in which
the part of Mrs. Jarley was taken by Miss Louisa Alcott,
who made most amusing impromptu speeches alx)ut the
different characters. Crowninshield was Director of the
American Academy in Rome for some years.

Elihu Vedder, whose studio was at 33 Via Margutta,
was then as always a most dehghtful companion— witty,
unusual, and interesting. When an American visitor to
his studio w^as guilty of the usual trite remark, "I don't
know anything about art, but I know what I like," Vedder
replied, *'So do the beasts that perish !" Mrs. Vedder was
an exceedingly nice woman and they were a devoted couple,
she being very capable and taking excellent care of his af-
fairs, but at the same time giving him the utmost frecnJom
of action. When he visited New York he sometimes left
his family in Rome, and he told me that once when he was
about to leave for America his wife said:

*'Now, Ved, you are going to New York; do just as
you like there, but please don't come home and hoast about

it!"

In New York his headquarters were always at the Ccn-

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

tury Club and almost any evening he could be seen there,
surrounded by a circle of friends far into the night. Some-
one asked him to have a drink — his answer was a conun-
drum, "Why am I like a Kleinert's dress-shield? Because
I am ahvays dry and absorbent."

Charles Caryl Coleman with his curhng hair and hand-
some face, was a striking figure. He was a good friend,
ahvays generous to any one ill or in trouble. His brother
Caryl belonged for a year or two to the Trappists, that
strictest of orders that hves in perpetual silence.

As Charles Coleman was a great collector of "oggetti
di antichita," his studio was a perfect museum of beautiful
things — tapestries, rich stuffs, china, carved furniture,
Roman and Grecian glass, rare marbles, and old pictures.
They said that if he sold a picture for a thousand dollars, on
the strength of it he immediately salhed out to an antiquity
shop, where he had aheady coveted some object or other,
and spent two thousand dollars on account of the one he
had on hand. His studio was also in the Via Margutta,
high up, with an outdoor gallery leading to it and with
windows on the one side looking out on the Pincian Hill,
with its lovely umbrella pines and its winding marble steps
and balustrades, the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo
and the Porta del Popolo, designed by Michael Angelo;
while from the other there was the lovely distant view of
the Campagna, gay with poppies and pink almond trees,
interspersed with picturesque bits of ruin.

I was one day sketching one of these ruins, a small tem-
ple or tomb, the stucco a dehcious yellowish tint, with a
bright spot of white in the centre of the apse-hke top. An
almond-tree in bloom hung over it, and beyond was a jum-
ble of dehcate flowers and a touch of tender blue sky. I
was busily absorbed when I looked up and saw George

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SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

Inness and T. Buchanan Read. They had just finished
lunching together and were in good spirits. Inness re-
marked, "Your high light in the arch is not bright enough."
So, handing him my palette and brush, I said, "Do it your-
self then," and without taking off his kid gloves he took
the brush, mixed up some NapIes-yellow and white, steadied
himself and gave one dab just in the right spot. I sold
that sketch later for a hundred dollars, but whether it was
because of Inness's master touch I never knew. He was
a small, ner\ous man, with ragged hair and beard, and a
vivacious, intense manner, an excellent talker and much
occupied with theories and methods of painting, and also
of religion. I once met him in the White Mountains and
we spent several hours talking together, or rather he talked
and I listened, about a theory- he had of color intertwined in
a most ingenious way with Swedenborgianism, in which he
was a devout believer. Toward the latter part of the eve-
ning I became quite dizzy, and which was color and which
religion I could hardly tell ! But, on the whole, he was
an interesting man and undoubtedly one of the first of Amer-
ican painters. Unlike many great artists he was amenable
to criticism, and when some friend suggested that he might
change a sky he would promptly scrape out a gray one and
tr\- a blue. Crowninshield said that when Inness painted
according to his theories the result was sometimes queer,
but when he trusted altogether to his feeling his work was
wonderfully fine.

T. Buchanan Read, the "painter poet," author of
"Sheridan's Ride," was another picturesque figure who
led a gay and varied Roman life and amused himself by
doing a good many unusual things; for instance, on Queen
Victoria's birthday he sent her a long congratulatory tele-
gram in poetical language, and received a gracious acknowl-

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

cdgment from the master of her household, who of course
did not know T. B. R., but wanted to be on the safe side.
Another time he was fishing with a gay party at Tivoli
and sent Prince Humbert a basket of trout, for which he
got the same sort of royal thanks.

Read had painted a portrait of General Sheridan on
his black charger, and when the general, accompanied by
Colonel Forsythe, visited Rome we gave them a dinner
which was attended by most of the Americans in Rome
and several Enghsh army officers. General Sheridan was
a man of few words but they were brisk and to the point.
He had grown stout and rather breathless; indeed, his
clothes seemed too tight for him. Forsythe was a fine, dash-
ing fellow and made quite an amusing speech at the dinner.
After complimenting the British officers, he spoke of being
once stationed on the Canadian frontier near a British out-
post. "Their officers," he said, *' would come to see us
and we would give them mint juleps and knock 'em higher
than a kite; then we would go over to them and they would
give us double-headed ale and brandy mixed and knock
us higher than a kite. It was grand!"

General Sherman also came to Rome while I was there,
with Fred Grant, General Grant's son, who had lately
graduated at West Point. I invited Grant to go to the
hunt and offered him a horse, but he asked what sort of
saddle he would have to ride and when I told him that we
only had English saddles, he suggested that he might ride
bareback. I said that I didn't think it would do for the
son of the President of the United States to appear in that
bucolic fashion. It seemed strange to me that a West Point
man had not been trained to ride on any kind of saddle.

We saw a good deal of General Sherman, a fine old fel-
low and very charming in a bluff, quaint way; he often

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SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

came to our house. Augustus Saint Gaudcns had a favorite
story about the general. When he was modclhn^ the gen-
eral's bust he was also making a bas-rehcf of Robert L<3uis
Stevenson, and he told the general that he would like to
introduce him, whereupon the general asked:

"Was he one of my boys?"

"No," said Saint Gaudens; "he is a celebrated writer,
the author of 'Jekyll and Hyde.' "

"Oh!" said the general, "he's no fool then; I'd like to
meet him," and when Stevenson came in he shook him
warmly by the hand and said: "Glad to meet you, sir!
Were you one of my boys?"

General Robert Anderson, "the hero of Fort Sumter,"
was another mihtary celebrity who was in Rome one winter
with his family. The general was deehning rapidly in heahh,
but I saw a good deal of him and found him a most lovable
man, simple, honest, and straightforward. I went to the
railway station to bid him good-by and that was the last
I saw of him, as he died shortly afterward. Among the
many fine things that he did for his country, and not the
least, was the founding of the Soldiers' Home in Wash-
ington, which was chiefly due to his efforts.

One of the best books that have ever been written about
the every-day life of Rome is the "Roba di Roma" of Wil-
liam Wetmore Story, giving as it does the history of many
ancient customs, festivals, and traits of the people which
were still prevalent in the Rome of his day and mine, but
which have now entirely disappeared. He was a man ()f
varied talents, none of them buried in a napkm. His
statue of Cleopatra may be seen in the Metropolitan .Mu-
seum; he was a painter and a poet; but he had begun life
as a lawyer and wrote law books that are still quoted as
authority, and I have heard that he was once a disciple of

201

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

transcendental philosophy at Brook Farm. To be sure, if
one spoke to a sculptor about Story's work, he was apt to
praise his writing or painting, while if you mentioned his
verse to a poet he fought shy of the subject and talked of
his sculpture instead — but taking him all in all, he was un-
doubtedly a many-sided man of talent, though I think that
his fame will rest more on the admirable ''Roba di Roma"
than on all his other works. I remember, many years after
the time of which I am writing, I was in Paris and happened
to be calling on Mrs. McCormick — a very charming woman,
by the way, the wife of the McCormick of reaper fame —
when Cabanel came in. He had painted a portrait of Mr.
McCormick, who had subsequently been decorated by the
French Government with the Legion of Honor, so the por-
trait had been sent to Paris from America in order that
the artist might paint the red ribbon in the buttonhole of
the coat. Cabanel was now calling to discuss the matter
with Mrs. McCormick. By way of making conversation,
she told Cabanel that her distinguished countryman, Mr.
W. W. Story, was then in Paris and asked if he had met
him. Cabanel, with many apologies, was compelled to
acknowledge that he had never heard of him.

"Not heard of him!" exclaimed Mrs. McCormick.
"Why he is a wonderful sculptor, a great painter, a poet,
a lawyer of distinction!" etc., etc.

Cabanel listened attentively until she had closed her
panegyric, then throwing up both hands exclaimed, "Trop
de choses, madame, trop de choses!"

George Butler was a good painter of portraits — and,
incidentally, of cats. An athletic fellow, with a beautiful
figure and handsome face, he was a remarkably fine fencer,
although he had lost his right arm at Gettysburg. He used
to fence in some resort frequented by Italian officers and

202

SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

was generally regarded as one of the best swordsmen in
Rome. Now it happened that his friend, Charles Caryl
Coleman, had an enemy — why, I need not mention — and
this enemy and his friends formed a conspiracy against
Coleman, planning to get him involved in a duel so that
they might take his hfe. One evening Coleman and Butler
wTrc at the opera with some ladies and, in leaving, the man
jostled Coleman in an insulting way. Coleman said to
him:

**I cannot see you now, as I am with ladies, but I will
see you later."

After taking the ladies home, Butler and Coleman went
to the Caffe di Roma, on the Corso, and the enemy was
there. As they left the caffe he followed and they turned
and met him. It was a dark night, and mistaking Butler
for Coleman he slapped his face, whereupon Butler im-
mediately knocked him down. The fellow^ jumped up and
demanded satisfaction, but when they got into the hght and
he saw his mistake, and found that he had to deal with the
best fencer in Rome, he wanted to apologize and get out of
it, but Butler said:

" No, you don't ! I have received a deadly insult, and
we must fight; our weapons are sw^ords."

So they fought. Butler soon saw that he had his
antagonist at his mercy, but he did not want to kill him,
and as the man wore glasses he thought it would be a good
idea to pick them off without hurting him; but in doing
this he did not quite calculate his distance and almost ran
his sword through his opponent's skull, though it did not
wound him mortally. Coleman was troubled no more.

One time in Paris Butler was insulted in some way by
a Frenchman, and in the row which followed he was ar-
rested and taken to court. As soon as the judge saw this

203

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

splendid-looking man, before he allowed the complainant
to offer any evidence whatever, he said to him:

"Sir, I see that you have lost your arm — how did it
happen?"

"In battle," replied Butler.

"That is enough, sir," the judge said. "You are dis-
charged, honorably discharged. The case is closed."

Butler had great ability as a portrait-painter, but it
was difficult to pin him down to work; though he began
a portrait with much enthusiasm, he seldom finished it.
On one occasion he went to paint a gentleman's portrait
at his country place and the summer passed very pleasantly,
but the picture was never done.

He married a Capri girl, a dark beauty. They came to
America and settled on a farm in Westchester County,
where they made ItaHan cheese; and I am told that Butler
was to be seen there, pottering about the place, followed
by a large brood of handsome black-eyed children. He
became a Romanist, to please his wife I suppose; resigned
from all his clubs, including the Century, and from the
Academy of Design; gave up painting, and retired to his
farm.

He once stayed with us at Danskammer, my place on
the Hudson; he arrived without any baggage; he had not
been shaved for a week, and wore a yellow flannel shirt.
We enjoyed his society immensely, for he was most enter-
taining, and his absence of luggage did not embarrass him
in the least — I provided him with a razor, a night-shirt,
and a tooth-brush, and he was perfectly content. In short,
he was a real Bohemian and entirely irresponsible, and if
one hinted at any want of forethought on his part he was
so amused, and looked at one with such a frank and
sweet expression on his handsome face, that one could

204

SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

not but forgive him at once. Every one liked George
Butler.

It was in the winter of 1871 that I first heard the name
of Augustus Saint Gaudens, to my mind the greatest of
American sculptors; he was then very young and quite un-
known. I shall tell in another chapter of our first meeting
and our lifelong friendship.

John Rolhn Tilton was one of the best-known painters
in Rome at that time. He was an admirer of Turner and
his pictures reminded one of that great artist's manner,
that has been irreverently described as

"A foreground all of golden dirt,
The sunshine painted with a squirt."

Tilton's pictures were very popular and he admired
them greatly himself.

"Why," he said to me, "my pictures are so luminous
that they shine in the dark," and I think that he really
believed it. Meeting him in the street on his return from
Egypt, I asked him what it was like. " Do you love cream ? "
he asked — I confessed that I did. "Then you know what
Egypt is," he said, "it is like cream !"

His studio, overlooking the beautiful Villa Ludovisi, had
windows opening on a long veranda through which the
passers-by could see into his studio. Some visitors hap-
pened to glance in and spied Tilton with his coat off, look-
ing rather dishevelled, sweeping out his room. Thev
knocked at the door, there was a perceptible pause and
a "Come in," and there he was, lying on a sofa, dressed
in a velvet coat and reading a volume of Brownmg.

Once during the carnival, Arthur Dexter, o( Boston,
a good deal of a wag and a delightful man, disguised him-

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

self in domino and mask and, accompanied by a lady well |
known in Rome and also masked, paid several surprise
visits to his friends. One of these friends was Tilton, whose
apartment in the Palazzo Barberini was on an upper floor
and reached by a beautiful broad, winding marble stair-
way, that seemed almost endless, and with steps so low
that it was nearly an inclined plane. Dexter rang the bell
at the door and Tihon opened it, clothed only in dressing-
gown and slippers, but without a word they seized him,
one on each side, and rushed him like lightning all the way
down the winding stairs and left him shivering in the cold
courtyard. He did not recognize them and never knew
who they were.

Like several other European rivers, the Tiber has a bad
habit of overflowing its banks, and flooding all the lower
part of the city with its yellow tide. One of the worst floods
that ever visited Rome was in the last days of 1870, just
after Christmas.

Mrs. Armstrong to her mother, Mrs. Neilson, New York

Rome, December 28, 1870.
**. . . We have had a great deal of rain and the day
before yesterday the Tiber rose and began to overflow the
Ripetta, the street that lies right on the shore of the river,
and today the Corso and the Via Condotti look like streets
in Venice. All day the line of water has been creeping nearer
to the Piazza di Spagna. The Piazza del Popolo is an im-
mense lake, the water must be eight feet deep, and the
plain about the city is all covered with water. We are for-
tunate in being high and dry, and as our street door is on
a level with the tops of the houses at the foot of the hill
we are in no danger, even if the Piazza di Spagna should

206

SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

be covered up. This morning it is storming again ! We
have bought meat for today and tomorrow, and as much
macaroni, rice and potatoes as we could ^^vt, and wc can
live on that for a few days, but the suffering in the lower
part of the city is dreadful. The poor people shut up in
their houses are crying at the windows, and boats are going
about carrying food for them from the Government. In
some places the water is up to the second stories, and they
say many persons have been drowned. Nearly all the shops
are ruined, — imagine Broadway with six feet of water in
it and all the shops soaked ! The American gentlemen,
Maitland, Mr. Nevin and others, are raising money and
forming a committee for immediate relief. The road be-
tween Rome and Florence is broken up and poor Henrietta
King, who was on her way here to make a visit to Mrs.
Van Schaick, has I suppose had to go back to Florence.
The priests are in a great state of exultation, and tell the
people it is a judgment for the King having taken the city."

The lions that crouch at the base of the Egyptian obelisk
in the Piazza del Popolo, spouting water in long streams
from their mouths into the basins beneath, looked comical
during the flood, for the spouting streams fell into the sur-
rounding waste of water only a few inches below their
mouths. Some friends of ours — I think they were Mr.
and Mrs. Benjamin Morris, she was Sally Post,— staying
at the Hotel de Russic which fronted on the Piazza del
Popolo, came to lunch with us and when they returned
to their hotel the water had risen so high that they were
unable to enter the front door, but had to get ladders and
go in from the slope of the Pincian Hill through the rear
windows.

207

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Mrs. Armstrong to Her Mother

Rome, January 2, 1871.

"... A great event happened last week, the King
has actually made his entry into Rome. He came down
without preparation or ceremony, and brought a large
sum, I believe two hundred thousand francs, for the suf-
ferers from the flood. His coming at this time produced
a very good impression on the people, showing as it did
his sympathy and interest in them. He arrived on Satur-
day morning and returned that same night to Florence.
He drove through the streets and went to church. We
had an excellent view of him, but the procession was very
little, only his body-guard on horseback and a few car-
riages; but the historical event is a great one, and he is
the first crowned head I have ever seen. He is even uglier
than his pictures make him. — I was interrupted by a visit
from Prince George of Sohms, who although a prince is
in no other way diff'erent from any other fat amiable Dutch-
man.

The city is in the most dreadful state you can imagine,
with an immense quantity of mud all over the streets. In
the Ghetto several houses fell, and nearly everything there
is destroyed. In Doctor Valery's house the water came
up seven steps of the stairs — you know the front door here
is on a level with the pavement and the hall and stairs are
almost like the street. The Americans have contributed
nearly twelve thousand francs for the suff'erers. Bessie
Field, a daughter of Hickson Field, who married an Italian,
had a baby born on the day of the flood. They live in a
palace on the Corso and it was with great difficulty that
Dr. Valery could get there, taking a boat first from his
own house and then a cart to reach her. The nurse would

208

SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

not go to her. It was an inconvenient time, was it not,
for the little stranger to make its appearance in the world !
Our washerwoman's assistant was shut in her house for
two days without food, the children crying for bread. The
water came into their rooms in the night and they had only
time to escape up-stairs. Everything they had was de-
stroyed.

We had a pleasant New Year's Eve, though not like
our delightful old ones at home, with the dining room table
covered with presents. We dined at Mrs. Haseltine's,
a party of fourteen, and Dr. Nevin came in afterwards. Wc
had a very elegant dinner which lasted Lite, and wc all
waited to see the old year out. Just before twel\e hot punch
was handed and we all stood glass in hand until the stroke
of midnight, when we all drank our punch and wished each
other a Happy New Year.

You speak of the three old ladies, Mrs. Anthon, Mrs.
Baker, and Aunt Helen Stuyvesant coming upstairs to
see Lillie, what would you think of going up to the fourth
story to see a friend! Mrs. Haseltinc, for instance, lives
on the fourth story, up a hundred and four steps, and Mrs.
Tilton up a hundred and fifty, on a large circular stairway,
and Mrs. Chapman has about ninety.

General Sheridan called here the other day, and we
went to a reception given for him. A number of American
gentlemen are to give him a dinner this week at the club.
Poor Mr. Coleman, the artist, has smallpox. Little .\Lir-
garet has named her new rocking horse Umberto, after
Prince Humbert."

In order to help the Relief Fund for which I was
treasurer, we decided to give a fancy ball, the tickets to
be sold and the proceeds to go to the fund. A c<Hnmittcc

209

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

was formed to manage the ball, and I was made chairman.
The other managers were Frederick Crowninshield, Charles
Caryl Coleman, Captain Danyell, an ex-British officer,
and another Englishman whose name I cannot recall.

A certain Count Ajasso and his lady had lately come
to Rome, and had made themselves conspicuous in un-
pleasant ways. He was reported to be a professional duellist
and a great bully, who had been engaged in many "affairs
of honor," and had killed his man more than once. His
wife and he were not "personse gratse" in society and as
several American ladies who were going to the ball did not
wish to meet these people, they asked the managers to de-
cline to give them tickets if they applied.

Now Count Ajasso had stated that he was an intimate
friend of Prince Humbert, and that at a certain entertain-
ment he had walked arm in arm with the prince; but we
investigated these statements and found them false, so
we thought this would be a sufficient ostensible reason to
give for refusing the tickets. Though the man was un-
doubtedly a bounder, the real reason was the reputation
of the countess ; but although every one knew this, of course,
we were debarred from mentioning her at all, so the situa-
tion was a rather dehcate one for the committee. We hoped
that the Ajassos would not want to come to the ball, but
in any case we decided not to give them tickets, although
we foresaw that there might be trouble.

There was another person in Rome that winter who
was also supposed to be objectionable, and whom we were
asked not to favor; this was an Englishman named Oliver,
whose wife was said to be a daughter of Madame Tussaud —
a large showy young man, handsome in a common way,
of very pronounced style and extravagantly dressed. He
had curling black hair and a ruddy countenance, height-

210

SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

ened by rouge, and such a very thin waist and efTcminatc
figure that the rumor that he wore corsets had every aj>-
pearance of truth. He hunted and wa,s conspicuous at
the hunts because he rode what is known in circus par-
lance as a "calico horse," that is, a black horse with large
white blotches on him, four white legs, and a white blaze
on his nose. Altogether, Mr. Ohver was vtry- conspicuous.
I never heard that there was anything against the char-
acter of either Mr. or Mrs. Oliver — we simply did not want
them.

So it was settled that these two groups were to be
eliminated.

It was decided to have the ball at the Sala Dante and
we all set about preparing our costumes.

A few days before the great event, Count Ajasso ap-
peared at my apartment and asked me for tickets for him-
self and his lady. He was a tall, gaunt, saturnine individual,
very sure of himself in manner, and was decidedly taken
aback when I dechned to give him the tickets. He de-
manded my reason for this action and I told him that 1
did not feel obliged to give any reason; so he departed.
That evening he called, accompanied by Captain Danyell.
a member of our committee, who came as his friend and
urged me to give him the tickets. Danyell did this on his
own hook and without authority from the other members
of our committee, and in thus appearing and espousing
Ajasso's cause he was let out of all responsibihty. As the
other Englishman on the committee also backed squarciv
out, Coleman, Crowninshield, and I had to shoulder the
whole affair; but we agreed to stand together.

When Danyell and Ajasso came to see me, they both
exhausted arguments and appeals. The count assured
me that every one knew he intended to go to the ball, and

21 I

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

that if we declined to have him the insult would ruin his
position in society. Indeed, he begged me with tears in
his eyes not to deny him, but I was firm in declining and
they left, and I thought that the incident was closed; but
the next day three gorgeous visiting-cards, bearing the
titles and coronets of well-known Itahan officers, were
handed to me with a letter, and I went into my parlor to
see the gentlemen. They told me that they were Count
Ajasso's seconds and that they were instructed to inform
me that he felt I had insulted him and demanded satis-
faction, unless I would either apologize, give him the tickets,
or explain the reason for my action. As I declined all three
propositions, they said that they had no alternative but to
demand satisfaction and asked me to name my seconds,
so that they might arrange preliminaries. This also I de-
clined and told them that a duel was quite out of the ques-
tion— that I was the sole representative of my government
in Rome, that duelling was not only against the law and
custom of my country, but if I engaged in one I should ex-
pose myself to ridicule and disgrace. Getting no satis-
faction, they retired.

Danyell and our other English associates, having made
themselves safe, were out of it; so Ajasso turned his at-
tention to Coleman and Crowninshield, but without much
success. The seconds first called on Coleman at his studio,
who dechned to talk the matter over or discuss it in any
way, ridiculed the idea of fighting a duel about it, firmly
upheld my action in the matter, and, in short, dechned all
tickets, explanations, or duels. Crowninshield's studio
was next door to Coleman's, so the trio then applied there,
and as soon as he learned their mission he slammed his
door, without any remark, in their faces.

By this time every gossip in Rome was busy with the

212

SOME ROMAN FRIENDS

affair, and that evening some of Ajasso's friends met Crown-
inshield at the opera and told him that if Cr)unt Ajasso
could not get satisfaction otherwise, he would cane Mr.
Armstrong in the street, and asked what Mr. Armstrong
would do in that event. Crowninshield replied that if Mr.
Armstrong were attacked he would doubtless defend him-
self **in the usual American fashion." This cryptic answer
they did not relish, as it contained a dark and sinister sug-
gestion of revolvers and bowie knives, popularly supposed
to be the usual American weapons of defense. Thus the
matter rested for some time.

As far as Mr. Oliver was concerned, the affair was easily
settled. He came clattering up to my door one day, on
his calico horse, and when he was announced asked for
tickets for the ball. I declined as politely as possible, with-
out giving any reason and without his demanding any.
Not long afterward I met him in the barber's shop where
he was getting shaved and he said to me:

"What an ass that fellow Ajasso made of himself about
those tickets — every one in Rome knows about it after
the advertising he's done! I had more sense. I haven't
mentioned it to a soul and no one knows I was turned
down !"

Well, we had our ball— without the AJassos and Olivers
— and it was a great success. There were many really linr
costumes. Among the most beautiful American wonuji
were Mrs. Frederick Crowninshield and Mrs. Edward Boyt
of Boston. All the artists were there in force. \'edder
wore a fifteenth century dress— a scarlet doublet and tights
—and his fine figure combined with his wonderful dancing
was very effective. I wore a Venetian dress, copied from
a figure in one of Carpaccio's pictures in Venice— "The Eni:-
lish Ambassadors visiting the Doge"— a doublet of stamped

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

yellow Genoese velvet, scarlet tights, with an old em-
broidered coat-of-arms on my breast and another on the
calf of my leg, and a jewelled girdle in which I carried an
ivory-handled poniard said to have belonged to Vittoria
Colonna. I have worn the same array since at the Twelfth
Night celebrations at the Century Club. My wife wore
an Italian dress of the fifteenth century. The ball was
successful financially and yielded a good sum to the Relief
Fund.

The ball was over, but I still heard rumors that Ajasso
was going to cane me in the street and I was determined,
if he tried it, to do my best to thrash him in the "Amer-
ican fashion." From my boyhood I had been interested
in sparring, and I had been taking lots of exercise, riding
and hunting every day, so I was really rather disappointed
that nothing had happened. Finally I met Ajasso one
day on the Spanish Steps. I was walking home after a ride
and had started up the left flight of steps when, glancing
up, I saw Ajasso at the top on the right. So I retraced my
steps and went up the right side. I hoped that the caning
was about to begin, as he had a stick in his hand, and I
shifted my riding-crop from my left hand to my right and
swung it thoughtfully. But it was not to be — and a glare
was his only revenge. A year later he was killed in a duel.

214

CHAPTER X

THE CAMPAGNA

"The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere !
Silence and passion, joy and f)eace,

An everlasting wash of air —
Rome's ghost since her decease."

-Browning.

Some of the pleasantest days of my life were spent in
the Campagna, where the endless variety of subjects lured
one to an endless number of sketches. I would often take
my lunch with me and stay all da}', going in a cab as far
out as I wanted, and then walking about the fields until
I found a picturesque bit. Once I struck out through a
lonely valley and when I had gone some distance I met
a fox. A little later, having settled down to my work, I
saw approaching a tall, rough-looking peasant, with a long
nintlock gun, who came and stood behind me watching me
sketch. I did not like his looks much and, to use the ex-
pression of a Cape Codder, the captain of the Cclcstia, I
"kept my eye well skinned back." To make conversation,
I told him that I had seen a fox.

"Didn't you have anything to shoot it with?" he asked.

"Well," I said, "nothing but this," and I reached back
and took from my pistol-pocket a Smith and Wesson revolver
and cocked it.

"Ah!" he said, "buon giorno!" and stalked away. I
think, if I had not been so brisk with my pistol, he might
have put his old gun at my head and made me hold up my

215

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

hands and relieved me of my watch and pocketbook. Al-
most any one of these peasants would, on occasion, lapse
into a bandit, for the trade of highwayman is not one that
they dislike, in fact it rather excites their admiration. In
1859 when I drove from Rome to Lake Thrasymene, the
danger from brigands was very real. Only the week be-
fore our trip, the diligence had been stopped on the road
up Monte Somma and every one had been robbed, even
the ladies being despoiled of their dresses. In those days
the banditti came in large bands and resistance was use-
less, especially on the long hills, where oxen had to be har-
nessed to the carriages and progress was necessarily slow.

I was once sketching the Tor degli Schiavi and there
were several men excavating for treasure near me all day.
They dug a long trench right in front of the tower, in which
they found a lot of vipers, but also some bits of old jars,
iridescent glass, etc., which they turned over to me. They
dug one hole about twelve feet square and six feet deep,
about one hundred feet from the Tor degli Schiavi, on the
side toward Rome, and uncovered part of a fine Roman
pavement, in perfect condition, decorated with white pea-
cocks on a black ground. I asked the men what they were
going to do with it, and they said it was no use to them,
so they filled it up and went away. I remember the exact
spot, and I have often thought that I should like to revisit
it and dig up the pavement.

Beggars abounded in Rome, indeed theirs was a well-
organized trade. At the top of the Spanish Steps a favorite
of ours used to sit, a handsome, black-eyed, friendly youth,
who held out his hat with such an engaging and appealing
smile that you could not help putting something into it.
He had but one leg and carried a crutch, but he could skip
around on it with great facility. I once saw him chasing

216

THE CAiMPAGNA

a rival who had trespassed on his preserve, whom he finallv
overtook and beat over the head with his eriiteh. E\er\
beggar has his own hunting-ground and woe to any other
who invades it. On the occasion of any festival on thr
Campagna, or the meet of the hunt, on every hill wher(
the carriages had to go slowly the beggars gathered in
swarms, and the lame, the halt, and the hVind would way-
lay us, with piteous cries of "Carita per amor di Dio!"
holding out their withered hands or exposing their other
deformities in a most harrowing way.

They had a curious custom in the shops in Rome.
Every Saturday one would see a long row of coppers laid
out on the counter near the door. Each shop evidently
had its special clientele of beggars; a member would ap-
pear, open the door, pick up a single copper, no more, mur-
mur, "Grazie!" and depart without further remark. The
beggars had a funny way of addressing or speaking of each
other, as "quel gobbo," "quel cieco," or "quella vecchia"
as the case might be. But then, all Italians more often
use nicknames for each other than real names.

In those days Roman society consisted chiefly of the
nobility, or members of the diplomatic corps, and hardly
any one else was admitted. There were literally only two
exceptions — Volpicelli, the son of a professor, and Gu-
glielmo Grant, a partner in the firm of Maquay, Hooker,
and Company, the American bankers. They were both
charming and agreeable young men, but there were many
others just as much so that did not figure in the best so-
ciety, so called. At a ball at the Palazzo Doria I once saw
Grant dancing with the Princess Margherita, an h(Mior
which was accorded to few young men. He was fond of
rowing, so he and Fred Crowninshield, who had been on
the crew at Harvard, sent to America for a race-lx)at, a

217

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

four-oared shell, and were often to be seen darting up and
down the Tiber at racing speed, an unusual sight in sleepy
Rome. Of course, the American women who had married
distinguished Romans were naturally in society, and in
addition there were a number of other Americans, among
them Mrs. Charles King and her family. Her son Rufus
King had been American Minister there, which gave them
a diplomatic position. From their long residence in Rome
they knew all the Itahans, and they entertained very
pleasantly; five o'clock tea, a new institution in those days,
was delightful at their house, particularly on Saturdays
when one met lots of agreeable people there — Romans,
Americans, and English.

Among the nice young Roman friends of the Kings was
Guido Bourbon, Marchese del Monte, a scion of the noble
house of Bourbon, a handsome young man and a member of
the Pope's Noble Guard — at a salary, if I remember rightly,
of some six hundred francs a year, but nevertheless he
was always beautifully dressed and apparently enjoyed the
best of everything. It is customary for the cadets of noble
families in Rome to be supported by their rich relations,
at whose tables they always have a seat and to whom they
may send their tailor's bills. In fact, as it is not allowable
for them to engage in any business whatever without losing
caste, they really cannot support themselves. They may
be in the diplomatic or military service, but almost every-
thing else is beneath their dignity. Well, this young man
was of that class — he had nothing whatever to do, and the
Kings were sorry for him and fond of him, and were suf-
ficiently intimate — at least they thought so — to give him
some advice; so they suggested that he should give up
his life in Rome and go to New York, where they would
give him letters to friends with whom he could go into the

218

THE CAMPACNA

banking business, and where with his undoubted abilities
he might make a fortune. But far from being grateful for
their offer, he was furious and felt deeply insulted at the
idea that a del Monte would degrade himself so far as to
go into trade. Indeed, he was so mortally offended that
they did not see him for a long while, though he did finally
consent to forgive them. (By the way, the Roman princes
are not above marrying a rich American girl and living
on her money !)

I think it was that same winter that Prince Pignatelli
became very devoted to Miss Pussy Strong, afterward
Mrs. Wellman. Mrs. Strong, however, did not fancy an
Italian suitor, nor was he approved by their stern Amer-
ican maid; in fact, everybody said that it was she who
drove him away in the end, always avowing whenever he
came to call: "No, prince. Miss Pussy can't see you." I
remember hearing an American declare, speaking of a Ix'au-
tiful countrywoman of his who had married a Cenci, that
the husband was a lineal descendant of Beatrice Cenci !

Mrs. Terry, and her daughters, the Crawfords, were
very pleasant people, living in the Palazzo Odescalchi.
The son, Marion Crawford, was a shy gawky boy, who
gave no promise of any sort of genius, and was rather kept
in the background by his family. Somehow or other Doc-
tor Nevin found that he had a talent for writing and en-
couraged him to take up literature as a profession. I fancy
his novel, "The Three Fates," describes something of his
own experience with his first novel, "Mr. Isaacs," which
had a most extraordinary success for an unknown author.
It sold by thousands, and was even jxirodied in a little
volume with the same cover only very small, called "Dr.
Jacobs." His sister, Mimoli Crawford, afterward Mrs.
Hugh Fraser, is also a good novelist.

219

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

In 1870, J. Bloomfield Wetherill, a cousin of mine
through the Macombs, was Doctor Nevin's curate. While
he was in Rome he inherited a large fortune from his father,
Doctor Wetherill, of Philadelphia, who left no will. For
many years Doctor Wetherill had done nothing for his
family, leaving his wife, who was a fine woman, to bring
up their fifteen children. In fact, some of his children did
not know him by sight, though Bloomfield said he knew
his father sHghtly and sometimes met him in the street
and had a little chat. Bloomfield had always been de-
pendent on his salary as a clergyman, and you may imagine
how surprised and pleased he was at receiving this large
fortune. He married a sister of Mrs. Stanford White and
Mrs. Prescott Hall Butler.

I think it was that winter that we knew the Connollys
in Rome. Young Connolly was a sculptor. His father
was a convert to Roman Catholicism, and after inducing
his wife also to change her faith, he became a priest and
she went into a convent. A fittle later he changed his mind
again and gave up his new beliefs and wanted his wife to
come back to him, but she was either less volatile, or less
constant, than he, as you choose to look at it, and would
not consent to desert her convent for her home. So in the
shuffle he lost her altogether.

Doctor Valery was the fashionable doctor in Rome in
those days; he was a dear old man and we all loved him.
His English, although he spoke it fluently, was decidedly
pecuhar. I remember his asking one of the children, when
he came to vaccinate her, to "kindly discover your arm."
When he visited Mrs. John Jacob Astor, who was just re-
covering after a long illness, she told my wife that he said:
*' You may sit by the fire and suckle a pear," and she added:
**What a charming domestic scene the words call up!"

220

THE CAMPAGNA

The Astors and Van Schaicks went on an excursion to
Pacstum together, and as there were a ^ood many brigands
about there at that time and they thought some rumor of
the Astors' wealth might have preceded them, they took
a guard of two soldiers, which would not have been of much
use if they had been attacked by a couple of hundred
brigands, as was common enough in those days. A party
of English people had been killed by brigands in Greece
only a short time before, so our friends had something of
a shock when they suddenly saw a band of men approach-
ing across the plain; however, they proved to be only sur-
veyors. Wilhe Astor had a turn for sculpture and studied
with Tadolini that winter. His statue of "The Wounded
Amazon" showed some promise.

Doctor Valery once told me that it was safe to sleep
in Rome with one's window open provided that it was forty
feet above the street, as the malaria did not rise above that
point. The real reason was, I suppose, that mosquitoes
did not usually fly up to that height. That the mosquitoes
were responsible for malaria was not then recognized, al-
though, I believe, the Itahans were the first to study them
from the standpoint of disease. The scientific people pur-
sued their investigations by sleeping in the Pontine Marshes
with and without mosquito nets— a pretty sure way of
finding out, I should think.

Some of the old theories whereby men tried to account
for the poisoning of the Campagna by malaria are exceed-
ingly interesting. Every one was agreed that it had not
always been so; that when the Campagna was a highly
cultivated country, dotted by the vilhis and gardens of
wealthy Romans, it had not been unheahhy— indeed it
was known to have had a perfect climate— and it was be-
lieved that if the marshes could be drained the malaria

221

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

would disappear. In 1867 a doctor got pretty close to the
mosquito theory. He thought malaria came from a minute
fungus, propagated in the swamps, which got into the hu-
man system, particularly at night; for he had observed
that a thin veil over a sleeping person was sufficient pro-
tection.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilhkm H. Herriman, of New York, great
friends of ours, have lived in Rome from about 1865 to
the present time. They exercised a quiet and generous
hospitahty in their delightful apartment, and were among
the best friends the American artists had, for they bought
their pictures, befriended them in their need, nursed them
in sickness, and lent them money when they were hard
up. Mr. Herriman was a wise collector, not only of pic-
tures but of all sorts of rare objects of art.

I once took a pleasant trip as his guest through the
hill towns back of Tivoh, together with Vedder and Gris-
wold, another artist, driving in a carriage holding four.
We began by lunching at Tivoli in the little pavihon on
the hill above the waterfalls, then wandered about making
sketches of an old mediaeval tower below, and spent the
first night at Saracenesca. The Saracen type, strongly
marked among all the inhabitants there, is particularly
noticeable among the beautiful women. I was once sitting
with my wife in a pleasant leafy valley near Albano, in
May, when a woman of this type came and stood near us
silently watching the sketch I was making. She had a
child in her arms and balanced on her head was a tall, slim,
green-and-white water jar. She stood perfectly motionless
for a long while and I have never seen a lovelier group,
posed in such sweet surroundings.

After Saracenesca we spent a night at Subiaco, with
its monastery overhung by a great rock. There is a tradi-

222

THE CAMPAGNA

tion, I believe, that some day the rock will fall and over-
whelm the wonderful old subterranean church with its
fine frescoes, but the monks dwell there undisturbed. Our
next stop was at Olevano, most beautifully situated over-
looking a vast view of the Campagna— from all these hills
Rome is visible, the dome of St. Peter's shining white and
dominating the distance. Everything was primitive at
Olevano. Most of the houses had outside steps and the
little black pigs were to be seen walking up them, even
to the second stories, seeming quite at home. In the deep
valley below the village there was a fountain, whence in
the evenings long files of women carried water to their homes
on the hill, in brightly pohshed copper vessels and gayly
painted jars. Here they all wore the fine old Roman cos-
tume, so rapidly disappearing elsewhere — the beautifully
embroidered aprons, waists, and jackets, with folded white
napkins on their heads on which to balance the jars. The
entrance to the hotel at Olevano is by a long, straight path,
and as we walked up this we were confronted by a little
girl, about ten years old, who did not have on a stitch of
clothing but who seemed not in the least embarrassed. At
the hotel we met William and Mary Howitt, a charming
elderly couple, interesting to talk to.

It was altogether a delightful trip with but one draw-
back, the ever-present drawback in Italy— the fleas. We
were well prepared for them with a good stock of Persian
insect powder, and at night we took all the coverings ofT
the beds, replaced a sheet, saw that all fieius were outside,
put a wall of insect powder all around the outer edges, and
then stepped carefully over this barrier and covered our-
selves with the clothing that had been well searched in
advance; but even then we were not immune.

Ostia was the objective of another pleasant trip taken

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

by Crowninshield, Haseltine, and myself. It was expressly
a sketching trip, for the carnival season was approaching,
and we had all seen as much as we wanted of other carni-
vals. A better choice for a contrast could not have been
made. There is a well-preserved mediaeval castle at Ostia,
built b}^ Pope Julius II, and its courtyard is the unusual
site chosen for a quaint little stone-paved inn. The fire-
place was so huge that there was room for seats all around
the inside of the chimneypiece and space still left between
for an immense fire, and the only furniture was an enormous
table on a raised platform which occupied the whole of
one side of the room. At the courtyard door was tethered
a mule, that at intervals dragged in logs and branching
trunks and gnarled roots of trees, wherewith to replenish
the fire, which was always kept gayly burning. Here in
the evening the peasants would gather and partake of their
nightly meal of macaroni, which was served in vessels the
size of wash-basins, unaccompanied by forks. It was mar-
vellous how much they could eat. Each one had his bottle
of red wine, and after the macaroni was gone they sat in
a long row behind their dining-table and smoked their pipes.
Every now and then one of their number would stoop to
the fire, fill his horny hand with five, glowing embers, and
beginning at one end of the row each man would light his
pipe and pass the coal to his neighbor.

In my bedroom on the second floor, the window and
only fight was an uncovered loophole in the wall, evidently
made for gun-fire in the middle ages ; the floor was of stone
and the only furniture a tiny bedstead and a small three-
legged wash-stand with a pitcher and basin, the latter much
smafler than those used down-stairs for the macaroni. There
were no chairs; one was supposed to sit on the bed.

In the picturesque castle, shaded by an enormous stone-

224

THE CAMPAGNA

pine, everything was just as it had been in the fifteenth
century. As it was surrounded by marshes and wild waste
lands, the principal occupation was hunting — though now
it may be cultivated for all I know. In the evening the
hunters brought in strings of wild duck; when their talk
was not of eating or money, the usual topics of a peasant,
it was of exploits and adventures in shooting. Close around
the castle and running down to the sea were open fields,
parts of which had once been cuhivated; while in otlu-r
parts the site of the ancient city of Ostia was indicated
by mounds covering its former streets and paLices. What
a place for excavating! Walking along the trace of one
of these burled streets, I picked up an old Roman coin —

"All passes. Art alone
Enduring stays to us;
The Bust outlasts the throne,
The Coin Tiberius."

The neighborhood is very paintable, with its great
groves of stone-pines, and its ancient chateau and towers
along the sea, built for protection against pirates. One
morning I was seated in a field not far from the road w hen
I was hailed from a carriage filled with masked figures—
you must remember that it was carnival time. One of
the ladies jumped out of the carriage, came over to me, and
started a series of remarks, in a high, squeaky carnival voice,
very derogatory to me and my sketch, followed by im-
pertinent questions, which I answered as best I could.
Finally I said:

'*You are doubtless a charming creature, but I wish
you would go away !"

Whereupon she took ofi' her mask and behold it was
my wife ! She was accompanied by a party of friends, among

225

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

them Mrs. Haseltine and Nevin. As they had brought a
basket of excellent lunch, we adjourned to the top of the
round tower of the castle and had a delightful time.

We had a httle club in Rome to which most of us be-
longed, a pleasant meeting-place for residents and visitors,
where cigars and spirituous refreshments were to be had
but no food. One of the frequenters was a man whom we

will call X , who sometimes stayed rather late and was

apt to be hilarious. He was a slight, feeble, little person,
but his wife was robust and handsome. One evening she
called at the club, went in without ceremony although
ladies were not admitted, took her husband by the ear, and
led him forth. Their apartment was in the Vicolo San
Nicolo da Tolentino — I give its full name because it amuses
me — just opposite that of the Crowninshields. Crownin-
shield happened to glance across the way and, much to

his astonishment, he saw little X prostrate on the floor

and Mrs. X pounding him on the head ! Except among

the visitors, the consumption of strong drink, however, was
not usual in Rome; indeed, I scarcely ever saw a drunken
native Italian in the whole of Italy while I lived there, al-
though they all drink wine and feed it copiously to the babies.

My brother-in-law, Mr. Howard, died in Providence
while we were in Rome, and I found in an old letter the
account of a curious dream that my wife had at the time —
only a coincidence, of course, but striking nevertheless.
About ten days before he died, my wife told me one morn-
ing that she had dreamed she had taken up a newspaper
and seen Howard's death in it, aged fifty-two. We talked
about it a httle, for we did not know his exact age. In the
next mail from home we heard of his death, aged fifty-two,
and strangely enough my wife read of it first in the paper,
not in a letter.

226

THE CAMPAGNA

Governor Fenton, ex-Governor of New York, came to
Rome one winter with his handsome daughter, and, of
course, I had to be pohte to them and show them around.
Happening to learn the amount of my salary as consul,
the governor averred that it ought to be raised and vohin-
teered to use his influence with the government to that
end. Of course I expressed myself as grateful to him. A
few days afterward I showed him a book of mine, "From
Rome to Thrasymenc," and he said he would take it home
to look it over. After keeping it for some time, he asked
me if I intended to make him a present of it. I told him
that unfortunately I had already given it to my brother;
but still the book did not come back, and it was only after
a good deal of difficulty and delay that he finally rehictantl^'
returned it. I conchided he needed a httle watching.

Later on he told me he would like to buy a copy of the
Young Augustus in bronze, so I took him to some of the
shops and found a statuette that he liked. He asked mc
if I advised him to buy it, and I said I did; i)ut nothing
happened, though he kept on talking about it. By the
time he left Rome I had about made up my mind that he
expected me to present it to him (which, of course, I could
not do) and that his influence would be used in proportion
to what he got out of mc. Even after he left Rome, the
old fox wrote to me and said that if I still thought that
bronze would look well on his library table at home to
buy it.

Some years later I was in the banking house of Monroe
and Company in Paris, and Governor Fenton was sitting
there, also two Englishmen. Some friend of the governor
came in and said to him:

''Good morning, governor. Fm glad it's a fine day at
last!" or something of the sort.

227

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

"So be I ! So be I !" replied the governor.

One of the Englishmen, hearing this bucolic phrase,
turned to his friend and whispered in an awe-struck voice:

"He called him governor /"

"From Rome to Thrasymene," the book which the
governor took a fancy to, was in manuscript, the account
of a trip I had taken during my first visit to Italy, which
I copied and illustrated in the winter evenings at Dans-
kammer. It is beautifully bound, and the neatness of the
handwriting fills me with astonishment, but neither text
nor drawing is good — particularly the decorative drawings
are not at all such as I do now, or should like to have con-
sidered samples of my work — and at times I have been
tempted to burn the old thing. But then I have remem-
bered those pleasant winter evenings, with my brothers
alive and young, sitting there reading or chatting, the dogs
curled up before the cosey open fire, the shining mahogany
table covered with my drawing things — life, too, spread
out all before me. When I realize that all these things
are passed away never to return, and no one living can
recall them except myself, then I refrain from putting the
book in the fire, and let it go for what it is worth, as the
fruit of early youth.

The hunt was a delightful feature of the winter life in
Rome. The club was chiefly made up from the Roman
nobility, who controlled it; but foreigners were allowed
to subscribe and enjoy all its privileges. The Romans were
most of them handsome young men and rode fine Engfish
horses. The Marquis Calabrini was master of the hunt,
and among the usual riders whose names I remember were
the two Princes Grazzioli, Prince Doria, and Prince Marc
Antonio Colonna; the latter was dark, with beautiful
features, while the Dorias and Grazziolis were ruddy-faced,

228

THE CAMPAGNA

light-haired men, more like English than Italians— the
Dorias are half English anyway, and take after their Eng-
lish ancestors in appearance.

The club owned a fine pack of hounds that had to be
frequently recruited from England, because, strange to
say, the hounds bred in Italy lose their scent and are of
no use. There was always a tent pitched at the meet, where
we went when the run was over for a collation and to talk
over the events of the day. The meets were usually at
a considerable distance from Rome, in any and every part
of the Campagna, and the long rides gave a fine chance
to study the country, for one went to all sorts of out-of-
the-way spots which the ordinary traveller would never
discover. In this way I often saw beautiful subjects for
sketching, which I afterward went back to paint, and this
part of the hunting I enjoyed as much as the riding.

One of the favorite meets was on the high ground at
the tomb of Cecilia Metella on the Appian Way. All the
jumps there are over stone walls, and one day I calculated
that I had taken my horse over at least fifty walls. On
the high ground the obstacles are usually stone, but in
the lower part of the Campagna you meet rail fences, five
or six feet high, spiked together firmly in order to keep
in the herds of buffalo and long-horned oxen. Unless (^ne
has a good horse, they are diilicult to negotiate. The walls
are much safer riding and there are few falls, as a horse
soon learns that he can strike a wall as he jumps and knock
off a few stones with safety, but they do not like the fences,
because if they hit a fence and the rails do not break they
either stick there and the rider goes over his horse's head
or both horse and rider go headlong together. And then,
for some reason, a horse is apt to be more afraid of some-
thing he can see through than he is of a solid obstacle like

229

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

a wall. The Campagna provides all sorts of pitfalls for
the unwary horseman — unfathomable ditches, old wells and
broken ruins everywhere. Needless to say, there were lots
of chances in Roman hunting, as the country was generally
one you had never seen before and you never knew what
was ahead of you. They told of a man coming to a very
bad spot and dismounting to lead his horse, when he felt
a pull on the reins and turned to see his horse shde out of
sight into a deep hidden excavation, from which he never
reappeared ahve.

Another popular meet was at the Tor degli Schiavi,
beyond the Porta Maggiore, the old tower that was either
an ancient Roman temple or a tomb, as there are niches
in the walls that might have held either statues or vases
for the ashes of the dead. Built of very rich red brick, one
side has been shattered by an explosion and reveals the
brilhant white cement of the inner arched ceiling, but ex-
cept for this huge rent it is almost as perfect as when it was
built, although mellowed by time to a soft and dehghtful
beauty. It stands on an elevation backed by the rolhng
Campagna and the blue Alban hills, and of course I made
sketches of it, as every artist does who goes to Rome. Here
the Campagna was varied by hills and valleys, brooks and
watercourses, broken rocky hillsides studded with olives,
and gorges filled with knotted ilex-trees. Occasionally the
hunt would go over one of the broad fields of green winter
wheat — then the owner was paid for any damage that had
been done. It was a perfect dehght to ride through this
country on dehcious winter days, following the hounds
speckled over the landscape making music dear to every
hunter's heart, the red coats giving spots of color and gayety
to the scene.

The hunt was always accompanied by a man on a

230

THE CAM PAG N A

shaggy horse, armed with an axe, and after the huntsmen
and best riders had jumped the intact fence, if they had
not in so doing broken a rail or two, he would chop down
some more bars and let the timid riders think that they were
really hunting when they scrambled over the reduced ob-
stacles.

Some of the best riders were women, among them Miss
Antoinette Polk, daughter of Bishop Polk, who was after-
ward the wife of General Charette of the Pope's Noble
Guard. She was a beautiful woman, as well as a beautiful
rider, with an abundance of lovely brown hair that did not
need a switch — a hair switch, I mean — but it was the cus-
tom to wear these articles and one day, much to her morti-
fication, her switch dropped off and one of the Roman princes
leaped to the ground to restore it to her. The Misses King,
daughters of Charles King, were also first-rate riders. (One
of them became Mrs. Eugene Schuyler; and the youngest,
afterward Madame Waddington, wife of the premier and
minister of foreign affairs in Paris, has written some in-
teresting reminiscences of her hfe in various courts of Eu-
rope.) Miss Harriet Hosmer, the sculptor, rode in fine
style on a tall brown horse and jumped everything in sight.
One year in the steeplechases on the Campagna after Easter,
Miss Hosmer's horse won. As her jockey was dressed in
the "Stars and Stripes," the Americans felt it a great na-
tional triumph.

A Doctor Burrage, the American dentist in Rome, was
among those who rode to hounds. His Italian was sketchy,
and once when his horse had had a hard day and was very
warm he said to his groom: "Rubate bene!" meaning
"Rub him well!" which the groom answered cheerfully
with a broad grin and a quick "Si, signore ! Si, signore!"
for rubate is the imperative of rubare, to rob, and the groom

231

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

was more than willing to carry out his master's instruc-
tions.

The beautiful young Austrian Empress rode in Rome
for two winters; she was a graceful rider, mounted on the
best of horses, and always at the front. I remember one
meet we had at the tomb of Cecilia Metella, when the Em-
press was riding; in addition to the usual tent where there
were refreshments for all the hunt, a special place was set
apart for her and her suite and decorated with flowers.
Every one in Rome drove out there that day — there must
have been a hundred and fifty riders, and although it rained
a little in the morning it was very gay. The Empress rode
all day; she had a pretty horse belonging to the Queen of
Naples and wore a black habit, a little round cap, and black
stockings, which covered a very neat ankle — black stock-
ings were considered very odd in those days, when women
all wore white. On account of the rain, the ground was
slippery and there were a good many falls, but no one w^as
hurt.

Red coats were for the most part confined to the
Romans, but there w^re occasionally English or Americans
who sported red, and all w^ore high hats, which were a pro-
tection if you happened to fall on your head, as I did once
in riding through a field where low bushes covered the
obstacles underneath. We came to two ditches lying side
by side, and my horse cleared the first, but not seeing the
second landed in the middle of it and actually stood on
his head, so that his forehead was covered with mud. I
followed suit and stood on my head, or rather on my high
hat, which was split in two and driven down over my eyes,
and my neck was so stiff afterward that I could hardly
move it for some time. Had it not been for my high hat
I should probably have broken my neck. This and one

232

THE CAMPAGNA

other were the only falls I had in Rome during all my hunt-
ing experience. I was very fortunate.

My exemption from accidents was chiefly due to my
horse, Lungarino, which was one of the best and most
reliable animals I have ever known. He was probably of
Arab blood, beautifully turned, brown, fifteen hands high
and clean-limbed, with a long neck, small head, sloping
shoulders, and large hquid soft eyes. An old vet, who for
many years attended the four hundred horses of Barnum's
circus, once told me that in examining a horse he always
looked first at his ''countenance," as he expressed it, partic-
ularly his eye, "because no good horse ever had a bad eye."
Lungarino had been raised on the rough ground of the
Campagna, and was the most sure-footed beast I have ever
ridden. I never had him refuse a jump of any sort, and
ahhough my Hght weight was a help to him in this — I once
rode a race at Jerome Park, a mile in 1.48, weighing, with
my saddle, one hundred and fifteen pounds — the real reason,
beyond his great agihty, was that we had mutual confidence
in each other, and when I turned his head to a fence he
knew that I intended him to jump it, and he never disap-
pointed me. There was a Spaniard named Heredia who
was one of our best riders and had an excellent horse some-
thing like mine. Wherever he went I always followed, or
if I led he followed me. We made this a rule, and although
I say it, who should not, we were always among the first
in the field. One day the hounds were thrown out and
we were all riding across a big open field, with a high rail
fence in front of us and a gate further up, through which
the whole hunt filed. I kept on alone, however, and jumped
my horse over the fence. Pretty soon we rode back again
and all went through the gate except myself, for I thought
that I might as well take the fence again, so I put Lun-

^3^

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

garino at it, but he swerved a little just before he reached
it and jumped right over the gate-post itself— it must have
been more than six feet. When Calabrini, the M. F. H.,
saw it, he said to one of his friends, "That young man will
break his neck some time !"

Another time there w^as a large gathering at the hunt
— I never saw so many, perhaps two hundred — and we had
one or two short runs. One fox took to a cane-brake and
was killed, after which we had a long run across a level
sort of country with a great many rail fences. F. Augustus
Schermerhorn on his brown horse Barone, Baring of
the British Legation, and I were riding side by side; pres-
ently we noticed that there was no one else in sight. The
hounds were running right in front of us, when they sud-
denly stopped and began baying around the ruins of some
old buildings where the fox had evidently run to earth.
We were there several minutes before any others of the
hunt came up — Schermerhorn remarked that it spoke pretty
well for America and England.

Lungarino was such a wonderful Httle horse that
I must be forgiven if I recall some trifling incidents just to
show what a cathke creature he was and how level-headed.
I was alone following Miss Hosmer, on her tall brown horse,
and she crossed a ditch which I tried in another place lower
down. At the edge, hidden by low bushes, I struck a round-
topped rock, just large enough to hold my horse's feet;
he touched it hghtly, sprang from it across a deep muddy
brook, landed on another rock, and then scrambled up an
almost perpendicular broken bank on the other side — all
in the time that it takes to tell about it.

Another time, having been thrown out of the hunt,
I found myself entirely alone, with no one in sight, riding
along a sloping stony hillside sparsely clothed with olive-

234

THE CAMPAGNA

trees. I was galloping pretty fast, as it was late and I wanted
to catch up to the others, when suddenly under our noses
I saw one of those Roman watercourses cd^i^cd with brick
on both sides, so I spoke to Lungarino and he took it
in his stride — it looked very wide and deep as I glimpsed
it below me in passing and I thanked my stars when I was
over. I never would have taken it dehberately, because
if Lungarino had not jumped it clean, or had trodden
on either edge, we should have been done for, horse and all,
for no one would ever have found us in that lonely spot.

A dashing rider at the hunt whom I have not mentioned
before was Miss Elizabeth Balch, a famous beauty. She
went abroad with us to visit relations in Rome; we realized
that her chaperonage though only for the journey was some-
thing of a responsibihty. Lizzie, as she was usually called,
was not only exceedingly pretty, but she had a sympathetic
and highly cuhivated voice and was a fearless rider. Her
father, Doctor Balch, had been at one time canon of the
cathedral in Montreal, but when we first knew them the
Balches were hving in Newport, near the second beach at
Purgatory. Lizzie's admirers were legion. They had begun
with the British officers stationed at Montreal when she
was living there, and with one of these, Lord George Hamil-
ton, a charming man and very handsome, we all went to
tea at his house in London. In Rome she was supposed
to be engaged to the Marquis of Bute — that would have
been a brilhant match — and another winter the Spanish
ambassador, who lived in the Villa Farnesina, was very
attentive. She was living with her uncle, Mr. Mobray,
who had an apartment in the Via Sistina just across the
way from us, and we used often to see the ambassador's
fine equipage, with its smart cobs, drawn up in front of her
door for hours.

235

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

But in spite of all this admiration, she never married —
she had a quick tongue and perhaps this had something to
do with it. At one time the Prince of Wales was a great
friend of hers, and used to call on her often in London. She
once said to him:

"How's your wife?"

"Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales is very
well," he answered stiffly.

"Well, she is your wife, isn't she?" she remarked, a
pleasantry which he hked so httle that, I believe, he never
called on her again — he drew the line at jokes about the
princess.

Among my pleasantest companions at the hunt was
Theodore Roosevelt, father of T. R., who was spending
the winter in Rome with his family. Mrs. Roosevelt was
charming, and he an agreeable man and an enthusiastic
horseman. We had many delightful rides together, not
only at the hunt, but exploring many out-of-the-way places
in the Campagna, he mounted on his fine horse that we
always called the Gallant Gray and I on Lungarino.

Theodore Roosevelt to D. M. A. Rome

94 Maiderx Lane, N. Y., Sept., 1870.
"... I have taken a place at Riverdale for the sum-
mer, but there is no Campagna, with its lovely ruins, sur-
rounded by snow clad mountains and interspersed by those
charming stone fences. I cannot say so much for the wooden
fences, as they brought my nice old gray horse so sadly to
grief. I have a good saddle horse but am reduced to nothing
but style now. The four horses that I drive might as well
be oxen, they are nearly seventeen hands high, hold up
their heads and tails and go with their feet just like ma-
chines, and as you may imagine give me no pleasure, though

236

THE CAAIPACNA

I suppose the boys I pass on the road fed I am much to
be envied. An Englishman the other day had the coolness
to congratulate me on their training.

At the rate at which Europe is travelling, before this
reaches you you will probably be consul to a defunct gov-
ernment, much to the delight of the American people; tluir
sympathies were at first with Prussia, and now they do
not know whether or not they should desert her for a French
Republic."

There were plenty of foxes on the Campagna, so we
never had to resort to drag hunts; indeed, there were some-
times too many, as the pack would then divide and lake
up a fresh scent of some other fox who had crossed the trail
of the first one. I w^as once riding close to the hounds and
we came to cross-roads where two foxes were sitting, ap-
parently talking to each other. As we surprised them,
one took the right hand and the other the left and the
pack separated, one-half of them after each fox.

I trust that I may be pardoned for telling so much about
my riding. I really do not do it from vanity, but because
I remember those days so vividly, so pleasantly, that they
insist on being recorded. Riding has been one of the chief
delights of a long fife — indeed, as I have already told you,
the most thrilling of all my early recollections is my first
ride on Commodore Salter's large bay horse, in the orchard
at Danskammer.

I have been told by Englishmen that the hunting in
Rome is much rougher and more dangerous than that over
the average English country, being more like that of Ire-
land. Occasionally there were accidents. One very sad
one in 1870, though not in hunting, was that of Hartmann
Kuhn, of Philadelphia, an awfully nice fellow, handsome

^37

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

and dashing. He hunted and had several fine horses, but
though a fair rider had a bad habit of checking his horse
just as he was rising to a jump, which was dangerous, as
it threw the horse out of his stride. He was trying to cor-
rect this habit and went out on the Campagna with his
groom to practise, but he pulled on his horse so suddenly
that it fell on him and injured him internally. The Em-
peror's doctor happened to be in Rome and went to see
him, but said there was no hope, and Kuhn died in a few
days. He left a wife, who had been a Miss Gary of New
York, and a little child. After the accident it was remem-
bered that at a party at the Terrys' the evening before he
had talked a great deal about a recent hunting disaster
in England, remarking that to have a horse fall on you
was the worst thing that could happen. I was riding with
him the evening before his accident. We dismounted at
the Porta Pia, and while walking home through the Via
Babuino we got talking about the various floods caused
by the overflowing of the Tiber, and he showed me a wall
in a little side street on which the height of floods in Rome
was marked.

Everybody knows the tradition about the fountain of
Trevi — how if you drink of its waters the night before your
departure you will surely return once more to the Eternal
City before you die. So the evening before I left I went
to the fountain, and kneeling at its basin I took a draught.
I don't remember whether or no I uttered a prayer that
I might return, but I certainly had a strong hope that the
prophecy might be fulfilled. Alas ! it never has been — and
now there is no probability that it ever will be. Twice since
I left I have been back to Italy, as near to Rome as Naples.
But to Rome I have never returned. My wife went there
in 1906, but thirtj'-four years of absence had so changed

238

THE CAMPAGNA

everything that it made her very sad and homesick. Most
of her old friends were dead, and when she went U> look
at our old house in the Via Sistina she found thai the ancient
walls had been refmished like a modern French apartnu-nt-
house and not a vestige remained of the former beauty
wrought by three centuries of time and decay.

239

CHAPTER XI

VENICE

"Star-crowned citadels, golden isles in a violet sea."

— Palgrave.

One should always arrive in Venice in the early morn-
ing, as I did that summer day in 1872, when I stepped out
of the stuffy train, and saw the gondolas swimming on the
lagoon in the flush of dawn, all so gay and beautiful. A
few days before, my wife had sailed for America with my
two little children and a Roman nurse, and after seeing
them off at Havre I started on the Fourth of July to spend
the summer in Venice. Just after my family left me, I went
through a pretty "bad quarter of an hour," for there came
a report that a French hner had been lost, and for some
time I could not be sure that it was not the ship that car-
ried all I had in the world.

But after that, everj-thing was perfect, except the mos-
quitoes— "zanzari" as the Italians aptly call them. Ever}--
where were signs, "Try our Fidibus !" a pastile one burned
in the room at night, paralyzing to the mosquito but to
humans almost as noxious as the pest himself. My wife
lamented the heat I should have to endure, but it proved
nothing to what America went through that summer. I
never saw the thermometer higher than eighty-three, and
at Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, where she was, it went up to a
hundred and stayed there. The bathing at the Lido was
dehghtful, especially the return across the water in the
cool of the evening. I agree with the Itahans in thinking

240

VENICE

Venice an ideal watering-place — except for fleas and mos-
quitoes.

They said in Venice that Phillips Brooks, Willie Mc-
Vickar — both afterward bishops — and Richardson the archi-
tect, all enormously tall men, once went to the Lido together
to bathe. Beginning with Richardson, one after the other
applied to the bathing-house man for bathing suits; he
managed to squeeze Richardson into one of the little gar-
ments adapted to his Italian customers, but was appalled
when Phillips Brooks made the same demand, and actually
turned tail and ran away in horror when the giant McVickar
appeared before his astonished eyes. Willie McVickar was
the biggest man I ever saw out of a circus.

I stayed at Venturini's, a small hotel overlooking the

harbor near the Bridge of Sighs, where I had stopped the

summer before with my family. Vcnturini was a persistent,

bustling little man — much like one of his own mosquitoes —

who lighted on you whenever he got a chance and buzzed

j you to death with the glories of his hotel. Distinguished

! visitors are the breath of life to Italian landlords and they

! delight in spreading their names and titles on the bulletin

i board in the front hall, so of course I figured as **Q)nsoIc

j Generale degli Stati Uniti d'America," and when my brother

( Gouverneur came we were amused to fmd him posted as

Signor Armstrong "Gouvernatore de New Y'ork."

The Haseltines were at Venturini's, and so was George
Yewell, who was painting a fine interior of the ducal palace.
Later on Yewell painted a good deal in Eg\'pt. When he
first worked there, he got rather discouraged— he couldn't
seem to get the right efi'cct of atmosphere. He was com-
plaining of this one day to several other painters, when he
was interrupted by a stranger wearing a fez, who turned
out to be the brother of Edouard Frere. "You must re-

241

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

member," he said, ''that you have never before painted
in a country that is absolutely dry. In Europe on a bright
day the air is clean, here it is full of dust. Never forget
that the sunshine here is always thickened with dust.'*
Yewell found this advice was just what he needed.

Another friend at Venturini's was John Bunney, an
Englishman who made most delightful water-colors, beau-
tiful in drawing, and in color minutely true to nature. He
was a charming man as well as an enthusiastic painter;
so pleasant was our friendship that it lived through a cor-
respondence of years. The illustrations for **The Stones
of Venice" were his work, and at this time he was occupied
with some more drawings for Ruskin, whom he knew inti-
mately. I remember once speaking of Ruskin's advice
to young draftsmen, "Always have in your pocket a well-
sharpened pencil in a sheath, ready for any emergency,"
and I asked Bunney if Ruskin practised his own precept.

"On the contrary," he said, "he never had any pencil
or paper with him and always borrowed mine!"

Bunney's many years in Venice had shown him every
nook and corner; no street was too tortuous, no palazzo
or picture too out of the way, for him to discover. He and
I would sally out very early on delicious summer Sunday
mornings, just as the church doors were opening for early
service, and after a cup of coffee at a neighboring trattoria
we would take a long ramble. Our favorite haunts were
the old courtyards, surrounded by gray palace walls, with
their wonderful marble wells, the sculptured curbs furrowed
inside by the ropes and chains of countless years and bear-
ing on their sides the coat of arms of the former knightly
owner. The wrought-iron gratings which covered them,
works of art in themselves, used to be kept locked, as the
water-supply was limited in those days, and we never tired

242

VENICE

of the busy scene in the early morning when the wells were
opened, the flocks of women hurrying to get water and
carrying it away on their heads in beautiful old jars and
copper repousse vessels, gesticulating, gossiping, and clam-
oring, in gayly colored groups.

Sundays were Bunney's hohdays, but all the week-
days he painted industriously, usually keeping four differ-
ent subjects going at the same time, for the four different
periods of the day. Bystanders bothered him intensely
while he worked in the streets, so he contrived an ingenious
device, a raised platform, just above the height of an on-
looker's eye; standing this out in the square, he would mount
it by some little folding steps that he would draw up after
him, and there he would sit secure from annoyance. Bun-
ney's palette was very limited. Even in representing gold
he confined himself to yellow ochre, and eschewed cadmium
because, he said, it would fade in time. Vcddcr remarked
w^hen I mentioned this: "That's all very well, but what
would he do if he had to paint a fellow perfectly covered
with cadmium?"

I know another painter who says that he uses only white,
black, vermihon, and yellow ochre, and avers that he can
paint anything with these colors. Some one asked him
what he would do if a sitter insisted on wearing a blue coat.

''Why, I suppose," he said with a shudder, "I should
have to get some bkie!"

"What kind of blue would you use?"

"I don't know, I'd ask the color man."

Bunney and I went out to Murano to sec the cathedral
and were shocked to find that it had recently been restored.
The fine old carved woodwork was gone; the stone walls,
mellowed and stained by time, refinished to a glaring new-
ness; the whole thing put in excellent repair, and simply

243

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

ruined ! It looked like a perfectly modern building. Al-
most all restoration works havoc with beauty, but of all
such sinners modern Italians are the worst.

It goes without saying that I spent most of my summer
in painting. San Marco absorbed me for a month, a mirac-
ulous old place — indeed, it is hard to beheve that great
cathedrals like San Marco have been made with hands;
they seem rather like great trees to have grown more beau-
tiful year by year. In San Marco the artists were privileged;
we could sit and paint wherever we pleased, no one ever
interfering with us; we were allowed to store our easels
and canvases in the sacristy — there were so many of them
that it looked more like a studio than the robing-room of
a church — and Hberal fees for caring for our things made
the sacristans our good friends. Never was there a more
dehghtful place to work in. Not an hour passed without
its picturesque incident — a procession of monks with ban-
ners and crucifixes chanting the litany of the saints; boys
with swinging censers, the pale smoke rising among the por-
phyry columns and statues, and half veiling the giant gold
mosaic figures of saints and prophets on the walls above;
or perhaps, in a side chapel, a baby being christened and
anointed with the holy oil. One day I saw two little girls
playing hide and seek for a long time in the confessional
boxes along each side of the nave. Nobody interfered, for
the kneehng people in Itahan churches are usually ready
for a httle outside diversion, and after a while they went
into one of the boxes and confessed to an old white-haired
priest.

Among the painters in San Marco, B. C Porter was
my particular friend. His color was rich and fine, but,
strange to say, he was color-blind, and often had to ask
me whether the mosaic saint he was painting was garbed

244

VENICE

in red or green. But when he put it on liis canvas it was
all right. Sanford GifTord was also color-bhnd, but he did
not attempt strongly contrasted colors in his beautiful
landscapes, but rather took refuge in monotones.

Wilham Gedney Bunce was a man of whom we were
all very fond, so fond that we guyed him a good deal, al-
ways calling him "Old Bunce," why I don't know, for even
now he is still vigorous and cheerful His painting is full
of feeling and beautiful in color, but his drawing has always
been his weak point. We were breakfasting one day in a
little cafe near the Bridge of Sighs when some one Ix^gan
chaffmg Bunce about this.

"Why don't you learn to draw, Bunce?" he said.

"Well, you see it's this way," he answered: "the trouble
with my learning to draw is that as soon as I begin to draw
any object it straightway begins to wipplc ! Now if I were
really to try to draw that anchor," pointing to an old rusty
anchor lying on the quay, "it would immediately begin
to wiggle, and before I knew it would be off in a seasick
whirl!"

At this time Bunce was ha\ing a great success with
his pictures in England, for Queen Victoria had set the
fashion by buying several of them. Bunce told me he met
Ziem in Venice that same summer, I)ut didn't recognize
him. In talking over various artists, Bunce remarked that,
after all, there was only one man who had ever painted
the true Venice — that man he said was Ziem. Whereupon
Ziem smote his breast deh'ghtedly and shouted: "C'est
moi — c'est moi. Je suis le Ziem!"

Eugene Benson painted an interesting picture in \ enice
that year. The scene is laid in a corner of the Doge's Pakice,
in the gray light of very early morning. Some revellers —
clow^ns, harlequins, and other gay masques— returning

245

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

from a ball, come suddenly upon a corpse laid out for burial.
It is a gruesome but dramatic subject, treated with skill.
Benson was the stepfather of Miss Dudu Fletcher, the
author of " Kismet," a well-known novel in its day, but I
tried to read it over again not long ago and found it pretty
dull. I fancy most **best sellers" grow flat in forty years.
About this time William Graham, an American painter
whom I had known very well in Rome, married his Italian
landlady and settled in Venice, in a httle house on a canal
near the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, in front of which
stands one of the grandest statues in the world, Verrocchio's
CoIIeone. Graham's things were fine in feehng and color,
but he painted few finished pictures, contenting himself
with making numberless careful sketches from nature
which he was never concerned about selling. He was so
modest and retiring that he let clients hunt him up, and
was therefore more appreciated among his fellow artists
than by the general public. He had such a hard time getting
along that his friends were much pleased when he married
the lady, as she was well-to-do, an excellent cook, and made
him very comfortable. They thought he was well provided
for for life. But, alas ! she only lived for a few years and
*'poor old Graham," as everybody aff'ectionately called him,
was again drifting about. During the regime of his efficient
wife he became trim and well set up, with neat collars and
cuff's and well-brushed clothes, but he soon lapsed into his
old threadbare ways. He was a tall, thin, solemn-looking
man, with a dry sense of humor. Before he became a painter
he had been in the gold diggings of California, a ** forty-
niner," and kept a grocery store at one end of a little vil-
lage. At the other end of the street fived a jealous enemy,
a rival grocer, who threatened to shoot him on sight.
Graham had a headstrong mule, that sometimes ran away

246

VENICE

and was generally unruly. One day as he mounted his
mule, it took the bit between its teeth and ran with him pcll-
mell, right through the village and straight into his rival's
shop. His startled enemy, revolver in hand, was about
to shoot, when Graham with great presenee of mind thrust
his hand into his pocket, pulled out a dollar, and said : '* Give
me a pound of sugar!" When the enemy found a rival
transformed into a customer before his eyes, his wrath was
appeased and they became firm friends.

When Graham started out from Rome on a sketching
tour for the summer, he never decided beforehand where
he was going, but would board a train and whenever they
stopped he would take a look at the landscape, and if it
seemed paintable he would get out and perhaps spend the
whole summer there. In the course of time he turned up
in New York and brought with him all his art accumula-
tions of many years — pictures, tapestries, rugs, and what
not, all for sale. He had many good things, among them
a small and excellent example of Tiepolo, who was just
then being discovered by connoisseurs, after a long sleep,
and becoming the fashion. As I wanted to help Graham
along, I told him that I might find him a purchaser for this
picture, for which he asked a hundred dollars. I mentioned
it to Francis Lathrop and told him that Graham would
take two hundred and fifty for it. L:ithrop was delighted
with it, thought it very cheap, and took it at that price;
so I felt I had done pretty well for Graham. C. C. Cole-
man bought one of his rugs for a small price and sold it
for thousands, but with his usual generosity he shared his
profit with Graham.

Having sold his "roba," Graham could no longer keep
away from Italy. The last I heard of him was in Cipri,
where his old friends Veddcr and Coleman looked out for

247

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

him at the last. He was a dear old fellow, gentle as a child.
Fortunately his lovable qualities endeared him to his friends,
who never failed him in hard places, and he floated through
Hfe, as Disraeh says, "like lilies on the stream." He had
few w^ants, and if he had enough of painting from nature
he cared for nothing more. He had a happy life.

Venice is filled with little stands for the sale of fruit
and miscellaneous articles, one favorite dish being strips
of fried pumpkin. Snails are also in demand, not the large
snail of commerce which we all know^, but a httle thing the
size of a small pea, which I have never seen except in Venice.
They are very cheap, a centime buying a quantity. When
a purchaser buys a handful, they are handed out to him
on a large vine-leaf with a small piece of wood like a tooth-
pick, with which he extracts them from their shells and
consumes them as he idles along the street. While I was
sitting painting one day, I observed two wayfarers stop
at one of these stands. One spent a centime for a vine-leaf
of snails. He did not offer any to his friend, who watched
him feast with hungry eyes until they were almost gone,
when he could stand it no longer and timidly asked for
one, but the glutton dechned — it seemed to me about the
meanest thing I had ever seen. Centimes were used in
Venice a great deal because of the extreme poverty of the
people. You know, at every landing-place for gondolas
there is always an old fellow bearing a hooked stick to hold
the gondola in place, who helps the passenger to alight
and, of course, expects a gratuity, usually a ten-centime
piece, equal to one cent of our money. I once meanly
dropped a centime in the old man's cap, and he felt so in-
sulted at the smallness of the gift that he turned his cap
over and dropped the coin into the water; but I think it
was only bluff — no one in Venice would throw away even

248

VENICE

a centime, and I am certain thai when I had gone he dived
in after it.

Haseltine and I spent a great deal of time in the antiquity
shops, very keen about finding good things cheap. And
what splendid chances for picking up "roba antica" there
were in those days ! Not once have I regretted anything
that I bought, saving all my regrets for not buying many
things that I coveted but did not think I could afford. The
dealers always asked much more than they were wilh'ng
to take, often three or four times as much, and they despised
you for a green "forestiere," if you immediately gave them
their price. Brass plates of the fifteenth century were much
prized and were plentiful in those days, when few people
except artists were collectors of bric-a-brac. Whenever
one of their numerous festas came along, all the people took
a holiday and thronged the streets in their best clothes;
booths would be erected along the pavement, decorated
with green boughs; those for the sale of fried fish invariably
displayed a row of these brightly polished brass plates,
about eighteen inches across, usually with a scriptural sub-
ject in the middle and Gothic lettering around the edge.
Most of them were cheap modern imitations, but among
them would generally be one or two choice old ones which
were always for sale at some price or other, generally about
twenty-five francs. I acquired several on these occasions,
and Haseltine bought two or three dozen for his Wnv palazzo
in Rome. One of Haseltine's most cherished possessions
was a splendid tapestry that he had bought from the great
Fortuny. I happened to learn that it was probalily one
of a set belonging to the Spanish royal family, one of which
was missing and was supposed to have been stolen. Hasel-
tine was a good deal disturbed by this report, fearing that
it might be claimed, but I don't think it ever was.

249

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

In Venice, the summer before, I heard of some old tapes-
tries in a private house; the owner threw them down from
an upper-story window into a courtyard and spread them
out there for me to see. I was fascinated by one of the
smaller ones showing a pretty garden scene, with many
small figures, charming little knights and ladies, strolling
about under the trees — always designated by its owner,
who spoke broken English, as the one with the "small
fidgers." I liked it immensely, but the price was six thou-
sand francs, so I did not consider it.

When I came back the following summer, the owner
would turn up every now and then when I was painting
in the streets and ask me how much I would give for the
tapestry with the "small fidgers." He always refused my
offers, but finally, when the summer had passed and "fore-
stieri" were few, he began reducing his price and at last
came down to three thousand francs. A few days before
I left, I told him that it was his last chance, and offered
him five hundred francs, which to my surprise he promptly
accepted and threw the tapestry down to me out of the
window. I have it now and have refused a good price for
it.

It was in Venice that I bought, for a hundred francs,
one of my best things, a very fine marriage chest carved
with a lovely design in low relief. There is an exact duplicate
of it in Perugia, the design attributed to Perugino. It had
dolphins at the corners, but as their heads were gone I had
a fittle Roman wood-carver make some heads which matched
the old work exactly. This man in the Via Capo le Case
had a genius for imitating the old carving. With a few
rude tools — a saw, a chisel, and a mallet — not following any
design, he cut things right from his own head that were
really fine — not the sandpapered stuff glued on a flat back-

250

VENICE

ground that the carvers do in Florence, but solid work,
the design melting into the Hat surface but shelving the
sharp marks of the chisel, hke the modcMing of the Itah'an
sculptors of the fifteenth century or the work of Augustus
Saint Gaudens.

I was once driving in a cab in the outskirts of Paris
with Saint Gaudens when we espied in a little shop two
old Gothic carved oak panels. We immediately jumped
out and bought them for a trifle, each of us taking one.
Afterward in New York, I lent mine to McKim and he used
it as a motive and as a model for the carver, in the style
of cutting, for the panels of the beautiful pulpit in the
Church of the Ascension which he designed and had car-
ried out under his own eye. It was also in Paris, in a car-
penter's shop, that I discovered a splendid chest, covered
with pigskin and profusely studded with ornamental copper
nails in intricate designs, with bronze handles and lock
in the form of lovely dolphins. It is of about the time of
Louis XIV, and may have belonged to the Dauphin. Stan-
ford White admired it so much that he took a rubbing of
it for some leather work which he was then doing. It was
in another carpenter's shop, this one on the Via Sistina
in Rome, that I found two small bronze portrait medallions
of the fifteenth century, and worthy of the period, of which
I have never seen any reproductions.

A terra-cotta bas-relief for a shrine, which I discovered
in Florence in 1872, is of the time of DonatcIIo, a Madonna
and Child, most delicately colored and with lovely faces.
There is one in Turin by DonatcIIo with figures exactly
like mine, but where mine has a flat background with a
sort of arabesque or tapestry design, that in Turin has two
wreaths interlaced. I bought this for thirty-five francs.

One of the best antiquity dealers in Venice had his shop

2^-1

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

in a splendid old palace on the Grand Canal, its ceilings
covered with fine old faded frescoes and everything about
it just as it had been in the fifteenth century. Strange to
relate, though he was quite up on all phases of ancient art,
he had another and very different caHing— he was a butcher !
It is hard to understand how he could reconcile himself to
occupations so incongruous. His daughter usually sat in
the shop and did the selhng, and as I wanted badly a re-
pousse brass plate which they had, I would offer her twenty-
five francs for it whenever I happened in, but she always
decHned. The day before I left Venice I walked in — the
daughter was sitting there — I put down twenty-five francs
on the counter and walked off with the plate under my arm.
She threw up both hands and exclaimed:

"ManodiDio! Mano di Dio ! "

I also bought in Venice a very unusual marriage-chest
front, of the fourteenth century. It is made of walnut,
carved in low relief with figures of huntsmen and horses
returning from a boar-hunt, black with age, but brightened
with the remains of gilding in spots here and there. De-
ciding to treat it as a shelf, I got the Capo le Case wood-
carver to add a grotesque head at each end and a shelf above,
and later I had it built into a mantelpiece at Danskammer
with good effect.

One day, wandering into an ancient Venetian palazzo,
I saw hanging in the hall an etching by Albert Diirer —
the horse with a mailed figure walking by its side — and
bought it for ten francs. I don't know whether it is an
original or not but it is good enough to be. Perhaps it is
by Marc Antonio, who engraved Diirer's things in Venice.
I remember in Padua asking an antiquity dealer if he had
any old books. He said, yes, that he would show me a
few, and took me to an old palace where the garret was

252

VENICE

filled with at least a thousand volumes, most of them of
very early printing, with vellum bindings and many with
metal clasps. He told me I could help myself to any book
in the collection at a franc each, but I had no means of
carrying them. I bought only one, a treatise on some Latin
particle, with a stamped leather binding, classic heads and
ornaments, and brass clasps.

When I went to a new place in traxeUing, I often sought
out the antiquity shops before I visited the great sights,
and now when I look at my little collection at home each
object has a history and recalls some delightful hunt in
out-of-the-way corners of many an old city. But I must
not let my love for "roba antica" run away with me, al-
though I am mentioning all these acquisitions partly to
show how cheaply in those days one could pick up really
good things. What treasures I could have secured for the
Metropolitan Museum if they had let me buy for them !

I once had an adventure in an antiquity shop that might
have been more serious than amusing. One afternoon I
visited Innocenti's, in the Via Frattina in Rome, and ex-
amined some coins that Innocenti himself showed me, one
of them gold, about the size of a twenty-dollar gold piece.
I thought that I returned it to him, but the next morning
while shaving I took up my waistcoat and to my horror
found this coin in the pocket ! With the lather still on
my face I hurried into my coat and rushed down to In-
nocenti's and found him just taking down his shutters,
for it was not yet eight o'clock. I gave him the coin with
breathless apologies. He was not disturbed — he said that
he had seen me put it in my pocket, but knew that it would
be all right.

That summer in Venice most of the artists and writers
would meet at Florian's celebrated restaurant umicr the

253

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

colonnade of the Square of San Marco, and there, grouped
around little tables, we would listen to the band, eat ices,
drink coffee, and consume "caramelli" that men brought
around on trays — candied fruits of every description, grapes,
plums, and apricots, speared on bits of wood like tooth-
picks. In those days, living in Venice was extraordinarily
cheap, and two people could dine at a good restaurant for
sixty cents. The doors of Florian's were never closed day
or night — had not been, it is said, in a hundred years. Alas,
they are closed to-day, in 191 7!

When the Austrians were in possession in 1869, their
smart light-blue and white uniforms were everywhere, and
I thought these elaborately gotten-up officers were the
handsomest men I had ever seen. And when I first sat
under the arches at Florian's hstening to the music, it was
the Austrian band that played for us. But in 1872 they
had given way to the Italians. The strains of the band
floated across to us from the opposite corner of the square,
bathed in silver moonhght; every hour the two Moors on
the clock-tower would beat out the time with clanging
strokes; flower-girls would saunter by and pin little bouquets
in our buttonholes. We had pleasant times at Florian's,
under the arches.

There was a foolish little game we used to play at
Florian's— some one would throw a half-smoked cigar out
on the pavement and we would proceed to bet as to whether
a passer-by from the right or from the left would pick it
up; the loser would pay for the ices or carameHi. Hasel-
tine hked more substantial fodder than ices, however, and
he would often sHp away for half an hour and adjourn to
the Hotel Baur for one of their famous beefsteaks, and
come back to us redolent of onions.

Henry James was one of the most interesting of the

254

VENICE

men one met at Florian's. My first acquaintance with
him was at a picture gallery in Bologna in 1869, ^^hcrc we
fraternized in discussing the pictures, and he was then a
handsome young man, not yet famous. At this time in
Venice he had "arrived," and had already done much of
his best work. Another literary man I met in Venice was
T. Adolphus TroIIope, accompanied in' his lovdy daughter
Beatrice. He looked a good deal hke his brother Anthony,
a bluff, hearty man, rather stout and red.

^ You never paint in the streets of Venice without some-
thing amusing happening. As I was making a sketch one
day of a marble column with a cross on the top and steps
around the base, I casually put in the figure of a pretty
young girl who happened to sit knitting on one of the steps.
I had just got her in to my satisfaction when she strolled
round behind me, and reaching deftly forward, before I
could stop her, with one sweep ©f her thumb wiped the
whole figure out of the picture. Like the Indians in the
West, the peasants hate to be sketched, thinking it sub-
jects them to the power of the evil eye. Another time I
was painting the window of a church from a gondola moored
quietly under the wall; in the stern lay the gondolier,
stretched flat on his back with his mouth wide open, en-
joying the usual siesta. Suddenly, without warning, a pail-
ful of slops was cast from an upper window, directly into
his peaceful face. He was deluged. With a shriek the
poor fellow dived headlong into the canal, clothes and ail.
I wonder if the fishing-boats in Venice are still as Ix'au-
tiful as they were in those days: their colored sails, usually
a rich amber, adorned with some device — the more am-
bitious with a Madonna, a crucifix, or some such reh'gious
emblem — the nets a warm brown, strung up to dry on the
masts and rigging and hanging in graceful folds; the black

2ii

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

hulls painted on the prow with quaint names, such as
" Honora Fatica " or *' Rene di Mari." The time to see them
in their glory was the early morning, when they returned
in great fleets with their catch of the night before to their
chief rendezvous, the quay back of the PubHc Garden.
I spent many happy mornings in the comfortable seat of
a gondola, painting these charming little vessels grouped
along the shore or dotting a distant lagoon. Those were
ideal days !

John W. Bunney to D. M. A., New York

Fondamenta San Biagio, Venice. Jan., 1874.

"... I have not forgotten the pleasant companion-
ship we had in Venice. I heard from Graham that you
had gone in for art at last and set up a studio in New York.
May your fullest hopes and liveliest anticipations be fully
realized, and when love is the foundation-stone can one
desire a better wish for a fellow worker !

Last summer we had cholera from June to October,
close quarantine by way of the sea, and no bathers. I could
look across from my balcony to the Salute and the Giudecca
and not see a single vessel. Nearly all the gaiety in Venice
was confined to the artists, who kept up a constant run of
dissipation in the way of dancing at the Lido and picnics
at Sant' Elena. Some of them admitted to me that they
felt no disposition to w^ork, and thought it might be the
scirocco or the bad air of Venice, at which I grinned and
said nothing! Yewell was here and worked hard; he went
to Cadore for a month and the sketches he did there pleased
me much. His things in the church here have in them such
a look of marble and truth of colour that I feel he is going
on fast, by steady indomitable courage in not turning
aside either to fashion on the one hand or tricks of clever

256

VENICE

execution on the other. Graham showed me a delicious
bit outside one of the gates of Rome, sueh sweet (cvlinir
and quiet subdued colour, not naturalistic, but very prx'tic
such a picture as one could turn to in anxious irritable mc>
ments and get peace and strength. Then we had some
Spaniards from Paris, whose work gave me food for thought •
I don't say they were entirely satisfactory, but they had
a fascination that was not only attractive but satisfactory
Well, about my own work— I think, or rather I know,
that I can do things now that I could not when you were
here. But it is a hard fight to keep pace with clever exe-
cution on the one hand, and French feeling on the other,—
not that I despise clever execution or French feeling.' I
look on with a great desire, when I see how freely men do
that which I cannot, how much they get with scarcely any
effort or means; and my reverence is great for that lovely
feeling which the French and Spaniards get into their work.
Now when are you coming back to Italy and Venice?
We often talk of you all, and iMaggie and Pippo would be
glad to see their pretty h"ttle golden-haired playfellow
again."

Every morning for years after I left Italy, with my first
w^aking thoughts I would begin to plan how I could return,
and often I regretted that because of the inadequate salary
I had resigned my position as consul-general. But a.s I
look back now I am satisfied. I am glad that my children
were brought up Americans.

257

CHAPTER XII

SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

"Youth is a house that has no stairs at all,
And like a ship at sea is manhood's prime."

The Falcone was an ancient Roman trattoria, opening
its hospitable doors just back of the Pantheon on one of
the crooked streets that tie themselves into a dozen bow-
knots in an effort to wriggle somehow into a respectable
part of town. To those famihar with modern Rome the
vicinity of the Pantheon will seem an unexpected spot in
which to discover a favorite cafe, but in the early seventies
the Falcone was much patronized by the artistic fraternity.
The billowy primitive stone floor and the tables furrowed
and black with age could not detract a whit from the fra-
grance of the macaroni sizzling in the next room, while the
heads of old wine-casks that studded the walls but reminded
us that there still remained much chianti to be met and
conquered. The American and English artists who en-
joyed the Falcone's savory meals were not always famous,
but they satisfactorily enough made up for the lack of ap-
preciation in others by at any rate unreservedly admitting
to each other that they were far and away the best.

Here it was that the sculptor Rhinehart (or "Rhiny,"
as he was known to his fellows, a man **of infinite wit")
was host at a jolly dinner one sultry July night in 1872 —
the 3d of the month it was, for I remember how patriotic
we became as morning drew near. And it had drawn dis-
gracefully near before all the tales were told and all the

258

SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

songs sung by the convivial crowd, among whom I remember
Vedder and Coleman. At the long table also sat George
Simmons, the English sculptor whose "Falconer" adorns
a rocky knoll in Central Park, The name of my next neigh-
bor was Augustus Saint Gaudens. His personality strongly
impressed me, and there and then began a friendship
destined to last till the day of his death.

When my new-found friend and I sallied out after dinner,
we came upon Vedder sitting on one of the large stones at
the corner of the Via Frattina and the Piazza di Spagna,
gazing with solemn attention at the moon as it hung In
quiet glory over the Pincian HilL Dawn was just touching
the skies and the chill of early morning was in the air. But
from that position not all the expostulations of Saint Gau-
dens and myself could budge Vedder, and after a time we
forbore and left him still sitting on his stone in silent con-
templation. The next day I departed for Venice, and a
year passed before I could renew my acquaintance with
Saint Gaudens.

The end of a year saw us both on this side of the At-
lantic, and many were the experiences we had in New York
in the old building on the corner of Fourth Avenue and
Fourteenth Street. It still is occupied by the German Sav-
ings Bank, but in those days there were a number of vacant
up-stairs rooms used as studios. We each rented one of
these, and for several years I saw him almost daily; dis-
couraging and depressing years they were for him, although
maybe not really so hard as the earher ones he had spent
as a student at the Beaux Arts.

Saint Gaudens had been working for some time on a
small recumbent female figure, which was finally cast in
plaster and sent to the Academy of Design. It was re-
jected. He had also before this, in Rome, made a marble

259

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

figure of "Silence" for a Masonic temple, but the Masons,
knowing little of art, didn't like it and were prevailed upon
to accept it only after he had spent weary weeks at work,
himself cutting and chipping the marble after it was already
in place. They now congratulate themselves, it is said, on
having knowm enough to secure the w^ork of a great sculptor !

The father of Saint Gaudens was a shoemaker who
kept his shop next to the old Academy of Design in Fourth
Avenue. I often met him. He was an erect old French-
man with a fine leonine head, an aristocratic bearing, and
good blood in his veins, I am sure. Saint Gaudens had
no regular education to speak of, though his active mind
readily acquired bits of knowledge, and later on in life he
was a very well-educated man. At the time of which I
speak, how'ever, he was innocent of even an acquaintance
with many of the masterpieces of literature. He once asked
me where he could find an accurate story of Moses. Rather
amused, I lent him the obvious book. Late that night he
came back into my studio in a great state of excitement,
carrying in his hand the Bible I had lent him.

"I've never read this before," he exclaimed. "It's
the most remarkable thing I have ever seen."

Saint Gaudens often told me of the trials he had suf-
fered as an apprentice to a cameo-cutter, a Frenchman,
who spent his hohdays and Sundays in shooting snipe on
the Weehawken Flats. The young craftsman w^as com-
pelled to walk all day, lugging his master's game-bag and
running after the snipe he shot. Never would he admit,
even in confidence, that the bag was a heavy one, so loath
was he to give "that fellow" credit for anything; but there
is not much hazard in the guess that snipe were then in a
more flourishing condition on the "Flats" than is the case
to-day, and that the sport was pretty good — for the master.

260

SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

Cameo-cutting was soon abandoned, but not before
Saint Gaudens had become very skilful at the trade. This
training I have no doubt greatly influenced his whole ar-
tistic career. Upon returning to America after his first
trip abroad he was desperately poor, and during most of
one winter he and the sculptor Palmer slept in a storeroom
on the same floor as our studios, using as beds the great
empty packing-boxes of some furniture that had come to
me from Italy.

In those days Mr. Robert Gordon's house was a
rendezvous of artists and their friends, and every winter
Mr. Gordon gave a large reception, with a splendid spread,
to which the artists considered it quite the thing to be in-
vited. Entirely different from any of the present-day func-
tions, they were a distinct feature of New York life, and
were looked forward to from year to year. To one of these
I obtained an invitation for Saint Gaudens, and while we
were there introduced him to Doctor Noyes, the famous
surgeon and oculist. The conversation having turned u|X)n
hospitals, Saint Gaudens related to Doctor Noyes how
once as a child, while playing in his father's workshop, he
had cut a long gash in his arm and as a result had been
carried to a hospital near by. Pulling up his sleeve, he
showed the scar. Doctor Noyes said: "I remember the
wound as distinctly as I do the brave h'ttle boy. I was
the doctor who sewed it up !"

In his younger days Saint Gaudens was shy and avoided
somewhat the company of the great, and he described to
me as one of his early trials his modelling of a bust of a
distinguished diplomat. This gentleman's doctor had or-
dered him to soak his feet, so when he posed for my friend
he sat wrapped up in a blanket on a high chair, his feet
stuck in a tub of water which it was part of Saint Gaudcns's

261

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

duty to keep hot. When the bust was well under way, Saint
Gaudens noticed that the distinguished diplomat kept
bringing the conversation around to Socrates and Seneca,
Marcus Aurelius and Plato. The reason for this was not
long obscure.

"I find," said the D. D., "after a careful examination,
that all these distinguished men had very broad foreheads
—just broaden mine a bit." So Saint Gaudens, afraid to
object, meekly compHed. Repeated urgings and the re-
suhant broadenings brought the forehead finally to the
point where it seemed to be affected with some dreadful
swelling disease. But this did not bring complete satis-
faction to the heart of the sitter. He suggested that these
same great forerunners of his were also notable for having
had very deep-set eyes. So poor Saint Gaudens was forced
to bore and bore, deeper and deeper, until he almost pierced
through to the back. He told me this story with great
excitement, interspersing in the narrative many uncom-
plimentary remarks on celebrities in general, and illustrat-
ing it all by puffing out his cheeks and making violent bor-
ing gestures with his forefinger. He said he'd give any-
thing to get hold of that bust and smash it to atoms.

By nature modest and retiring, nothing bored him more
than to be thrust forward, especially if the particular kind
of torture happened to be public speaking. His literary
style was terse and vivid, and he showed it to advantage
in his letters, frequently illustrating them, too, with humor-
ous scraps of drawings and using for signature a caricature
of his own long profile. His manners were always most
attractive, but he cared Kttle for dress and despised all its
afi"ectations. I remember that he bore a particular grudge
against the pointed shoes that used to be fashionable, and
was continually making fun of mine. But this lack of in-

262

SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

terest in clothes did not hinder him from admirably de-
picting them, as witness the Farragut and Lincoln statues.
La Farge told me he thought Saint Gaudens in his Lin-
coln had obtained the most successful result that he had
ever seen in the struggle of dealing arlistically with the
problem of modern dress.

In 1877 I found that Mrs. Edward King thought of
erecting a monument at Newport in memory of her hus-
band, and it occurred to me that Saint Gaudens and La
Farge would be an excellent pair to execute the work, so
I introduced my two friends to each other with this in view,
and spoke of them to Mrs. King. They were promptly
engaged, and this was the first really successful order secured
by Saint Gaudens. Soon after their first meeting, La Farge
asked Saint Gaudens and me to dine with him in his studio
in the old Tenth Street building, and the beautiful King
monument resulted from their discussion that evening.
Another of the joint work of these two friends of mine was
the reredos in St. Thomas's Church, afterward destroyed
by fire, of which I shall speak when I set down my impres-
sions of La Farge. Saint Gaudens alludes to both the monu-
ment and the angels in the following letter, in which he
also speaks of the bas-relief he had made of me while wc
were together in New York. This was the first of the in-
teresting medallions he afterward often made. The letter
is signed, as was his custom, with an outline of his own
most characteristic profile.

Augustus Saint Gaudens to D. M. A., Danskammcr

Rome, i8~8.
". . . Such a time I had as you never saw. I did it
because Dr. Morgan gave me to understand that Li Farge
would be ready in time. I was sure he would not be, but

263

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

as I did not care to bear the responsibility of the delay,
I did the work. That was last October, La Farge has not yet
finished ! I regret very much he did not tell me he would
not be ready for then I would have passed a great deal more
time, studied up the Renaissance and produced a better
thing. It was not a money affair, I spent more than I got
for it, and I regret I was not allowed at least to do as well
as I could. *J'ai pris mon parti,' as they say in French.
I said something has got to be sacrificed so I'll go in for
the general character.

After that was over I finished the tomb, and within
a week or so it will be on its way to America. On New
Year's day I left Paris for Rome. We had a splendid trip,
stopping tho' only at Pisa. Do you know I believe my
stay in America has done me no harm. I appreciate all
the grand works more than ever. On arriving in Rome I
had a hard time getting a studio, but am finally settled in
Simmons', the Englishman's studio. I have half of it and
am hard at work; the shawls are hung on the wall, and
on them the colored medallions as of old, the reclining figure
in front as usual, and on a piece of wood hung on the shawl,
a small medallion in bronze which is the portrait of one of
my best friends of whom I have the fondest recollections;
I modelled it in New York just before I left. Rather a
short man, a heavy moustache, an open eye — Mr. La Farge
said that his face looked in parts as if it was 'tied up in a
knot' — notwithstanding that he's a pretty good kind of a
fellow. I have sent that medallion in a box, with a plaster
bust of Admiral Farragut, both of which are to be exhibited
at Kurtz gallery in March. When the exhibition is over,
Mr. Walter Shirlaw, the President of the Association, will
according to my authorization, remit the medallion to Sig-
nor Bracciaforte in English — Bracciajorte in English, not

264

SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

the medallion — The gentleman I mean is nut twu steps
from where you now stand, and I give it to him as a slight
token of esteem and friendship. I hope it will hv exhibited
and delivered in the way I sent it, on a plain piece of oiled
walnut, held on by six tacks, with a screw nail to hang it
on the wall, so — [drawing by St. C]

Vedder is still here and complaining somewhat. He-
has a great deal of talent. Coleman I have visited but
have not seen his work. I like some of Graham's work a
great deal, — after this year he is going to live in Venice.
Griswold is still the same. All compkiin more or less, but
say this year has been a little better than the last two or
three. My brother Louis who disappeared from Paris in
June '76 wrote me a letter a few days ago and you can imag-
ine my joy. I had almost given him up. Simmons, in whose
studio I am, has left Rome indefinitely, married a young
American lady and is now settled in London. ThiTc, I am
at the end of my news for you. I have told you a lot al^out
myself, knowing it would interest you. I trust you will
do likewise, but much as I would like to hear from you,
yet I want you to feel that if I don't get news I won't feel
a bit neglected. I have never thought that a person's friend-
ship could be measured by the regularity of his correspon-
dence.

I suppose by this time that you are settled down in
Newburgh and that you have been painting away hard with-
out any interruption. That- interruption, I mean— is the
bane of cities. So as to work I have to lock my door and
answer no one. I hope Mrs. Armstrong is well; also your
little ones. Please give her my kindest regards and with
best wishes from Mrs. St. Gaudens, believe me sincerely
your friend. Aug. St. Gaudens. If you desire anything
here 'je suis a vos ordrcs.' Mr. MacMillan the Consul

265

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

seems to be a great favorite. I have not seen him yet, but
to-day Mrs. St. G. goes there."

Saint Gaudens finished the King monument in Paris,
whither I went in the spring of 1878 just in time to see him
giving it the final touches. I had been appointed Director
of American Fine Arts at the Exposition of that year, and
during the time it lasted I lived in the Saint Gaudens apart-
ment at 3 Rue Herschel, in the Latin Quarter.

His studio was close by in the Rue Notre Dame des
Champs, in a huge old dance-hall, and high up in the gal-
lery there a couple of other artists and I often painted,
much amused by the alternate waves of exultation and
despair that sw'ept over Saint Gaudens as he worked. That
summer Augustus started his brother Louis at work, and
it was in the old dance-hall that the latter modelled his
first head. Saint Gaudens made for me a bas-relief portrait
of my little daughter Helen, besides finishing some other
small pieces of work, but his best efforts that summer were
spent on the Farragut statue, w^hich kept him busy for
some time to come.

His Farragut working model was set up in the centre
of the room, w^hile the rest of us painted in the gallery, once
occupied, I suppose, by the orchestra. Thence at odd times
were wafted snatches of song that might have startled even
the waltzing Parisians of the old days; from one corner
would resound a mellow bass:

"You secure the old man;
I'll bind the gur-r-I."

And the couplet would be completed antiphonally from
another remote quarter:

" Once aboard the lugger she is mine."
266

SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

Saint Gaudens always made it "lubber," and we could
not laugh him out of this unnautical substitution.

One of our lively circle was young Bloomer, always
amusing and very talkative. He insisted upon singing
whenever he painted — and he painted steadily. One day
somebody called out, "I'm all through. Come on, fellows:
let's go out to Fontainebleau and hear Bloomer paint."
Various bets were chalked up as to whether or not we should
find Bloomer performing to his usual accompaniment; of
course he was.

I asked Saint Gaudens to help me hang the American
pictures in the Exposition, and had him appointed by the
commissioner-general. This work, as he afterward de-
scribed it, was "something like a battle." A large number
of these pictures had been selected in New York by a dis-
tinguished committee of American connoisseurs. All these
gentlemen, being amateurs and patrons of art but none
of them actual painters, wanted only pictures by "leading
artists." So I, who acted as a sort of adviser and buffer
between the artists and the committee, had difficulty in
persuading them to accept pictures by some men who had
not the reputation they afterward acquired, but who even
then unquestionably were worthy of representing the United
States at the Paris Exposition — notably W'inslow Homer
and John La Farge. (The latter's picture, "Paradise Val-
ley," received an honorable mention.) Even at the end,
there were still a number of the younger and best artists
who were left unrepresented.

The following letter is interesting as showing the work
that was admired at the time by a good artist, and recom-
mended for the Exposition.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

R. Swain Gifford to D. M. A., N. Y.

Association Building, N. Y, Feb. 19, 1878.
"... I consider these as good as anything these
painters have done. Eastman Johnson, 'The Husking
Bee,' owner Sarony; Charles Miller, *The Sheep-fold,'
owner, I think, Robert Gordon; Samuel Colman, 'The
Alhambra,' in oil, and his water-color, *TowTr at Florence,'
owned by one of the Astors. William Sartain has painted
some small figure subjects and some street scenes in Algiers
that I think better than any other American painter's.
There is a man by the name of Dewing in Boston that does
charming figure subjects, a new man and little known, but
I believe him to be a remarkably fine painter. I am con-
vinced you will not be able to find a representative pic-
ture by John La Farge here in New York. The large New-
port picture that he considers his best landscape, exhibited
at the Academy about three years ago, is owned by a Bos-
ton lady. I heartily hope the committee have been able
to see Mr. Clark and secure the 'Cedars of New England.'"

Some pictures were selected by Saint Gaudens and
myself in Paris, these mainly being the w^ork of the students
there. Thus our duties and responsibihties were very mixed
and it naturally followed that w^e got the criticism for all
the sins of omission, though in reality we w^ere responsible
only for those pictures accepted in Paris and for the hang-
ing. The third man on our committee was Mr. , always

referred to by the newspapers as "The Great American
Connoisseur," a name he never afterward succeeded in
getting rid of. He soon became rather terrified, I imagine,
at having to do anything, and refused to come to the meet-
ings or to countenance any of our actions, saying that we

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SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

were too young and too radical— "perfect iconoclasts," as
he expressed it.

It must be admitted that we partly earned this title,
for when we came to hang the pictures we placed those we
considered best on the line and the worst near the ceiling,
entirely irrespective of the names or reputations of the
various artists concerned; there, Saint Gaudens remarked,
the latter would do the least harm. Tliis was unprece-
dented. Result: we displeased a great many of the artists,
for some of the great were ''skied." Eor example, Bloomer,
who had never before had a picture exhibited, sent a very
nice landscape and we hung it on the hne. This sort of
thing upset some people, and of course we came in for our
share of criticism, but on the whole the exhibit made a
good impression, and unprejudiced people, especially for-
eigners, said it was the best made by the United States
up to that time. Later on, Russell Sturgis saw our com-
pleted work and expressed his entire approval. But for
the purpose of showing that even the ordinary American
criticism was not all adverse, the following quotations from
an editorial in the New York Times seem amusing enough
not to be out of place:

"These young persons have struck terror to the heart
of the American colony by judging pictures on the ground
of artistic merit displayed in them, regarded by such lights
as they possess. Carried away by their mistaken enthu-
siasm for pure art, they have rejected pictures of great
size, which show, almost as faithfully as a colored photo-
graph, miles and miles of our unequalled Western landscape.
They have failed to appreciate the genius of a man who
samples a large tract of country, and condenses his samples
into a 'Heart of or 'Soul of this or that country. They
have made the pitiable mistake of supposing the size of,

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

and length of time occupied in the painting of, a picture,
has little or nothing to do with its artistic merit. Pride
of intellect and vainglory of the artistic temperament can
go no further. Their downfall is certain.

"On the other hand, it may be urged that an expurgated
show of American art is a novel and refreshing thing, which
cannot fail to impress well those Europeans whose good
opinion is of value. It may be said that the academical
American painter is a nuisance at which the judges in Eu-
rope laugh heartily; and also that many absurd pictures
are every year admitted to the Salon. But if things are
sifted to the bottom, it will readily be seen how hollow all
such arguments are.

"What was this committee appointed for? To select
and hang a collection of paintings representative of the
present state of American art. Mark that word, repre-
sentative. How have they done it? By neglecting the
bad and taking the good. Now, American art is mostly
bad. Ergo, the exhibition is not representative of the pres-
ent state of American art. They ought to be taught that
America never puts her best foot forward, and does not
want to be represented otherwise than by mediocrities.
As it is, we may leave them to the results of their ignorance
and temerity. The American colony in Paris has plenty
of time on its hands, and will probably make the lives of
the committee a burden to them."

Saint Gaudens was always frank; he made it a point
of honor when asked about any work of art to answer ex-
actly as he thought. One day we had been in the Russian
gallery, where hung a gaudy and thoroughly bad picture
w^hich we both agreed in disliking. As we were coming
out, some people whom Saint Gaudens knew slightly but-

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SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

tonholed him and asked him about that particular picture,
whether he didn't admire it immensely. He briefly ad-
mitted that he did, and escaped.

"Saint Gaudens," I said as we walked along, "you're
not living up to your principles. That's a bad picture and
you know it."

Turning abruptly around, without a word, he hurried
after the people, and called out:

"I beg your pardon, sir, I shouldn't have said that was
a good picture: I know for a fact that it's dreadful !"

We had the naming of the juror for the United States
on the International Board of Awards, and after some con-
sideration it seemed to us that no man could be better fitted
for the place than Frank D. Millet. We accordingly recom-
mended him, and most acceptable he proved to the other
jurors because of his engaging personality and varied talents.
The chairman of the jury was Sir Frederick Leighton, a
handsome and attractive gentleman, well qualified for the
difficult position that he held, not only on account of his
ability as an artist but also through the wonderful linguistic
powers he possessed. I heard that at the meetings he spoke
to the jurors of the many different nations each in his own
tongue.

One amusing incident connected with the exhibition
sticks in my memory. On the day that it opened, all the
officials assembled in state before their respective buildings
while President MacMahon, accompanied by his magnif-
icent suite, walked down the Avenue of Nations, stopping
before the different houses in turn and congratulating the
commissioners. Young Captain Rogers, in charge of the
United States marines at the exposition, was standing in
a brilliant uniform with Commissioner-General McCormick
and other American officials in the space before our build-

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

ing. To Marshal MacMahon it seemed that Captain Rogers,
the only man in uniform, must be by far the most important
member of the group, and accordingly it was he whom he
greeted elaborately. Every one was quite taken aback
and young Rogers stood in silent amazement until the mar-
shal had briefly congratulated him and passed on, won-
dering to himself, no doubt, at the embarrassment with
which the "director" had received his speech of welcome.

About this time Saint Gaudens introduced me to his
good friend Bastien-Lepage, with a view to my studying
with him, but nothing came of it except a number of in-
teresting conversations with the famous French artist.
He once said to me that there was no more mystery about
painting a head than about painting a bottle and that this
was one trouble with beginners — they never were willing
to paint just what they saw. He was then at work on
"Joan of Arc," the magnificent picture now in the Metro-
poHtan Museum, and one day the great Gerome dropped
in to see and criticise it. He advised him to put in a dis-
tant view behind the little peasant house with which we
now are all familiar. Bastien listened politely. Then when
Gerome had gone, Saint Gaudens asked him if he intended
to follow the advice. "Not at all," he said. "I know just
what I want, and it may take me years, but I'm going to
get that and nothing else." No one, now, denies that he
did.

Lepage always was immensely, almost extravagantly,
admired by Saint Gaudens. But then we must remember
that it was one of the latter's characteristics to be extremely
generous in his praise of any work that he considered good,
no matter by whom or according to what method it was
executed. Although he of course always liked best the
works of the Italian Renaissance, he never bound himself

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SAINT GAl'DENS AND OTHERS

to any one school, liberally praising, I recollect, artists
as different as Pelousc, the brilliant Fortuny, Jules Breton,
and Daubigny, ail of whom had pictures in the Exposition.
Among American artists I think Saint Gaudens most ad-
mired La Farge; at any rate, he often spoke of him as "a
very big man," reiterating how much indebted he was to
him for criticisms and suggestions made while they were
working together.

Saint Gaudens ranked very high Paul Dubois, one of
his student friends in the Beaux Arts days, and he never
lost an opportunity of seeing and praising his work. At
the Exposition Dubois had a striking monument of General
Lamoriciere, and of the figure of "Faith" on this Saint
Gaudens drew a charming pen-and-ink sketch for an Ex-
position article in Scribner's. This drawing is interesting
as being perhaps the only one ever made by him for pub-
lication. Mercie was another favorite, Saint Gaudens con-
sidering his "David," in the '78 Exposition, one of the most
successful of modern sculptural works.

But he was just as unsparing in his condemnation of
bad work. Once at an exhibition in New York we together
had tried to find a single passably good picture. At last
Saint Gaudens burst out in fury with: "Let's get out of
this. These "pictures are so bad they're positively in-
decent."

It was Saint Gaudens who introduced me to his dear
friend Luc-Olivier Merson, one of the most charming men
it has ever been my fortune to know. He was good enough
to take me into his studio as his first pupil. While I was
printing there, Merson was at work on his "Flight into
Egypt," the now familiar picture of the X'irgin and Child
a;>Ieep in the desert between the feet of the Sphinx. Great
w IS the indecision as to whether or not he should put a

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

moon in the picture, and he must have changed it a dozen
times before he finally decided to finish it without the
moon itself but with a charming effect of diffused moon-
light.

Merson did not use living models much, but preferred
to make miniature wax figures, clothing them in floating
garments of vari-tinted tissue-paper. Little angels with
paper wings askew, and scantily clothed bambinos, were
forever littering his studio. I think I am at liberty by now
to relate the story of a beautiful little picture (or rather,
the remains of a beautiful little picture) that hung in a
closet off this studio. Merson told me how one afternoon
in Rome, shortly after he had won the coveted '*Prix de
Rome," having been at work all day in his studio putting
the finishing touches to this picture, in walked Carolus
Duran. A friend of Merson's father, the famous art critic,
it seems he imagined he ought to show some interest in the
young man's work. So he stopped in for a visit. Merson
exhibited his little picture and awaited the artist's crit-
icism. With deliberation Duran walked over to the easel,
seized a large brush, mixed some colors together, and before
the young man could prevent him had rapidly smeared
it all over the picture — long yellow and green swipes, hori-
zontally across. Then without a word, he turned slowly
and walked out, leaving Merson in doubt whether to be
amused or furious. At all events, he kept the remains as
a memento of the great artist's first visit, praying only
that his humble studio might not be again honored.

At the Exposition, an entire room was in some cases de-
voted to the works of one artist. One morning Saint Giu-
dens, Bunce, and I were in the Salle de Jules Breton when
the artist himself came in. We were introduced, but for
some reason or other Augustus and I were called away

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SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

almost immediately. Knowing the limitations of Buncc's
French, I felt, after a time, that I ought to hurry back and
rescue him. But on re-entering the gallery I found my
anxiety had been needless. Bunce's ingenuity surpassed
his linguistic ability. He had picked out Breton's picture
of a peasant girl lying asleep under the apple-trees, had
folded his hands on the back of the chair, laid his head on
them in imitation of the girl, half closed his eyes, and was
murmuring between sighs "Tres, tres joli!" Jules Breton
meantime was walking around the room, quite content not
to interrupt with mere conversation so intense a contem-
plation of his work.

With Saint Gaudens I used often to go out to Frank
Millet's place at Montmartrc, where we were always sure
of meeting Maynard or Buncc or some of the others in
our little Paris circle. A queer and picturesque place it
was and full of oddities, the accumulation of years of
travel and adventure. There were innumerable divans
and hanging lamps, while quantities of strange weapons
and musical instruments cluttered the corners. Foremost
I remember, and by no means indistinctly, the weird bashi-
bazouk in gorgeous Oriental dress whom Millet stationed
as majordomo at his front door, thus succeeding in fright-
ening nearly every one who came to the house for the
first time. He had picked him up somewhere during his
travels in the East, and had brought him along with the
rest of the collection when he returned to Paris.

Saint Gaudens was always in rather poor health as a
result of his early hardships. Many times while walking
through dingy little streets in the Quarter he pointed out
the wretched cabarets where he had l^een accustomed to
get his food during his sojourn in Paris. He said he had
never recovered and never expected to recover from the

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

effects of the messes he had been forced to eat while a stu-
dent there.

An especially intimate friend of Saint Gaudens was
a French artist named Gamier, a number of whose beau-
tiful enamels on copper are preserved in the Luxembourg.
He not merely designed them, but like the enamellers of
old he also did the firing, and a heavenly coloring resulted
from his thorough workmanship. Garnier had seen service
in the Franco-Prussian War, and many and thrilling were
his accounts of the time when the French army was shut
up in Paris to starve. Cat meat was considered a luxury,
and stalking cats came to be his favorite amusement. In
particular he told (with vivid French gesticulation) of one
moonlight night when, on the outskirts of the city, he went
crawling along the dark edge of some deserted houses fring-
ing an open square, on the outlook for a late supper. Sud-
denly he spied a lone cat scurrying across the desolate square,
its long shadow weirdly distorted on the uneven cobble-
stones. As he softly raised his pistol to take aim, he be-
came aware of another and a bulkier shadow. It was a
German intent on the same cat. Simultaneously each
recognized the other as an enemy, and turned his weapon
upon the bigger game. After an exchange of shots the
German was silent, and Garnier could never be sure just
what had been his fate. At any rate, when he looked around
the cat had fled, and he went supperless back to his bar-
racks.

I never was more surprised in my life than when I found
that the French Government was going to give me the
decoration of the Legion of Honor for my services at the
Exposition. About ten o'clock one night, after I had gone
to bed, while I was living with the Saint Gaudenses, a little
fellow named Ellis, an artist, came with a message from Mr.

276

SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

McCormick saying I was expected at one of the Ministries;
so I got up and dressed while he waited for me, and we went
there together. There had been a lot of wire-pulling for
decorations, but it had never entered my head that I was
to get one, so it was a complete surprise when on reaching
the Ministry, where a number of others were waiting, I
found that I was to be decorated. With no ceremony what-
ever we were all given our red ribbons, crosses, and diplomas.
Several other Americans were given decorations for their
exhibits, among others Edison for his phonograph. I learned
afterward that I owed this honor to Mr. Waddington, the
minister of foreign affairs, to whom the names of all
those considered eligible for decorations were submitted
for approval. He told me that when the list was sent to
him my name was there, but that it had been scratched
off. He replaced it, and mine was the onl}- person con-
nected with the Exposition for whom he asked a decoration.

Mr. Waddington was a dehghtful man, an Oxford grad-
uate, and the only man I have ever known who spoke two
languages so perfectly that both Frenchmen and Englishmen
believed him a compatriot. He was afterward Ambassador
to Russia and to England. His wife was Mary AIsop King.
As I have said in a previous chapter, my wife and I had
known the Kings very well in Rome, and I enjoyed seeing
them again the year I was in Paris. Mrs. Charles King
was a most lovely old lady and when I came to call I was
always pleased that she welcomed me with a kiss as if I
had been a son.

It was at a dinner given by the Waddingtons for Gen-
eral Grant that Henrietta King told me that I owed the
decoration to Mr. Waddington. This dinner was the grand-
est affair of the kind I ever went to. There were seventy-
eight guests seated in an enormous dining-room, at a table

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

about fifteen feet wide, the whole lighted by wax candles
in chandeliers and in candelabra along the table, alternat-
ing with magnificent vases of flowers. In spite of the num-
ber of guests, the dinner was perfectly served. Henrietta
King told me before dinner that she had asked if I might
take her in, but had been told that I was not nearly
swell enough for the sister of madame; so I sat between
two Frenchmen and did the best I could with my bad
French.

General Grant was at this time on his trip around the
world, admired and feted wherever he went. I am reminded
of a little incident in connection with an entertainment,
at which I was an inconspicuous guest, given by the minis-
ter of agriculture in one of the great palaces belonging to
the government. On this occasion we were first enter-
tained by a play given by the company of the Theatre
Frangais, followed by dancing and a supper. I was hand-
ing in my invitation and my visiting card, and writing my
name in a book in an anteroom, as we were requested to
do, when I heard a voice behind me saying disconsolately
in English:

"I've left my invitation at home and I haven't got any
visiting-card."

I turned and found that it was General Grant. Of
course, as soon as I explained that this was the ex-President
of the United States, he was politely invited to enter and
we went in together, but at the head of the aisle we were
stopped again by two guards and again I had to vouch
for my illustrious companion. Instantly, with many ob-
sequious gestures he was snatched away from my side and
wafted far away to the very front row of velvet chairs,
where he sat next to the Marechale McMahon, wife of the
President of the French Republic, flanked on his other side

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SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

by six Corean Ambassadors, quaintly costumed, with wing-
like decorations in their hair.

When I saw the general afterward at supper, he said
to me: ** I'm not a bit grateful to you for your help. I can't
speak a word of French, so I couldn't talk to the duchess
or understand a word the actors said, and as for those other
fellows they couldn't speak anything."

The general came quite often to the Exposition, and
when I showed him around he was friendly and cordial,
partly because of his great affection and admiration for
Mr. Hamilton Fish. He often said how he owed more to
his advice and sympathy when he was his secretary of
state than to every one else in the cabinet put together.
Grant was said to be a reticent, sulky sort of man, but I
found him, on the contrary, talkative and kind.

Merson, with whom I was studying, was awfully pleased
at my getting the decoration. I remember his exclamation
of delight, **VoiIa le pic de rouge!" when I first went to
his studio wearing the ribbon in my buttonhole. I got
an amusing letter about it from Picknelf, a brother painter
whom I had gotten to know very well at Pont Aven, when
I went to Brittany to paint that summer, after my part
of the Exposition was in order and I could get away from
Paris for a while. He and a lot of other good fellows were
staying at the Hotel des V^oyageurs, a picturesque old place
where the dining-room walls are covered with the sketches
of any number of grateful painters who had sojourned there.
I believe it has since been overrun by tourists, and I fear
the redoubtable Julia is no longer the hostess. I remember
her taking some fellow who chanced to offend her by the
nape of the neck, and sending him flying through the open
door with one turn of her powerful wrist. But to ut, her
artist friends, she was hospitahty itself.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

W. L. Picknell to D. M. A., Paris

Hotel des Voyageurs, Pont Aven, Finisterre.
Oct. 31, 1878.

". . . Have pity on the sorrows of a poor old man,
and if this paper should be covered with blotches know
that they each and every one represent tears, bitter tears,
at your departure ! You well know, dear friend, how de-
lighted I am at your good fortune and how sincerely I con-
gratulate you. It will be a bitter pill to your enemies, but
all the more sweet to yourself and friends. Your letter
did indeed have good news for me, for I had begun to feel
blue at the prospect of ye frame bills, and the expenses
my two large pictures were drawing me into. My picture
of the 'White Road' is at Goupil's. They wrote me a
flattering letter off'ering to take my pictures on sale, but
I must not lose a moment from my Salon at present. The
Garden came out very well and I have sent it to the Dud-
ley and put £500 on it. Hope I may sell.

There has been a glorious addition to our little colony.
An English General, wife and two daughters, 21 and 23 —
figures representing daughters — charming, beautiful and
talented. You, knowing the old chick, can imagine the
feelings of his innermost heart. The Baron still haunts
his old haunts and blesses us his children with good advice.

Now when you read the following awe-inspiring con-
fession do not exclaim, *What a fool ! ' Your humble servant
has builded him a house out on ye lande, and yesterday did
begin to rub charcoal in a most wonderful manner on to
ye canvas. Eight feet by 5^^, how is that for size?
for cheek? for future headaches? and sleepless nights?
Pelouse told me to paint an important picture this year.
So thought the best way to get out of the scrape was to

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SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

make it important in size. Walked about one thousand
miles before finding subject, wore out two pairs of shoes,
ten pairs of good nature ! Subject once found, got permis-
sion to build on ye peasant's land. Had said peasant to
dinner, gave him good wine, good cigars, and about ten
p. M. he went staggering home, a happy if not a wiser man.
Result of dinner, jolly good friends with peasant. He Liughs
at my jokes in French — very appreciative fellow. Two
cartloads of colors sent to chateau yesterday, 800 doz.
brushes, 4 shovels, and small cannon, American flag ex-
pected tomorrow, cider bottle hid in one corner. All crea-
tion thinking of working in my part of world, the hut ap-
pearing to be a good place to leave pictures in. Shall have
newspapers, etc. and charge regular London club prices.

Having exhausted your good nature by this tirade, will
shut up on that line, *if it takes all summer.* The Sher-
mans are enjoying their stay at Blois very much. I have
Sherman's two pictures well under way. I envy you the
glorious opportunity you have of studying the Exposition.
I should like to have seen it again but could not afi'ord it
as frames for my Giant and Royal Academy loom up like
a nightmare in the near future. Jones's Salon is getting on
well. Swift is going to paint his from the sketch you hked,
Bretons loading mast on old boat. Am frightfully tired
tonight, having been at work all day on big toile.

My friends all treat me with so much kindness, 'always
more than I deserve,' that I hardly know how to thank
them. You shall be best man when I come to grief! Please
kiss St. Gaudens for me, and remember me most kindly
to Mrs. St. Gaudens, and accept a whole flood of good wishes
from your Pont Aven friends, and a brother's hearty shake
of the hand from your sincere friend,

Pick."

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Picknell was a splendid painter. Robert Gordon bought
a beautiful picture of his, a scene on the Concarneau road,
and Picknell wrote me afterward a little apologetically
that he was going to paint another of the same place — this
picture is the ''Route de Concarneau" now in the Corcoran
Gallery in Washington — and explained that the figures
would make the two canvases entirely unlike.

While I was at Pont Aven, I went with Picknell and
Sherman to Quimper to stay with Mr. Gourland, a fine old
Enghsh gentleman who had a wonderful place there with
everything in it that heart could desire — a studio for times
when he felt like painting, a stable full of good horses and
fine hunting dogs in his kennels, seventeen hundred bottles
of rare wine in his cellars, and his house crammed with
beautiful and interesting bibelots. While we were there
a peasant brought him some bronze hatchets that he had
dug up among the Druid remains which are strewn about
that country, and as Mr. Gourland had a lot of that sort
of thing already, he bought a couple for a franc and a half
and gave them to me.

Vedder had a charming picture in the Exposition, the
"Young Marsyas" playing on his pipes to a group of at-
tentive rabbits. In the following letter he alludes to a
strange experience he had with UArt. They asked him
for a photograph of the picture to put in the magazine, and
he had one taken for the purpose which they published,
but abused it frightfully, adding that if the picture had
any merit it was owing to the engraver ! No wonder Ved-
der thought it a pretty cheeky performance.

Elibu Vedder to D. M. A., Paris

Villa Ansidei, Perugia. July 23, 1878.
"... I am at last back in Perugia and glad to be here
after my giro. I must say that each time that I get into

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SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

the cars I vow that it will be the last time except under
dire necessity. The small streets of Venice gave me an
entirely new conception of heat. Here in Perugia one dcs-
sicates gradually in a fine dry heat at least, but in Venice
one boils.

Saw Duveneck in Venice, who had painted a good
portrait of Bronson, wonderfully touched in the lights,
but sinking into bitumen, not color, in the shadows — in
fact not really colorist's work. Saw Chase also; he had
painted a splendid portrait of Duveneck, or picture rather,
the head beautifully painted. Nice fellows both. Saw
Bunce, who has become very frank in his criticisms — told
Bunny to his face that his painting made him 'sick.' Du-
bois looks well but I could not get to see his work. Graham
is doing good things as usual. In Florence stopped with
Launt Thompson. Had good times but hot. Saw the
youthful Louis Lang, hair blacker than ever and he younger.

At home found family all well. Griswold had come up
from Rome a few days before, very weak from an attack
of fever, sends regards. Yesterday I sent an answer to
Mons. A. Ballou of L'Art. Carrie, or in other words Mrs.
v., sends best regards. Give my best love to St. Gaudens
and wife and of course to yourself I send all that is 'new
and gymnastic*

As ever your very much obliged friend,

Elihu Vedder."

The end of the Exposition was a celebration signal for
all of us. Especially fondly do I think of the jolly time we
had at a little supper I gave at famous old Foyot's to mark
the event. Besides Saint Gaudens, at the long table sat
McKim, Stanford White, Russell Sturgis, Fred Crownin-
shield, Alfred Greenough, Frank Millet, and Frank Hascl-
tine. Of all those brilliant souls only Crowninshield is

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

still alive to-day, and the deaths of two of them were too
tragic for words.

Soon after the Exposition closed, Saint Gaudens and
Gamier set off together on a trip to Italy, on which it has
always been a regret to me that I was unable to go. While
on the trip Saint Gaudens made a small sketch of a street
scene in some Itahan town which showed beautiful tones
of color and was remarkable for the reason that he almost
never made sketches from nature. But though I did not
see Saint Gaudens I heard from him, for he always kept
up a hvely correspondence — that it was really lively the
following letter, written soon after his return to Paris, proves
conclusively:

Augustus Saint Gaudens to D. M. A., New York

49 Rue N. D. des C. Sept. 24, '79-

"Dear Armstrong — I'm going to surprise you by an-
swering so soon, but the only way I can keep my conscience
clear in regard to letter-writing now is to answer imme-
diately. When last I wrote you I had two years' corre-
spondence to clear up. I did so and don't mean to do it
again — so here goes

Farragut is finished, or nearly so — at least it will be
cast on Saturday — and then the enlarging will take but
a short time. The weather is simply 'gorgeous' for the
last 20 days, and it is a relief after the wetting we have
had. Mrs. St. G. comes home to-night. Old Fossil D.
must be in a showcase in some provincial museum where
he belongs, for I never see him; that other friend of ours
is such a 'scallywag' that whatever he has said has, like
Keats, (poor Palmer's quotation) been as if written in water.
On the contrary, I have heard more good of you from the
artists, now that the fight is over, than I heard harm while
the row was on — truly !

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SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHFRS

I'm sorry you don't feel more encouraged with your
work, but I guess it's a good sign. I'm completely and
thoroughly befuddled and disgusted with Farragut; there-
fore it must be very good — eh? Hope you saw White.
He is one of the 'Biggest Bricks' I ever met. (SLang enough
in this letter: it must recall the famous exhibition letter
I wrote Cook or Gilder.) Saw a drawing of La Farge's in
Harper's, Christ and Nicodemus, that I think is simply
'big.' If Miss Homer goes over soon I'll send that knife,
if not I'll bring it in April.

Garnier has made a lovely enamel for you of your
daughter, and it's hanging up in my studio waiting for
somebody to bring it over to you — if you let me know of
someone I'll send it. When it goes he will write you a note.
I think C. E. ought to go in a Botanical showcase in the
same museum with D. There now it's dark and I must

^' Your friend, a r r- »»

Aug. bx. Gaudens.

Always the best of good friends. Saint Gaudens and I
yet naturally saw less of each other during the following
busy years in America than in the stirring Paris times.
He and McKim and Stanford White several times came
up together to Danskammer, my pkace on the Hudson,
when we invariably talked over the Exposition and as in-
variably decided that in a similar case we would do exactly
as before — if given the chance !

In the spring of '92 iMcKim had for some time been
slaving at the designs for his buildings at the World's Fair,
and so when the work was well under way, collecting a
number of his friends, he took us out to Chicago in a special
car— Saint Gaudens, Millet, Maynard, La Fargc, Richard
M. Hunt, George B. Post. William LafTan the editor of
the Sun, and Mrs. Millet, Mrs. Lafifan and Miss Lockwood.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Numerous artists had been employed on the different build-
ings, my share of the work consisting in decorating the ex-
terior of Machinery Hall, which I frescoed in the Renais-
sance style. We were wined and dined by the Chicagoans
and had an excellent sight of the skeleton of the Exposi-
tion, which opened in all its glory some months later.

Saint Gaudens was always making up little suppers,
and on these occasions his manner was as warm and his
quiet humor as charming as ever it was the first time I met
him at the old Falcone. Above all, I delight in the remem-
brance of the bachelor dinner that a number of us gave
Stanford White on the eve of his marriage. A lot of things
happened before that evening ended becomingly with a
Spanish dance by Hopkinson Smith and Loyall Farragut,
neither of whom could be persuaded to stop until they had
entangled themselves and every one else in long wreaths
of smilax. Great were the preparations for this dinner,
and Saint Gaudens got a great deal of fun out of designing
the menu, on which caricatures of White were interspersed
with the more important items of the evening. Here was
sketched White about to launch forth into one of the after-
dinner speeches that he loathed; here we saw him pulling
at his eternal moustache; and here appeared nothing but
the moustache — but we recognized the likenesses as readily
as we should if in these days we saw but a double row of
teeth and a pair of spectacles on the cartoon page of a New
York newspaper.

The most remarkable and original of all Saint Gaudens's
works seems to me to be the Adams monument in Wash-
ington. When I went for the first time to look for it in
the Rock Creek Cemetery, I made up my mind not to have
it shown to me but to find it for myself. It was an after-
noon in March, a grayish, sad day. Snow spotted the ground

286

SAINT GAUDENS AND OTHERS

here and there, trying to obliterate the first signs of spring.
I was alone, and the only sound was a slight rustling or
sighing in the pine-trees above the tomb. I sat for a long
time on the curved bench facing the figure, and I will not
attempt to describe the supernatural effect it had upon
me. The impressiveness, the solemnity of this thing, which
seemed actually alive, I can never forget.

And here is a part of a letter I got from Saint Gaudens
in 1886. It will serve to bring to a close these disjointed
recollections of my friend. It brings back even now to
me the "thirst for it" that he speaks of — the wish (almost)
that we had gone over again in '89:

Augustus Saint Gaudens to D. M. A.

New York, 1886.
". . . Heigh, Ho ! We now know that we are both
alive. We might as well be in separate planets as be in
New York so far as seeing one another goes. Perhaps some
day you will go to Europe and I will too, and then we will
renew our friendship as of yore. We may go over as com-
missioners to the '89 exhibit! and make another batch i)f
enemies. Don't you thirst for it? I trust that thee and
thine are well and strong; I can say that much for my side.
Ever your friend,

Augustus Saint Gaudlns."

287

CHAPTER XIII

SOME PLEASANT SUMMERS

"I see, far southward, this quiet day, the hills of Newbury rolling away,
Dreamily blending in autumn mist
Crimson, and gold, and amethyst.
And, where north and south the coast lines run,
The bhnk of the sea in breeze and sun."

— Whittier.

It was by the merest chance that we spent one of the
pleasantest summers that I remember at Curson's Mills
on the Merrimac River. We made no definite plans that
spring of 1875 ^^ New York, but simply packed our trunks
with such things as we thought we might need during the
summer and started off, going first to Newport for a visit
to my sister-in-law, Mrs. Howard, and trusting to luck
for what was to come after.

We stayed for a while in Mrs. Howard's cottage on
the chfTs, and managed to pick up there a gray kitten that
henceforth accompanied us on our voyages. Besides the
kitten, we had the three children, Margaret, Helen, and
Maitland, and their nurse, Annie Martin. From Newport
we made for Gloucester, but somehow we did not fancy
it particularly — it smelt so fishy — so with all our impedi-
menta we took the train for Newburyport. We did not
know a soul in Newburyport, and the hotel was poor, but
we discovered a nice hbrary founded by George Peabody,
and a nice lady librarian to whom we appealed for advice
— did she know any pleasant place in the neighborhood
where we could spend the summer? She enthusiastically

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SOME PLEASANT SUMMERS

recommended Curson's Mills, four miles out in the country;
so we immediately hired a trap and drove out there. It
seemed attractive and Mr. and Mrs. Hoxie were willing
to take us, so we moved out the next day and spent the
entire summer.

The old tide-water mill belonging to the Cursons, a
quaint old building, stands at the mouth of the Artichoke
River where it runs into the Merrimac. The httlc Arti-
choke meanders along through a varied expanse of pretty,
English-looking country, amid thick woods and wide fields,
under an old bridge and out into the broad waters of the
Merrimac. Near the mill was the Cursons' house, next
door was the Hoxies', and this was the whole of the httle
settlement.

When w^e arrived at the Hoxies' with all our bags and
baggage, of course the kitten was included, but when Mrs.
Hoxie saw^ it she almost backed out of her bargain, for it
seems she had made a vow never to have a cat in her house.
However, after some persuasion she consented to accept
us, cat and all. We brought so many trunks and other
luggage that I dare say Mrs. Hoxie thought that we should
turn out to be fashionable and fussy people, but she soon
found that we were simple in our tastes and gave her no
trouble. There were no other boarders, and everything
was very clean, but the food was exceedingly plain; break-
fast consisted invariably of cofTee, toast, and boiled eggs,
while the other meals were of a hke simph'city, but as we
never asked for any extras and took gratefully whatever
was provided we got along very comfortably. I had a nice
little room up-stairs with an open fire in it which served
for a studio and sitting-room, but as I was out in the fields
painting all day long we seldom used it except in rainy
weather.

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

There was a sort of sand-barren near by, where yellow
sand, beautiful in color, had drifted into picturesque lines
and banks, varied by scattered clumps of scrub-oak, with
the Artichoke running through it and broadening in one
corner into a deep and shady swimming-pool. There had
been an ancient Indian encampment at this spot, and the
arrow-heads and other Indian remains which we often found
there were always occasions of great excitement for the chil-
dren, who played and dug in the sand. There was also
a lovely pine grove along the Merrimac, Just above the
beach where we all used to bathe. Near by, we gathered
a profusion of delicious blueberries, and in the autumn the
nutting was great fun. Never have I seen more beautiful
foliage than we had that fall. I painted out-of-doors every
day, my wife usually sitting with me and reading aloud.
Among our books was a life of Goethe and some of Dar-
win's works. The Hoxies had an excellent apple-orchard
with quantities of particularly fine Porter apples, a conical
yellow summer apple, most delicious. One of the children
says she remembers creeping under the orchard fence and
eating five of these enormous apples one right after the
other, and creeping back feeling rather heavy — she was
only five! When we moved back to Danskammer in 1877
I planted two Porter apple-trees that grew and flourished
for many years and bore large crops, but they never seemed
to me to be quite equal in size, lusciousness, and beauty
to the Hoxie fruit. They had a nice poultry-yard of parti-
colored fowls of no particular breed, but picturesque, and
I liked to paint them. For many years there was a sketch
of some of these cocks and hens tacked up in Maitland's
little room at Danskammer where we used to keep a list
of the eggs gathered from our own fowls.

Newburyport is an old town and there are some ancient

290

SOME PLEASANT SUNIMERS

houses in the neighborhood. Happening to hear of one
not far away where they had some fine old furniture, and
being always interested in such things, I made an excuse
to go over there and got the owner to let me see it. She
showed me all over it very politely, and I longed to buy
some of the lovely old things she had, but there did not
seem to be any dehcate way of approaching the subject
and I had almost made up my mind that it couldn't be
done and was coming away without suggesting anything
so vulgar as a purchase, when she remarked coyly:

"Folks most usually buy something when they come
here, just as a sort of souvenir."

I was only too dehghted, and immediately acquired a
Hepplewhite sideboard, a graceful and charming piece,
some pretty little Lowestoft cups and saucers spripped
with roses, and several other nice things. I only paid thir-
teen dollars for the sideboard, which we have used in our
dining-room ever since".

There was a boom in land that year at Newburyport,
for silver had been found there in considerable quantities
and there was great excitement; mines were started all
over; speculators and prospectors thronged the place;
shafts were dug in the most unhkcly places and farms were
sold for marvellous prices. But I think it all came to noth-
ing and a good deal of money was lost, for ahhough siber
could be found almost anywhere it was not in sufiicicnt
quantities to pay.

Both of the Hoxies had been at Brook Farm, in fact
they had first met there and been married in consequence,
and they knew all the celebrated members of that tran-
scendental adventure, Hawthorne and all the others, and
many of these worthies visited them from time to time.
As a result Mr. Hoxie was extremely interesting, besides

291

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

being such a really fine man that he inspired respect. I
became much attached to him. He had been a carpenter
originally, but he was well educated and agreeable, one
of the school trustees of Newburyport and a fine-looking,
gray-haired old gentleman of very courteous manners.
We became great cronies and in the end real friends.

Mrs. Hoxie was a Miss Curson, of an old and respect-
able family, and her sister Mrs. Marquand lived in the old
Curson house near by, a rather nice country house. Mrs.
Hoxie was an educated woman and well-read. But she
was an independent person and did most of her own work,
dressed in the plainest and ughest of clothing. She habitu-
ally wore a short gown of brownish calico, tied around the
waist with a white string; she had a ** hermit tooth" and
was very plain in every way, but she was a good and inter-
esting talker and would stop at any time in the midst of
her housework, with broom and dust-pan in hand, to dis-
cuss philosophy, education, "Shakespeare and the musical
glasses," or any public question of the day. Her views
in general were most advanced and she professed extreme
democratic principles; she hated cats and was a prohi-
bitionist of the deepest dye — anything to drink was an-
athema to her — and in these days I suppose she would have
been a suff'ragist, but at that time this was not a subject of
discussion. She and her husband expressed like views as to
democracy, but in reality I think she was rather ashamed
of his humble origin although she never admitted it; but he
had all the ear-marks of an aristocrat while she, in appear-
ance at least, was much the reverse.

William Hunt, the celebrated painter, spent most of
that summer in the neighborhood, and so did Saulisbury
Tuckerman, Robertson, and J. Appleton Brown, a delight-
ful man who was an inveterate painter of apple-trees. Hunt,

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SOME PLEASANT SUMMERS

who had been a favorite pupil of Couture, was an enthu-
siastic painter and a charming companion. He had a large
class of ladies who came out from Boston at intervals and
painted from nature. He had a painting van, drawn by
a pair of horses, which was arranged with movable sides
and curtains so that he could get the hght in any way he
wished, and fitted up with all the canvases, paints, and other
appliances that he needed. In this he travelled ail about
the country, stopping wherever he found a paintable spot.

Celia Thaxter was a friend of the Hoxies and used to
visit them, and Susan Hale stayed most of the summer at
Mrs. Marquand's. She was a sister of Edward Everett
Hale and of Lucretia Hale, the author of the "Peterkin
Papers." Besides being a most agreeable woman and a de-
lightful companion, she was a good water-color painter
and gave my little girl Margaret her first painting lessons.
As the Marquands had a fine old barn with a swing in it,
our children were over there all the time playing with all
the little Marquands, the youngest of whom, Greta, after-
ward married a nephew of Susan Hale. Miss Hale was
very fond of swimming, and every morning was to be seen
stalking through the pine grove on her way to the shore;
dressed in a bathing suit with her black hair streaming
down her back, she looked a good deal like an Indian.

I often rowed down the river to Newburyport, in a pretty
little light skiff I bought that summer, and made studies
of the huge ships which were being built in the shipyards
there. These were the yards which were so famous in the
War of i8 1 2, when American privateers were fitted out there.
I made many studies of the great ships propped up on the
stocks before they were launched, intending to make pic-
tures of them, but I never did ah hough they were fine sub-
jects, looking enormous and quite splendid towering above

^93

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

one. They could be launched here and, while they were
still light, could pass over the bar at the mouth of the har-
bor on their way to India or some other far-off port, but
they never could return to their home again.

Altogether this was one of the pleasantest summers I
ever spent, although it was the most simple life possible,
entirely devoid of luxury. We all made the Hoxies a little
visit in 1876. It was late in the autumn and there had
been an early snow while the trees still wore their autumn
tints and the effects were wonderful. I kept up a corre-
spondence with Mr. Hoxie for many years, but he has long
been dead.

John A. Hoxie to D. M. A.

Warwick, Mass. March, 1886.

"... I made a visit last summer to the old home in
Newburyport. As I stood upon the old bridge one evening
you and Mrs. Armstrong were very forcibly brought to
my mind again. It was Just such an evening as when we
watched the newly risen moon appearing and disappearing
behind the strata of clouds and throwing her bright reflec-
tions in the peaceful waters of the upper Artichoke. Your
absence made me feel quite lonely. I went to Newbury-
port with my own horse, taking my granddaughter with
me, and we had a very pleasant journey. The old place
has been altered a good deal, that is, the house and barn.
They have quite an elegant barn, and keep several nice
horses for riding and driving, but they can't spoil the beau-
tiful views of woods and waters.

I have just returned from attending the funeral of an
old neighbor, a man of eighty-five, who was born and
always lived in this town. Another old gentleman, well
along in the nineties, made an eloquent prayer. I never
could be contented to spend so many years in such a town

294

SOME PLEASANT SUMMERS

as this, and yet it is a healthy town with many inteHigent
inhabitants; but it is too rough and too much to one side
of the attractive places of business and civilization and
intelligence for me to spend a whole life in.

I have not been able to do as much work this winter
as I did a year ago. I fear that old age is having an effect
upon me. I tire when I take hold of any real work, and I
am becoming forgetful. I can't keep track of my tools,
and often the plans that I have formed for the next day
vanish with the night. I had a fearful fright in the woods
one day. I was sawing up a tree that had been turned over
by the roots, and the top had all been cut away but one
twelve foot log w^hich was attached to the root. As I was
sawing that off and had got it nearly cut through — with
a light or cut saw, which I could use alone — the root began
to settle into its place, which raised the end of the log where
I was cutting. I thought it would break off and drop in
place, and turned to step away from it, caught my foot
and fell on my hands, and as I did so caught sight of the
log directly over my head about ten feet above me, and
thought it w^as falling upon me, imagine the sensation !
But it was only for a breath of time, and it fell beyond mc,
full 32 feet from where it originally lay. Old choppers here
say they never saw such an instance in all their experience.
But I did not think it would take so much space to relate
this little affair.

I think I shall have to give up peaches here, the trees
grow well, but late or early frosts kill the buds or fruit.
I have good plums. I get the upper hand of cucuHos by
jarring them ofl on sheets and killing them. Write when
you can."

While we were at Newburyport I took a little trip to
Bar Harbor and liked it so much that we all went there

295

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

the next summer. The journey to Mount Desert was not
an easy one in 1876, as you had to take a steamer either
from Rockland or Portland, and they were both wretched
old tubs. The Lewiston plied between Bar Harbor and
Portland, but I once came back the Rockland way in the
Ulysses — the Useless, as she was commonly called — through
a dense fog that lasted till we neared Rockland, when the
fog lifted just in time for us to see the countless islands
all about us. But, fog or no fog, the captain, according to
his custom, ran his boat full speed all the morning as if
we were in open water; he did not appear to regard the
islands at all, but steered partly by the echo that came
from them and partly by instinct; it was extraordinary
that he could do it without accident. At Rockland, where
we made the connection with the railroad, we were sup-
posed to get lunch at the station, but I found that the meal
in the waiting-room consisted entirely of pies and cakes —
we had reached what Charles Dudley Warner calls "the
region of perpetual pie." I asked the waitress if I could
have some bread and cheese; she said I might, but added:
"You can't eat it here, you'll have to eat it in the kitchen."
So I retired to the kitchen with my vulgar fare.

In those days Bar Harbor was still pretty primitive,
though there were several large hotels, Rodick's being the
most important, and a few cottages, but there were only
two real country places — the Lyons' and the Gouverneur
Ogdens'. The Atlantic House was the next in importance
to Rodick's and we rented a small cottage near by and
took our meals there — "mealers" we were called by the
natives. Living was delightfully inexpensive then. I re-
member that lobsters cost three cents apiece in the village.
There was not much to be bought in the village store, for
the proprietor did not often renew his stock, remarking

296

SOME PLEASANT SUMMERS

in a grumbling tone that it wasn't any use, "because as
soon as he got anything somebody came and bought it."
Along the road between Rodick's and the country school
there were a few scattered cottages, and there was a saw-
mill near the turn of the road that led to Mount Kebo,
but there were no important dwellings, only a farmhouse
or so.

There were a lot of lovely young girls at the Atlantic —
I remember a cheerful song of theirs, "Oh that bell, that
Sunday morning bell !" — and there were any number of
pleasant people in the little colony, but the life was very
simple, entirely different from what it is now. Gayety,
such as it was, was chiefly to be found at Rodick's. Mr.
and Mrs. George Rives stayed there; she was his first wife,
Miss Carrie Kean, rather an impulsive sort of girl. I re-
member we were all standing talking one Sunday morning
around the little fountain at Rodick's. Little Barclay
Rives was running around and climbing about, in such im-
minent danger of falling into the water that at last his
mother picked him up and ducked him in— white suit,
silk stockings and all — and then handed him to his nurse
to be dried. The Miss Severs from Boston, whom we liked
immensely, had a cottage, and so did the Minots. Miss
Sever was very fond of poetry and shared my enthusiasm
for "The Golden Treasur}," which she knew from end to
end; but oddly enough she could not recite a single p>ocm
word for word; she had such a poetical ear that she could
not help putting in any word that sounded all right, and
often her substitutes were an improvement on the original.

We had a good deal of fun getting up a play, "Poor
Pillicoddy," which finally was produced with great excite-
ment in the schoolhouse, the only place at that time for
any performance of the kind. Frank Haseltinc and I

297

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

painted the scenery and used up pounds of our best oil
colors and most of our other painting materials. I painted
quite an effective seed store, Pillicoddy being a seedsman.
Miss Mary Beach, Rufus King, Frank Macauley, Doctor
Richee, and my wife were in the cast, and it went off very
well. "Poor Pillicoddy" was a favorite play at that time.
The Beeches gave it at their house in Second Avenue in
New York — Henry Satterlee, afterward the bishop, was
one of the performers — and my wife took part in it another
time at the Waterburys* place in Westchester.

I spent most of my time at Bar Harbor painting with
Frank Haseltine, who was a cousin of the Haseltines in
Rome. We became great friends — he used to stay with
us afterward at Danskammer. One of our favorite sub-
jects was the Bar, where the fish-nets for catching herring,
a great industry in those days, were picturesque; and there
were paintable bits about the Indian encampment close
by. Haseltine and I also amused ourselves painting i
"plaques," as it was the fashion to call them — the aesthetic
revival was just beginning. We used to buy yellow earthen-
ware pie-dishes in the village and decorate them in oil with
irises and large full moons, and such poetic things, and
hang them on the walls of our cottage, much to our satis-
faction and the astonishment of the natives. Haseltine
afterward became seriously interested in china painting,
a revived art in those days, particularly in underglaze and
majohca.

Charles Howe was another pleasant man. I remember
giving him some mushrooms which we had picked, but he
had no faith in our mushroom lore and suspected them of
being toadstools; so although he bravely determined to
eat them he first wrote a farewell note to his sister, telling
her he was doubtful as to the result of the rash meal, but

298

SOME PLEASANT SUMMERS

hoped for the best. We knew all about mushrooms, so his
fears were groundless.

We stayed at Bar Harbor until late into the autumn.
When we left in October every one had gone except Charles
Howe; he came down to see us off and the last we saw of
him was his figure crouched on the dock, completely cov-
ered by his umbrella. I have never seen him since.

This was the year of the Centennial, so from Bar Har-
bor we went for a few weeks to Chestnut Hill near Phila-
delphia, stopping on our way at Curson's Mills. The Cen-
tennial Exhibition was a splendid thing for the country,
a vast contribution to its development, and on the whole
we enjoyed it, especially the Japanese exhibit; perhaps
we should have been more thrilled if we had never been
abroad. The crowd was terrific and sometimes amusing.
The country people were forever losing each other. I re-
member being asked by a distracted man whether I had
seen anything of his family.

"First I lost my wife," he cried, "then I lost my child,
and now I've lost my mother-in-law — not that I mind that
so much !"

It was amusing, too, to see the people gaping at most
ordinary things. A statue made out of butter was a favor-
ite sight — every one was crazy to see the "Butter Woman."
I remember hearing a woman asking what "chickarroo"
was; she meant "chiar' oscuro." And looking over the
shoulder of a girl who was busily taking notes of the Rus-
sian exhibit of malachite, I saw she had written, "Some-
thing Green."

A pleasant interlude in the summer of 1880 was an un-
usual sort of trip I took, with a lot of other artists, in a boat
on the Erie Canal. The expedition was planned by Mr.
W. J. Arkell, of Canajoharie, who invited the Artists' Fund

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Society to be his guests from start to finish — twenty of
us in all, among them Wordsworth Thompson, Clarence
Luce, A, T. Brichcr, Herbert McCord, and Edward Gay.

The Chauncey Vibbard took us as far as Albany, where
we spent a not unprofitable morning looking at William
Hunt's mural paintings in the Capitol, and then got under
way for Schenectady in a pretty steam-launch that Mr.
Arkell had chartered for the occasion. From there we made
our pleasant way along the canal to Lockport. Steam-
boats were not usually allowed in the canal, as they washed
the banks, but Mr. Arkell had a special dispensation. The
boat was a delightful lodging — comfortable cabins below;
awnings shading the deck, where a string band discoursed
sweet music and signalled our arrivals and departures from
important places with hvely airs. We lunched on board,
but hotels and private houses along the way provided our
breakfasts and dinners, and as our advent had been heralded
abroad we were welcomed with enthusiastic hospitality. I
must confess that this may have been due to Mr. Arkell,
who was an expert advertiser, not disposed to hide his light
under a busheL Be that as it may, the kind public ap-
parently saw hovering over our heads an aesthetic halo
never perceived by our friends at home.

At Schenectady some of the Union professors showed
us about the college; and at Canajoharie Mr. Arkell's father,
an agreeable man, laid himself out to entertain us, not only
by initiating us into the mysteries of paper-bag making
in his up-to-date factory, but treating us to a picnic in a
lovely wood, where we found a lot of pretty girls and all
the ehte of the neighborhood gathered to do us honor. There
were some picturesque old mills there which we enjoyed
sketching. The good people of Rochester gave us a big
evening reception, with dancing at the town hall, where

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SOME PLEASANT SUMMERS

we were presented to all the leading citizens— altogether
we came in for any number of pleasant little affairs as \vc
made our triumphal progress along the canal.

But all this junketing was really a side issue. It was
the delightful scenery of the Mohawk Valley, the pictur-
esque locks set in a cluster of old houses and flanked I)y the
inevitable country store, often a picture in itself, that was
the chief charm of our journey. Every turn of the blue
canal brought us something new, and whenever we saw a
paintable bit we would hail the captain and he would tic
up to the shore. In a moment, like mushrooms, the meadows
would be dotted with the white tops of our sketching um-
brellas. Indeed, we accumulated so many sketches that
we were able to make several exhibitions of sorts at the
towns along the way. The canal-boats were a characteris-
tic feature of the landscape, the old horses ambling along
the tow-path with small urchins perched on their l)road
backs. The barges were often nicely furnished and shaded
by gay colored awnings, and we passed happy families sway-
ing to and fro in their rocking-chairs around their well-spread
dinner-tables, or cooking at their portable stoves and send-
ing appetizing odors and slender trails of delicate smoke
across the water; laughing children played about the decks,
and altogether everybody seemed to be having a pleasant
time, watching the green meadows slip by them as they
made their quiet progress through the long summer days.
It was an ideal life — if you did not happen to be in a hurry.

But the canal men were extraordinarily expert in pro-
fanity. I have never heard anything to equal it. When-
ever they were at a loss for a word they filled in with some-
thing expressive. Sketching one day near two men who
were shovelling manure, I heard one say to the other:

"Are you going by the cars?"

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

"No," he answered quietly, "Vm going by G by

boat," leaving one uncertain as to whether the transporta-
tion was to be by an earthly or a celestial conveyance.

Utica did us honor, entertaining us at Bagg's Hotel;
then we took in Trenton Falls, and w^ound up with two
pleasant days at Niagara before returning to New York.
It was a fine trip, the artists were a lot of good fellows, and
we enjoyed every minute.

The only one of the party who did not seem to have a
good time was a little old German (I don't remember his
name), who had a studio at 51 West Tenth Street. We
wondered why he had come. He never sketched, hardly
ever spoke, and never appeared to notice the beautiful
country we were passing through. Only once was he roused
to enthusiasm. Turning to me, he pointed to a weather-
vane, a little wooden hen, on the roof of a bare rectangular
barn, and remarked with a slow smile:

"Zat is pretty."

After we got back, each of us painted a picture for Mr.
Arkell as a souvenir, and the lot made an interesting little
collection. Mine was done from a sketch of one of the locks
and an old house adjoining it, a woman with a baby in her
arms looking out of the door and a flock of pigeons on the
roof. In the foreground I put a pair of waiting horses,
from a study I made of our own old farm horses, Norman
and Nelly.

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CHAPTER XIV

THE CENTURY CLUB

"O, the comrades that gossiped and painted and sung!
Centuria !"

— Stedman.

I doubt if there is another club in the world with as
many pleasant men in it as the Century. Some of my hap-
piest memories are connected with the evenings I have
spent there and my many good old friends. Thackeray's
remark that the Century was the nicest club he had ever
been in has had an echo in the hearts of many less distin-
guished people. The chafing-dish Thackeray used when
he was our guest was for years a valued relic of the club,
but somehow or other it disappeared a few years ago, much
to our distress.

I was already a member of the Century when I went
to Paris, in '78, having been elected in 1874, nominated
by Robert Gordon and seconded by Rutherfurd Stuyvesant
— luckily for me, as it was some time before Saint Gaudens
and I were forgiven for our zeal at the Exposition. In fact,
Saint Gaudens didn't get in when he was proposed the fol-
lowing year, because of the enemies he had made in my
company; though, of course, a year or so later the club wel-
comed him with open arms.

It was really only the old fogies that objected to the
way Saint Gaudens and I had hung the pictures at the
Exposition. The younger men were perfectly satisfied —
for instance, La Farge, whose beautiful "Paradise Valley"

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

got an honorable mention, as I have said, and was greatly
admired by the French painters. It shows one of those
long valleys near the second beach at Newport looking
down on the ocean, a fresh-water pond with rocks rising
on each side, and clumps of gnarled cedar-trees, a wide
meadow in the foreground.

La Farge was painting in this same neighborhood when
I first met him many years ago. This occurred about 1865,
while I was staying at my brother-in-law John Neilson's
house at Purgatory, and he was boarding at Peckham's
near by and working on some of his best landscapes. La
Farge used to come over to John Neilson's a good deal that
summer to play croquet. John was the best croquet player
I have ever seen — it was a scientific game in those days —
and La Farge was absolutely the worst. We used to call
him "Johnny Croquet." Old Peckham, a regular Down
East Yankee, long, thin, with an inimitable drawl and a
lot of dry humor, used to take La Farge and John Neilson
out fishing. John, who liked a good story, said that one
day when they were fishing with drop lines and sport was
dull, as La Farge's hne floated close to Peckham — La Farge
all the time intent upon some distant effect of atmosphere
or hght — Peckham gave the line a tremendous pull. Sud-
denly recalled to mundane things, La Farge pulled in his
line in great excitement and could not understand why
there was nothing on it. John said that for years after La
Farge used to speak of that whale he almost caught.

We once stayed at Newport for a few weeks at Peck-
ham's old house, soon after we came home from abroad.
One day the children were playing by the gate when Miss
Charlotte Cushman, the great actress, happened to pass
by and talked to them very sweetly in Itahan until my wife
came out and Miss Cushman found out who she was. Ap-

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THE CENTURY CLUB

parently she thought I was to blame for having succeeded
her nephew as Consul at Rome, for she drew herself up to
her full height and uttering the words "Maitland Arm-
strong" in a terrible "Meg Merrilies" voice, she made a
most magnificent exit worthy of a better cue.

Although La Farge was such a great artist, he was most
inept with his hands. One Varnishing Day at the Academy
I saw him trying to fasten a small gilt label with a couple
of tacks to the frame of a picture. He hammered away,
bruising his fingers and getting the label in an awful state,
and at last gave it up in despair.

La Farge was highly educated, I don't know where, but
I think by private masters, chiefly abroad: he spoke French
like a native. He studied painting with Couture, who doubt-
less influenced La Farge's color; and color was his strong
point, particularly his blues, for he drew with difllcult} —
though he produced some fine drawings, notably those
engraved on wood by Marsh for "The Pied Piper of Ham-
elin," and a beautiful one called "Silence" for "Enoch Ar-
den," which I believe was a study of Mrs. La Farge.
Marsh's engravings of drawings b}' La Farge, ALiry Hal-
leck Foote and Helena de Kay, afterward Mrs. Gilder,
were exhibited at Paris in 1878 and were highly thought
of; he was one of our best engravers.

La Farge's father was a man of fortune, a Frenchman
who came to America, I believe, as an agent for Louis
Philippe. He owned the La Farge House on Broadway,
between Bleecker and Amity Streets where the Broadway
Central Hotel is now, a site formerly occupied by the Winter
Garden — I once saw Booth there as Shylock. This property
sold for a large price and La Farge inherited a good deal
of money; but he never could keep money, and though he
received large sums for his paintings and stained glass he

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

died poor. But he always lived well, you never saw him
on foot, and he kept cabs waiting in front of his studio or
the glass shop for hours at a time. Awoki, his valet, a nice
little fellow, I believe of good position in Japan, was his
devoted servant for years and his faithful nurse in sickness.
When La Farge died, he seemed to feel lost without him.
La Farge told very amusing stories of his experiences in
Japan, where he once found himself required by etiquette
to take a bath in the courtyard of a Japanese house, while
all the family pohtely stood around in a circle patiently
waiting until he was through, only hoping that the water
would not be entirely cold. I think it was that same year
that he went to Samoa, and called on the Robert Louis
Stevenson family: Mrs. Stevenson welcomed him clad
only in a *'hoIiko" — a large piece of cloth with a hole for
the neck to go through, and the lunch consisted solely of
bananas — La Farge was accustomed to better lunches than
that!

He was not only a great painter but a remarkable writer.
A charming article on Japanese art which he wrote for a
book of Pumpelly's, a trip around the world, was done
after the book was set up in type, so that La Farge was
restricted to an exact space, no more and no less. It is
short but admirable.

The reredos in old St. Thomas's Church, the work of
La Farge and Saint Gaudens, was one of the finest things
of the kind in the country, and it was a tragedy that it
should have been destroyed when the church was burned,
though of course in every other way Mr. Cram's beautiful
new church is a vast improvement on the old. Saint
Gaudens finished modelling his part of the work — a cross
in the centre with adoring angels on either side — while we
were in Paris together, in 1878. La Farge had, of course,

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THE CENTURY CLUB

the artist's usual struggle with the clerical point of view —
you know the clergy often appear to think that they receive
a special knowledge of art together with the other gifts of
ordination — the worthy rector condemning the figure of
Mary Magdalen as too ascetic and suggesting "a trifle more
rotundity." It is hardly necessary to say that the advice
was not followed and the saint was portrayed with the
exquisite religious feeling and refmcment always found in
La Farge's earlier work, which often had a wonderful solem-
nity as well.

The rector of St. Thomas's must have considered him-
self an expert on Mary Magdalen. Saint Gaudcns told me
he was once wandering around the church, trying to decide
some knotty point by studying his work from different an-
gles, while the doctor was preaching on "coporeal dehghts,"
with this saint as his text. Saint Gaudcns said that as he
went from gallery to gallery — the old church had any num-
ber of them — the resounding warning against "coporcal
delights" came to him again and again in sonorous tones,
and that he left the edifice with "co-po-real de-lights" still
ringing in his ears.

La Farge's ''Ascension" above the reredos in the Church
of the Ascension at Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street is, to
my mind, the finest mural painting in America. He worked
on it for several years; in fact, Stanford White, who was
the architect of the reredos, got in perfect despair over it;
it seemed as if La Farge would never get it done, and natu-
rally Doctor Donald, the rector, wanted to have the work
finished and the scaffolding taken down. As White said
to Donald one day:

''This dcLay is perfectly heUish!"

To which Donald answered, "I am a clergyman, White,
but you exactly express my sentiments."

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

However, the reredos was finished at last. Louis Saint
Gaudens made some lovely angels for it and I did the
mosaics.

Louis Saint Gaudens was a strange fellow, none of your
Greenwich Village Bohemians, but a true example of the
artistic temperament, and with very nearly as much genius
as his famous brother. He was never bound by any con-
vention as such. Saint Gaudens told me that once he turned
up after a long absence, and remarked:

"Gus, I'm married." Saint Gaudens looked at him in
astonishment, but before he could speak, Louis added:

"She's dead." And that was all Augustus ever knew
about it.

When Doctor E. Winchester Donald became rector of
the Ascension, it was one of the ugliest churches inside
that were to be found in New^ York, which is saying a good
deal, but Doctor Donald had a great love of beauty, and
he raised the money and chose the artists who made it what
it is to-day. He found it not only extremely shabby, with
holes in the carpet and stains on the walls, but everything
about it was ugly — the imitation chancel window with its
quarries of crude glass set slap up against the wall so that
no light came through it, the dreary wooden "Tables of
the Law" over the altar, the square platform with a rail-
ing round it that they called a pulpit, no stained glass
worthy the name in any of the windows, and all architec-
tural effect marred by the clumsy galleries at either side
of the nave. As I said, when speaking of Bishop Eastburn
in another chapter, Upjohn the architect had not been al-
lowed to design a proper chancel when he built the church,
and White considered for some time whether it would be
possible to put in a Gothic chancel, but this would have
involved so much that he finally decided to treat the wall
simply as a space for decoration.

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THE CENTURY CLUB

The first stained-glass window to be put in the Ascension
was La Farge's "Christ and Nicodemus," one of the finest
things he ever did. Mine next to it, the "Annunciation,"
was almost my first figure window. At that time La Farge
and Louis Tiffany were still making interesting experi-
ments in the manufacture of opal glass and there wa^^ far
more variety to be had then than now, when the manu-
facture of the actual glass itself is reduced to a fornuila.
There are bits in both these windows that could not be
found in any glass shop to-day.

Another very fine altar-piece of LaFarge's is the paint-
ing in the Church of the Incarnation on Madison Avenue.
It is unfortunate that when the church was redecorated a
few years ago so little regard was paid to the effect on this
picture, which should have influenced the entire color
scheme. The dazzle of white paint which has brought the
church to so immaculate a cleanliness, but not, to my mind,
to godliness, has sucked all the life out of La Farge's color
and dulled it to a muddy shadow of its former self It would
have been quite possible to redecorate the interior and
change the former rather ugly coloring, and yet keep it in
harmony with the picture. How seldom people seem to
realize that color is chiefly beautiful in its relation to other
color — to surround La Farge's wonderful coloring with
dead white was as presumptuous as to alter a note in any
other great harmony. If La Farge had painted his j)icture
for a white church, he would have made it entirely different.

When Boldini was in this country. La Farge told me
that he said to him:

"How does it happen, Mr. La Farge, that you are the
president of so many societies — American Artiste, Archi-
tectural League, Society of Mural Painters, etc., etc.?"

La Farge replied, "Oh, well, you see there arc not
enough old men to go round."

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

He once told me an amusing anecdote of Manet. It
seems a young artist, a flagrant imitator of Manet's style,
came into Manet's studio in Paris when La Farge was there,
bringing some sketches he wanted criticised. Manet said
to him:

*'My young friend, do you see nature in this way?"

"Yes," said the young man, "I do."

"No, you do not !" said Manet. "/ see nature in that
way but nobody else does."

John La Farge to Theodore Marburg,
The Municipal Art Society oj Baltimore

51 West Tenth Street. May 31st, 1906.

". . . The list of French painters, of any triumphant
superiority in mural painting, is small. There are many
good men whose forte is not that of mural decoration, and
who are more properly easel painters; so that their work
on walls or ceilings does not do them justice, and is usually
rather unpleasant to look at, however meritorious in knowl-
edge. We cannot command at will the poetic feeling which
illustrates Puvis de Chavannes or my friend, Mr. Besnard.

"You seem to wish only French painters, but if you
desire to make cosmopohtan representation, are you not
abandoning some respectable artists in Belgium, in Ger-
many, in Spain, also in England? I do not know the artists
of Holland or of Northern Europe, nor am I sufficiently
acquainted with the Italians who have, of late, developed
enormously.

"But I should not wish to have my name in any way
associated with the idea of bringing over foreign artists,
unless their superiority was so marked that we could not
afl'ord to do without them. I should prefer to see at any
time, an American, of moderate capacity — provided he

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THE CENTURY CLUB

were properly a mural painter — do the work in preference
to a foreigner of no greater rank. I should even go further,
I should go very far in encouraging American Art. .My
reasons would be based on the experience of Europe. The
French have developed their work by asking Frenchmen
to do it, and in-so-far as each nationality has followed this
rule, they have developed the Art of their country.

**This seems to me a fundamental law, and if there have
been a few exceptions, they have usually occurred at such
times as the Civil Wars in France, when every form of Art
suffered, when manufactures were absolutely wiped out,
and when Rubens was called in of necessity. I have al-
ways admired the action of Louis XIV of France, in his
decision to return even the illustrious Bernini to Italy, and
to give to famous Frenchmen the work which should illus-
trate his reign.

"I should even disagree with regard to the influence
upon our development here of such noble work as that of
Puvis. No one that I know is old enough to have admired
him as long as I have, so that I can speak with a degree
of confidence quite as great as that of any Frenchman.

"You allow with your usual intelligent frankness, which
I fully appreciate, that the course you speak of takes awa>
a commission from some American artist. Well, this I
regret. I should like to see more of Mr. Turner's work in
Baltimore, and the same for Mr. Blashfield. They will be
honors to us all, and there are half a dozen Americans be-
sides who are quite capable of such efforts.

"I believe that our American artists should have work
in our buildings in preference to the foreigner under almost
any circumstances and I believe that when that view is
firmly anchored in the minds of our architects and lovers
of Art, we shall be launched into the full sea of American

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

mural painting. We already see the advantage of this in
sculpture. The American architect does not bring over
even the excellent French sculptors who are there at hand.
And the American architect is, in so far, right.

"Finally, please understand that I appreciate entirely
your point of view, that of an educational influence. But
I consider my own view the better, from long experience
and, I believe, an adequate acquaintance with the art of
a great part of Europe and that of our own men."

No doubt La Farge is right in his convictions expressed
in the letter above and yet I have always regretted that
there was none of my friend Merson's beautiful work to
be seen in this country. He and I kept in touch with each
other for some time. The following letter — interesting
because he expresses a feehng shared by all decorators that
too wide a scope is as bad as too small a one — was written
just after Doctor Nevin had decided not to employ him,
as I had suggested, to decorate the new church in Rome,
and when I was hoping to get him an order here.

Luc Olivier Merson to D. M. A., New York

119 Boulevard St. Michel, Paris.
4 Septembre, 1881.

"Mon cher ami. En revenant d'une petite excursion au
bord de la mer, je trouve votre aimable lettre et je m'em-
presse de vous repondre. Et d'abord excusez-moi de ne
pas vous avoir repondu plus tot au subjet de la visite que
m'a faite le Dr. Nevin. Je vous suis tres reconnaissant
d'avoir pense a moi, et je ne regrette qu'une chose, c'est
que I'affaire n'ait pas eu de suite. Le travail a ete confie
a un artiste anglais, que vous connaissez sans doute, Burne
Jones.

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"Et maintenant causons dc Tafialre que vous mc pro-
posez. J'accepte volonticrs cle fairc les cartons que vous
me demandez comme essais. ... Je vous serais tres oblige
de vouloir bicn mc prcciscr davantagc Ics sujets. Que
doit representer I'ange; est-cc I'ange dc la douleur, de la
priere, de la redemption? Ou bicn cst-cc un ange chantant
ou jouant d'un instrument quclconquc? Dc mcme pour le
groupe dc deux ou trois figures, que doit-il representer?
Les Arts ou I' Industrie, T Etude ou le Repos? L'esperance
ou la Charite, la Comedie ou la Musiquc? Cette liberte
que vous me laissez me gene beaucoup plus qu'elle me
sert.

"Voila tout. II ne me reste plus qu'a vous remercier
de nouveau de votre bon souvenir. Jc cause souvent de
vous avec M. Hascltinc, qui est a Paris depuis quelque
temps et qui travaillc dans Tatclicr que vous connaissez.
J'espere que plus heurcuscs avec vous qu' avec Monsieur
Nevin nos relations artistiques ne scront pas interrompucs
avant meme d'avoir commence. Pour ma part, jc ferai
mon possible pour vous satisfairc, ctant tres desireux
d'abord de continuer avec vous d'agreables relations, en-
suite de travailler pour I'Amerique qui est vraiment le seul
pays qui encourage les arts et qui appelle et cherche a
retenir les artistes qui chez eux dans leur propre pays nc
peuvent pas, malgre leur travail et leur peine, arriver a sc
fairc unc situation meme modestc.

'Recevez, mon cher ami, mes mcilleurs remercicmcnts
et croyez a mes meilleurs sentiments de bonne sj'mpathie.
** Votre tout dcvoue,

'Llc-Olivier Merson."

A very old friend of our family — a member of the Cen-
tury by the way — was Doctor E. Winchester Donald. Wc

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

had known him ever since he first came to the Church of
the Ascension as Doctor John Cotton Smith's curate, a
very young man, and we missed him when he left New
York to become rector of Trinity Church, Boston. I do
not think they appreciated him there, the point of view
was too local. He once said that living in Boston after
the rush of life in New York was like "being drowned in
a park fountain." I have already spoken of his interest
in art in connection with the decoration of the Church of
the Ascension. The following letters show how intense
and how sincere was his love of beauty.

Rev. E. Winchester Donald to Miss Meta Neilson

Mont-Saint-Michel. Aug. 31, 1895
**. . . This is a fine place from which to see the summer
die. It reminds me of Amherst ! save that the white gleam-
ing sand takes the place of meadows. I mean the long
view is here the only one and you can see the sun set be-
hind the hills — low to be sure, twenty miles away. The
same Amherst stillness pervades everything at ten o'clock
at night, and as I watched the moon riding through white
transparent clouds, and making the ribbon of water, which
runs at low tide through the long sand reaches, shine like a
lazy silver serpent, I could imagine myself at Amherst, yet
always recalled by the long, exciting, sad history which the
vast pile of stone above my head records. Nothing one
can read, nothing one can imagine from Haig's etching,
gives the sfightest idea of this marvelous pile. It is far
more exciting than anything or everything I have seen.
Free of history and poetry, free of art and beauty, it is the
very peak of human achievement, daring, and imagination.
I am simply insane with wonder and delight. But we can
talk of it next winter at 233— in the firelight."

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Washington, Jan. i8, 1899.

". . . Foremost among the things I have seen is St.
Gaudens' figure over the grave of Henry Adams' wife. Take
it all in all, I know nothing which is comparable to it. It
haunts one. Out of the human being has gone hope, love,
interest, and longing. Not alone is the face of the figure
declarative of the extinction of all that so much as makes
death bearable — the shoulders, the back, the arms, tell
the same story. The infinite refinement of the woman
accents her lapse into nothingness. The power of it all
is tremendous, startling, alarming. The cleanHness of the
bronze led me to ask the keeper if there were no birds.
He said no birds ever came near it.

"I think I should not wish often to see it. It so obsesses
one that he finds himself asking as he turns away, * Is She
right? Is She wise?' She has no secret, that is clear, but
the calm inarticulate misery of hopelessness is spread, like
a dull sheen, over every feature. And when one has re-
covered himself, he finds She retains his respect, as certain
biythe figures, meant to represent hope and faith, do not.
I should like to be a genius."

Trinity Cliurcli in the City of Boston.
April 29, 1 90 1.

". . . They have a beautiful chapel at W'ellesley. How
our tastes have changed since 1872 when the mildest ritual-
ism seemed born of the Evil One of Rome. I don't think
it is a clearer intellectual view of either history or ecclesi-
ology which has wrought it, but an increased sensitiveness
to form. I like to believe that our early training in the
paramount importance of personal religion will keep our
love of ordered beauty from degeneration. At any rate, I
doubt if people can achieve culture and sensitiveness to

5^5

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

form and still be content with or helped by barrenness in
worship. I rather dread going back to Trinity's empty

chancel."

London, Aug., 1903.

**. . . France never seemed so prosperous or so bright.
The vast plains stretching from Orleans beyond Chartres were
one prairie of golden grain. Already the reapers are busy.

"At Rouen I started for the train early enough to drive
through the little square behind the Cathedral, and received
the benediction of that exquisitely beautiful brown apse.
My three hours in Paris I spent in going to see the chapel
built in memory of those who perished in the memorable
Charity Bazaar fire four or five years ago. It's no better
than a gilded paganism. There's not a holy line or a rever-
ent curve or a bit of solemn decoration in it. It was evi-
dently designed by some one who had never prayed, never
suffered, and never allowed his heart to share in another's
woe. It seems to say as one enters, 'See! how clever is
man, how unnecessary and fleeting is God.' And yet there
was one tender touch. Behind the ahar screen the sisters
were chanting htanies. Perhaps a dozen of them — they
were hidden from sight — made the appeals on a low tone,
as low as D, I should say. When they ceased, a single voice,
a full octave higher, took up the appeal with a heart-broken
despair, so unwiHing to cease petitioning yet so unable to
spread wide the wings of faith. Those prayers added a
new ughness to the garish surroundings furnished the holy
sisters by some cafe-haunting architect. If the sisters had
not been there I should have cried out, 'This is all Tophet
let loose!' and fled."

Homer Martin was a most amusing Centurian. He
had a vast fund of dry humor. Like all true Bohemians,

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THE CENTURY CLUB

his ideas of domestic life were eccentric, and sometimes his
home would not see him for weeks at a time. Meeting him
on the street one day, a friend told Martin an amusing
story, adding that Mrs. Martin — a fine woman, I behcve,
and witty as well — had told it to him.

"Indeed," said Martin. "Why I think I shall have
to go home and make her acquaintance."

The Century Club has two of Martin's pictures, "Lake
Sanford" in the Adirondacks and "The Honfleur Light."
Martin was a great painter, a man of exquisite artistic feel-
ing, but the public did not find it out until he was dead.
When the public woke up, pictures he had sold for hundreds
brought thousands, and eventually commanded fabulous
prices. A friend of his told me that Martin had once of-
fered him any picture in his studio for two hundred dol-
lars. Martin said: "Don't you want to buy a picture?
I have about three hundred I can't sell; some of them have
frames, too."

Martin was a friend of Whistler's and stayed with him
in his luxurious house in London. Whistler said he came
down-stairs one morning and found Martin looking vaguely
about the room, and asked him what he was looking for.

"A pair of scissors," said Martin. "You don't seem
to have any. What in the world do you do when you want
to trim your cuffs?"

Hopkinson Smith was about the best all-round man I
ever knew. He did many things and all of them well, and
was withal a most engaging companion and a distingulsiicd-
looking man, a true type of the progressive American. As
engineer, he built the hghthousc at Race Rock, where many
others had failed. As painter, he did good work in water-
colors and in black and white; every year he brought home
from abroad a great portfolio of charming drawings that

317

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

sold like hot cakes. Perhaps his best work as a writer was
"Colonel Carter of Carters ville." The scene of this story
is laid in the rooms of the old Tile Club, of which he
was a member, at 58 West Tenth Street — now my own
house — or rather at 58>^, as its door was numbered, for the
club was reached by a passageway through the house in
front. Most of the best-known artists and architects in
New York belonged to the Tile Club — Charles F. McKim,
Frank Millet, Abbey, Stanford White, Dielman, William
Gedney Bunce, and a lot of others. I once dined there
as McKim's guest, and I little dreamed as I sat in that
quaint room that it would one day belong to me.

When I bought the house, in 1890, there were two build-
ings. The one that had been occupied by the Tile Club
was a small house in the centre of the block. In old times
it had had a garden in front, but the garden was afterward
obliterated by the erection of another house directly on
the street, with a funny little passageway to the rear house
running through its basement. I bought both houses and
connected them by building another room between, and
made some other improvements, with Tom Nash's valuable
help as architect, which made it an attractive house — there
is certainly no other house anywhere in the least like it.
We have lived there ever since. One thing we like about
it is our studio, built by Abbey, and occupied by both him
and Freer. Our dining-room, except for the shelves of
china, is not very different from when it was the Tile Club's j
meeting-place, the two white-tiled fireplaces that Stanford
White designed being unchanged. In view of the recent
irruption of odd-looking houses in the neighborhood, it is
amusing to remember that when I painted the woodwork
outside white it was considered extraordinarily conspicuous.
I remember Dielman saying laughingly that we ought to

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THE CENTURY CLUB

n^Strl'°l 'r''"l °""f^^^ - P^-'-nt a feature
n tne street. 1 have always been sorrv tfioi- I ,

lowed by the Building Department ^X^. rjlt"

told ^,:ite Snrr : e^x '■r,t\t.t;""^r

twenty-five dollars, but I didn't eare gi ^ b b""'
Hopk,nson Smith gave n,e two prettWrawing of the

oldTn, r ^''•"■''' ''""'^ sentimental about the

old house havmg used it as the scene of one of his first
stor.es He showed us "where Chad stood and where the
CO onel sat." quae as if they had been real peopi Jus
before h,s death a moving-pieture eoncern '^arr'^LcI to
take so-e pictures of our house for a play of "Colonel Or?

Ln U u J °"S'^ ""'"g to Mr. Smith's death I

fancy he had arranged to superintend it

On the occasion of that first visit of „,ine to the Tile
Club, Doctor Richard Derby and my nephew Tom Howard
were also guests. Hop Smith recounted some of his tal2
and we had a very ,olly time. He had the rare faeultv Tf
reciting both comic and pathetic things with good effect-

l". ^°^" T f ""''""'"S '" recitation, but his was the
'•al thing; he almost made one weep

LJn 'r* f '"*' ;' '""■ ""Pf^''"^°" Smith was at the Cen-
tury Club where he was holding forth to a crowd of men

TJu ^^™^"/'™^''f'e=- He ended bv- saying that he
had been abroad nineteen times and had never vet met
1 (jerman gentleman.

"It's what they cat," he said, "that makes them such
Drut^es. Why, not long ago I was breakfasting in the Arcade
n Milan and a German bride and groom came in. He was
I handsome young officer, and I knew she was a bride be-

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

cause everything she had on was brand-new. And what
do you think he ordered for breakfast — a piece of ham a
foot long and two steins of beer !"

Clarence King was another many-sided man. He was
a mining engineer of distinction, and had degrees not only
from Yale but from Leipsic and many other universities,
but I think that his personal charm and delightful con-
versation had as much to do with his success in life as his
mental ability. Of all the arts, the great art of conversa-
tion is the most transitory — it leaves only a vague tradi-
tion behind it. So it is hard to do Clarence King justice,
but I am sure no better talker ever lived, nor any with a
readier wit. One day at the club some one spoke of having
caught a ghmpse of a strange-looking woman in the window
of a house in Amity Street, as he flashed by in the elevated.
He said she was a stout Cuban-looking creature dressed
in a gaudy flowered gown, and then, as he hesitated for a
phrase in which to describe her. King broke in with:

"Why not caH her a Havana filler in a Connecticut
wrapper?"

I once spoke of a girl on the bathing beach at New Lon-
don, who could stand on one heel and make a perfect circle
in the sand with the other.

"Oh, yes," said King. "A radius of two feet." \

Another first-rate conversationalist, one of my morl
recent friends at the Century of whom I became exceed-
ingly fond, was Charles E. Grinnefl, of Boston. President
of his class at Harvard, an accompfished linguist, a traveller,
and an author, he was not only a citizen of the world in
its best sense and a representative American, but above
afl a man of character and a gentleman. He was an au-
thority on music and the drama, and for many months
never missed a performance at the Theatre Fran^ais, for,

320 i

THE CENTURY CLUB

as a Frenchman said to him: "If you go there you will
know more about France than if you visited every town
in the country." Not only was he one of the best of talkers,
but he possessed that rare quality of being a good hstener
as well. His love of life was intense up to the last; he en-
joyed every moment with the cheerful outlook of youth
mellowed by the wisdom of age, and was so modest, sweet-
tempered, and simple that every one loved him.

Launt Thompson, a brother-in-law of Bishop Potter,
was a sculptor of fine artistic and technical ability who
ought to have gone farther than he did. The Century owns
tw'O of his best works, the noble portrait of Edwin Booth
and the fine bronze eagle with outspread wings that stands
on the stairway.

Speaking of Booth recalls a slip of Richard Harding
Davis — one of those remarks one afterward regrets. Davis
had just seen a very fine death mask of Lincoln, and when
Booth came in he described it to him in detail, much to
the horror of the bystanders, who were old enough to re-
member that the assassination had poisoned all Booth's
earlier life. But Booth took it very calmly and when Davis
had left the room turned to a friend and said:

"After the first moment, I was glad he spoke as he did.
It shows that the younger generation do not connect my
name with the tragedy."

Mr. A. Rodney Macdonough was an honored member
of the Century and for many years its secretary. He was
the son of the celebrated commodore, whose fine portrait
by Gilbert Stuart hung on the wall of the dining-room at
the club until after Mr. Macdonough's death, when it was
removed by his family. In a logbook kept by my uncle
Charles, I found an account of a voyage he once took in
the old frigate Constitution as a midshipman when Com-

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DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

modore Macdonough was captain. He mentions that the
ship ran aground at Smyrna, and Mr. Macdonough told
me that he well remembered the excitement of the event;
he must have had a pretty good memory, for he was only
a httle boy of four when he took that voyage with his
father.

I had the honor of knowing Mr. John Bigelow well.
He was president of the club for many years, and up to
the time of his death at ninety-four presided at the
monthly meetings with grace and ability. Mr. Bigelow
was an ardent Swedenborgian and used to present me every
now and then with a little book of his own composition
on that faith, but I regret to say I never could read
them.

There is a round table in the corner of the dining-room
at the Century Club, where Nadal, Loyall Farragut, Theo-
dore Thomas, William Alexander, and others usually dine,
and here it is my good fortune to sit whenever I happen
to be at the club at the dinner hour.

Alas, poor Farragut is gone ! He was perhaps the most
popular man in the club. He and I were said to look a
good deal alike. He told me he once met Walter Crosby
on Madison Avenue, and met him a second time a few min-
utes later. Crosby said: **It is strange, Mr. Armstrong,
that we should meet again so soon," and Farragut answered:
"But it is stranger still that I am not Mr. Armstrong!"

I was riding with McKim at Lenox a few years ago
when we saw George Folsom in his garden, who came out
to speak to us. I had known him intimately for years,
but his first remark to me was:

"Is Mrs. Farragut with you?"

Among my friends at the Century, E. S. Nadal is one
of whom I am most fond. He was born in Virginia, in Green-

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THE CENTURY CLUB

brier County, and as his father was a Methodist clergyman,
and after the manner of their clergy had a new cure nearly
every year, Nadal's experiences of Virginia life were un-
usually varied. He has embodied them in a most deh'ght-
ful book, "A Virginia Village." He is a graduate of Yale,
and was secretary of legation in London under Motley and
Lowell for many years, and he has met many distinguished
people, Lincoln among others, and his essays on a variety of
subjects are very charming. But above all he is a lovable
man. I know it would be impossible for him to do an un-
kind or an ungentlemanly thing. He is a fine judge of a
horse — I tell him he is the only man I know who has suc-
cessfully combined horse-dealing and literature — and has
the remarkable faculty of being able to sell people horses
and yet retain their friendship.

Robert Gordon is one of the oldest members of the Cen-
tury Club, which he joined in 1867, my oldest living friend
(he is my daughter Marion's godfather), and one of the
finest men I have ever known. He came to this country
from Scotland in 1849 ^vhen he was a very young man,
soon becoming a partner in the old firm of Maitland Phelps
and Company of which I have already spoken in connec-
tion with my godfather, Mr. David .\Liithind. Gordon
came often to stay with us at Danskammer and ours has
been a faithful and uninterrupted friendship ever since,
kept up of late years by a pretty regular correspondence.

I have spoken in a previous chapter of the pleasant
artists' receptions that Mr. Gordon gave every winter while
he lived in New York. When the Astors built the houses
in West Thirty-third Street where the Waldorf now stands,
Mr. Gordon moved into Number i, and later bought Num-
ber 7 East Thirty-eighth Street from Harvey Fisk, which
he remodelled to make room for his numerous pictures.

3^3

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

For he was a liberal patron of art, especially of American
painters, and a good friend to the young and struggling.
I went once with him to George Boughton's studio in the
old Tenth Street building, and we found him engaged in
painting a picture which Gordon immediately bought.
Boughton was then almost unknown. After living a re-
markably agreeable life here for thirty-five years, he retired
from Maitland Phelps and returned to England to live,
where he was immediately sought out by Mr. Junius S.
Morgan, and induced after some persuasion to become a
member of the British firm of J. S. Morgan and Company,
with whom he was associated for fifteen years — in fact,
until he reached the age of seventy, which he had long be-
fore decided was the proper age for a man to retire. Thence-
forth he settled down to a pleasant country life, only dis-
turbed of very late years by the war.

The artists gave Mr. Gordon a farewell dinner at Del-
monico's before his return to England. I have the menu,
which, much condensed, runs as follows, beginning with a
quotation from Burns —

"There ne'er was a coward o' Kenmure's blude.
Nor yet o' Gordon's line,"

and going on with —

"Prepare your surface with — Huitres. Sketch in the
design with a thin wash of^Potages. Strengthen the out-
hne with crisp touches of— Poisson. Now dash in the lights
boldly with— Releve. And fill up shadows carefully with
Entrees. Glaze the necessary parts with a cool — Sorbet.
Carefully scumble the loaded masses with— Roti. Touch
up the details and harmonize the whole composition with
— Sucres. And finally varnish with a warm mixture of

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THE CENTURY CLUB

cafe and nicotine." A generous use of "mediums"— Cham-
pagne, etc.— was recommended, and the whole ended with
another stanza from Burns, slightly improved

"Where'er he go, where'er he walk.
May Heaven be his warden,
Return him soon to fair New York,
Our honest Robert Gordon."

Robert Gordon to D. M. A., Rome

New York, March, 1870.
". . . Gifford is now painting for me a splendid pic-
ture (as large as my Mansfield Mountain), the result of
his recent visit to Italy. It is a view near Tivoli, looking
toward Rome, the town of Tivoli perched up on the heights
to the left, numerous small streams rushing down the sides
of the cliffs into the river, which in a gorge below rushes
off through a beautiful valley. It is, I beheve, literally
true to nature, except in the foreground, where a h'ttle
license has been taken for artistic effect. McEntee has
not been quite so much improved by his trip abroad and
I selected an American autumn scene in preference to any
of his Italian sketches."

22 Old Broad St., London. 9 April. 1886.
". . .^ I am beginning to fmd that I made no mistake
in investing as I did in American pictures. They attract
a great deal of attention in my house, few good pictures
by Americans having found their way to this side. In my
dining-room, which is Lirge, I liave Wyant's 'Old Clear-
ing' over the fireplace, with GifTord's 'Tivoli' and 'Mans-
field Mountain' flanking it, all three being cleverly lighted
by lamps with reflectors. At the end of the room over the

3^5

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

sideboard I have J. G. Brown's 'Curling' picture and in
the centre of the wall, opposite the Wyant, Ward's * Brit-
tany Washerwoman,' both similarly hghted. We had the
American Minister, Mr. Phelps, dining with us on Tues-
day and he greatly enjoyed the GifFord and Wyant which
faced him. I got a lot of etchings through Avery which
I have had hung on my corridor walls. What an advance
the American artists have made in the art in a few years !
Last Sunday was 'Picture Sunday' of the Academicians,
the outsiders having had the Sunday before, but I only
went to the studio of Boughton and Cohn Hunter. The
former exhibits in both the Academy and Grosvenor.

" I was much interested in your detailed report of your
young people in whom you seem to have a deal of com-
fort."

Little Park, Brimpton, Berks.
24 Jan. 1915.

*' It is very gratifying to all the better classes in this coun-
try to find that you are all so thoroughly in sympathy with
us in our great fight. It is a clear case of a * fight to the
finish.' I have been greatly excited over the part taken
by the London Scottish.

" I am glad to hear that you are still up to your work
and doing well with it. How delightful to have an accom-
phshed daughter as a business partner — it is an ideal ar-
rangement and you have reason to be proud of your family.
Your picture of a 'Baker's Shop in Brittany' with an old
white horse in the foreground hangs just behind me on
the wall of the dining-room here; it was allotted to Mrs.
Langford when the contents of Breckham Park were divided.
I kept the St. Mark.

"I am looking forward to getting the annual report

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THE CENTURY CLUB

of the Century before long. They call to mind many of
my old friends who have passed away. Like CuHins I am
now one of the Old Guard, as I also am of the Museum, —
and of the St. Andrews Society, I am the very oldest mem-
ber, having been elected in 1852."

Chewton Glcn, i^'JuIy, 191".

". . . Your letter did me a lot of good and cheered
me up when I was rather in the dumps. I can do Httle in
the way of walking, and petrol can no longer be had for
what they are pleased to call 'joy riding.' The adhesion
of America to our cause has given immense satisfaction
and for the moment your Sammies enjoy even greater pop-
ularity than our Colonials.

**I find myself dwelling a good deal on my early experi-
ences in New York, where I spent so many happy days.
Nothing can ever take the place of the dear old Century,
which I found most appreciatively mentioned in an Englisli
book the other day. I was very grieved to liear of dear
old Choate's death. I was never what you would call itry
intimate with him, but greatly appreciated his high char-
acter and friendly way. I am curious to hear who is to suc-
ceed him in the Presidency. I have treasured up a nice
letter from him in which he employs terms of real affec-
tion in speaking of our early association in Museum
matters. I am proud of my participation in the start of
what has proved a greater success than the most sanguine
of the Founders ever anticipated.

"You are my oldest friend, our friendship dating back
from the time in 1849 ^^'hen I entered the oflice of AL and
P., when Gouv was a clerk there and got your mother to
invite me to Danskanimer for the iirst time, which led to

32:

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

many other visits. It is strange how Danskammer and
its associations live in my memory. I particularly remem-
ber one visit at least at your place when grapes were ripe
and free picking was permitted.

** Yours ever affectionately,

"Rob Gordon."

328

CHAPTER XV
MY FARM AT DANSKAMMER

"The breath of distant fields upon my brow
Blows through that open door,
The sound of wind-borne bells, more sweet and low,
And sadder than of yore."

— William Wetmore Story.

It was in the spring of 1877 that we decided to make
our home at Danskammer; for though the old house built
by my father had been sold while I was in Italy, we had
kept the northern part of the place, originally the old
Bloomer farm, including a rather nice house — not much
more than a farmhouse but beautifully situated, with a wide
view across Newburgh bay to the Highlands. The house
had possibilities and, first and hist, I did a good deal to it
and made it into a pretty pleasant old place. It has not all
been wasted even now, for, although the brickyards have
greatly injured the view, my son Noel and his family live
there and are as fond of it as I was.

My early ideas of decoration seem to me rather amus-
ing to-day; it is hard to believe that tiles and Morris wall-
papers were ever considered new and beautiful. But, after
all, Oscar Wilde was right in averring that sunflowers and
lilies were more satisfying than the black walnut and green
rep of our predecessors. There may have been too much
of the aesthetic in these youthful decorations of mine, but
the fine old things I had brought back from Italy would
have made any house interesting. Anyhow, everybody
thought our little house was not only the latest thing in

329

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

decoration but charming as well, and looking back I con-
fess I think so too. Later on I made more substantial ad-
ditions to it, helped a good deal by the advice of Stanford
White and McKim. In fact, at one time McKim got so
intensely interested in my improvements that, being con-
vinced that we needed a new and larger dining-room, as
we certainly did, he urged me to let him lend me the money
to build it and said he would ''make me something quite
stunning" — as no doubt he would have done if I had been
wilhng.

McKim and I had lots of good rides together; he was
fond of riding and, of course, horses were an important
feature of our life at Danskammer. But I have talked
more than enough about horses already. The praises of
my little chestnut mare Madge, with all her wicked
charms, or good old Virginius, the thoroughbred that
Robert Gordon gave my daughter when he went to live
in England, must remain unsung.

Many friendships of which I have already spoken were
revived in those pleasant Danskammer days. Vedder
came once, and so did Nevin and Saint Gaudens, and May-
nard often stayed with us — a good friend and a good painter,
we are all fond of him. McKim came again and again.
Stanford White and I had lots of fun one time, staining
plaster casts with tobacco juice and coloring some por-
trait medaHions that I had brought from Italy. We rubbed
them with all sorts of weird mixtures of our own invention,
and waxed them, and touched them up with gold, so that
they were quite effective.

Saint Gaudens liked our place, but he was never crazy
about violent exercise, and I remember when, to see the
view, we made him climb to the top of Beacon Hill — so
called because they used to light beacon fires there during

330

MY FARM AT DANSKAMMER

the Revolution — he told us a story of a Frenchman who,
after a similar experience, remarked breathlessly to a
friend :

"Aimcz-vous les beautes de la nature? — Moi, je les ab-
horre !"

I had gone to Danskammer with the idea of making
a hving out of fruit farming, and I went in for peaches on
quite a large scale; at one time I had a peach orchard of
over three thousand trees and several acres of grapes. There
is no more beautiful crop than fruit. The great wagon
that went up to the Marlborough dock loaded with baskets
was something to be proud of — even the air along the road
on those warm summer evenings was sweet with the scent —
and only those who have lived on a fruit farm know what
really good fruit is. When fruit is absolutely perfect it is
just a little too ripe for shipping, and that perfect fruit we
used to eat ourselves — such huge strawberries, such melt-
ing peaches, such bunches of purple and white grapes — I
never expect to see their hke again. But before long the
"yellows" played havoc with my trees, for there was little
expert agricultural knowledge to be had in those days, and
although, take it all in all, I made a good deal of money
out of my fruit, I am incHned to agree on the whole with
the farmer who told an inquiring friend: "Why, yes, you
can make money off a farm — the farther off the better."

So after a while I took up the making of stained-glass
windows in addition to my farming, and in time it became
my real lifework. No man was ever happier in his choice
of work; the years have gone only too fast. They have
been crowded with hard work but all the happier for that
— I have always liked hard work — and for some years I
have had my daughter Helen as my partner. I think our
work together has been good work, and in this, as in every

DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

other relation of our lives, no two people have ever been
happier together than she and I.

The story of our twenty years at Danskammer would
be too long to tell here and, I am afraid, too simple to in-
terest any one but ourselves. So we will leave the old place
with a kindly letter of farewell from an old friend who loved
it. When Doctor Donald wrote in 1902 we were no longer
hving at Danskammer, only spending a few weeks there
one September.

"... Just how long ago it is that I first saw Dans-
kammer, I cannot accurately say. The first vivid remem-
brance is of my entering the library and being arrested
by the fire-place mantel, never having seen its like or, for
that matter, its equal. All else fades away from that first
visit. Then I went up on Margaret's birthday, in Sep-
tember, of course, and McKim was there, and we had a
picnic on the Point and a queer dog — whose name was
something like Tabbo. Ah ! he was so attractively weird
a creature that his name should live with that of George
Bowow or the Vicar of Morwenstow — walked the long
way round, while Lance — yes, that was the setter's name
— swam over the little bay. And in the evening we sang,
McKim and I — and played games, made bad verses; and
then to bed. How it all stands out and how cosy and snug
and happy one's venerable memory is as it unveils its sim-
ple and beautiful treasures.

"Many times thereafter I went to Danskammer; when
the sweet peas in the garden were at their best, and the
cherries were ripe and when the grapes were purple and
perfumed. Once, when the snow was over all. Then Alex-
ander's big hands and broad a's — he was a magnificent
type of fidelity, common sense and self-respect. And the

332

MY FARM AT DANSKAMMER

leisurely, human, companionable, lively, peaceable bread-
breakings in the dining-room, (my seat was always toward
Albany). There were strawberries dropped into our plates
direct from the hand of God, which never knew the ex-
haustion of travel or the impudent soiHng fmgers of grocers,
on which no price had ever been set and — as Maitland
knows — no profit ever made. And the morning sun glanced
on the shining water of the river and bounded up into our
laps. And the turf and the trees whispered, chattered and
slept. We were the first folk on the first day — all being
poets.

"And one day I went with the cliildrcn and stood be-
side the pkice in the Churchyard where little Bayard sleeps,
and heard a voice assuring us of immortality, since what
has once really lived never dies.

"And then came the last time — now nine years ago —
when I christened Hamilton. That was the end, I fear.
But so long as I keep a memory it will possess dear Dans-
kammer, and the dearer people who made it dear to me.
Happy innocent days ! An old man thanks God for them.
And he puts on paper — just why, he knows not — his
thoughts, knowing how foohsh they will seem to-morrow
at Danskammer, yet willing they should so seem, if they
shall serve to keep him just a little alive to the kind hearts
who watch the glowing logs."

And so these memories of mine come to an end where
they began — at Danskammer.

333