[Boston—Saturday, 18 November 1865]
Saturday. Nov. 18. Last night Miss Kate Field and Charles Sumner dined with us. Before we went to dinner Charlotte Forten, the young colored girl whom Elizabeth Whittier was so fond of and who is now secretary of the Freedmen’s bureau, came in to call. She is very pretty and good. It is difficult nevertheless for her to find a boarding place. People do not readily admit a colored woman into their families. I shall help her to find a good home. The northern climate is severe for her but she has many friends here and likes naturally to live among them. She became engaged to be married while teaching among the freed-people but I fear all has not gone smoothly. I intend to see more of her.
Mr Sumner opened the conversation at dinner by asking Miss Field to tell him something of Mr Landor. She smiling said, that was difficult now because she had talked and written so much of him that she hardly knew what was left unsaid. Mr Sumner described his own first introduction then at the house of his old friend Mr Kenyon, in London. He had dropped in there by accident but was positively engaged elsewhere at dinner; before he left however he was able to parry skilfully a remark aimed at the Yankees which tickled Mr Landor and made him try to hold on and induce him to stay. He was obliged to go then however but he returned a few days after to breakfast when Landor asked him why the body of Washington did not rest in the Capitol at Washington. “Because,” said Mr Sumner “his family wished his ashes to remain at Mt. Vernon”—“Ashes” said L. “his body was not burned, why do you say Ashes sir.” “I quoted. E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires” and he said nothing more at the time, “but,” added Mr Sumner “I have never used “Ashes” since.”
Kate Field said “his wife was a perfect fiend” but Mr Sumner was inclined to doubt the statement. “These marriages with men of genius are hard” he said “because genius wins the race in the end.”
Then Kate brought the authority of Mr Browning and others to back her statement but referring to Mr Landor’s temper she said that while the Storys were at Siena passing the summer one year the Brownings took a villa near by and Mr Landor lived opposite while she and Miss Isa Blagden went down to make the Brownings a visit. During their stay Mr Landor fancied that the stock of tea lately purchased for his use was poisoned and threw it all out of the window. The Contadine reaped the benefit of this; they came and gathered it up like a flock of doves.
Mr Sumner spoke of the high, very high place he accorded to Mr Landor as a writer of prose. He had been a source of great admiration to him for years he said. As long ago as G.W. Greene was living in Rome and first becoming a writer he asked Mr Sumner what masters of prose he should study. “Then,” said Mr S. “you remember his own style was bad, the sentences apt to be jumbled up together. I told him to read Bacon, and Hooker, and all the prose of Dryden he could find in the prefaces and elsewhere and Walter Savage Landor. And my reverence for Mr Landor as a writer of prose has never diminished.”
Later during the dinner talking of life abroad Mr Sumner was reminded of a letter he had received from John P. Hale our minister plenopotentiary to Spain. He said for a number of years while Mr Hale was in the Senate, whenever appeals came from our foreign ministers of consuls abroad asking for increase of salary Mr Hale would jump up and say, “Gentlemen of the Senate allow me to say I would engage to live at any point in Europe upon the salary now granted by the government. It is no economy indeed it is a great lack of economy to think of raising their salaries.”
Hereupon comes a letter from Spain urging for an increase of salary in terms which would convulse the Senate with laughter after the protestations they have heard so often. I should like nothing better than to read it to them.” For the lack of their presence however he read it to us and it was amusing truly as if the old days and speeches were a blank.
Mr Sumner easily slipped from this subject into others connected with the government.
Kate Field said that Judge Russell told her that President Johnson was no better than a sot and that the head of the Washingtonian Home (a refuge for inebriates here) had been sent for, as a man having skill in such cases to try to cure him. “Is this true Mr Sumner” she asked. Mr Sumner said not one word at first, then asked what authority had Judge Russell for making such an assertion. Kate did not know and I thought on the whole Mr Sumner, who knew the man had really been sent for by the President himself it is supposed for some other reason, doubted the whole tale. I doubted it sincerely from the first moment and I wonder a man can be left to say such things.
Sumner then continued to describe very vividly what he had known of Andy Johnson’s behaviour. When he left Tennessee to come to Washington to be vice-president, he travelled with a negro-servant and two demi-johns of whiskey which he dispensed freely, drinking enough himself at the same time to arrive at Washington in a maudlin condition in which state he remained until after the fourth of March. He was then living at the hotel and a young Massachusetts officer who lived on the same floor and was obliged to pass Mr Johnson’s door many times a day told Mr S. that during the two days subsequent to Mr Johnson’s arrival he saw while passing his room and counted 26 glasses of whiskey go in. At length good men interfered, they saw delirium tremors or some other dreadful thing would be the result if this continued and old Mr Blair went with Mr Preston King and persuaded Mr Johnson to go down and stay at Mr Blair’s house and he surrendered at discretion. It was a small house and a very quiet family but they stowed Mr Johnson away and Mr King also who was kind enough to offer to take care of him. Shortly after this Mr Lincoln & Mr Sumner had gone down the river in a yacht and had landed at Gen. Grant’s head-quarters. They were sitting together at two desks reading the papers for the day when Mr Sumner observed a figure darken the door and looking up found Mr Johnson—“Ah Mr Vice-President, how do you do, he said putting his papers aside, “Mr President, here is the Vice-President.” Mr Lincoln arose and extended his hand but as Mr Sumner thought very coldly and after a short time they started again for their yacht. Mr Johnson walked as far as the wharf talking with Mr Lincoln but when they arrived there Mr Lincoln did not say, Come with us and have lunch, or come at night and have dinner but bade him simply “good bye” there where they observed him afterward watching their departure with Mr King by his side who had come to rejoin him.
This said Mr Sumner, is all Mr Lincoln saw of Mr Johnson. One week after this time the President was assassinated and they never met from that hour until his death.
Mr Sumner thinks Mr Beecher is making a dangerous and deadly mistake and told him so. He said further to Mr B. that his anxieties prevented him from sleeping, that he had not slept for three nights. I should think so Mr Beecher replied “you talk like a man who had been deprived of his natural rest.” The two men have a respect for each other and talk kindly of each other but they do not see things from the same point of view now at all.
Miss Emma Cary has sent us a translation of everything she can find relating to the Guérin brother & sister and “entourage.” It appears as if the history of these two were somehow connected with me and intended for me the whole subject has been so fully laid before me. The history is deeply, deeply, exquisitely interesting. Jamie wishes me to decide if he should print Miss Cary’s book. She has been working over it, singularly enough for years and now here comes Matthew Arnold’s article and Eugénie’s journal before the public both of course influencing the value of what she has collected, however I think she has sufficient matter beside relating to Maurice which has never been seen by English eyes.
We are enjoying a perfect Indian Summer.
Saturday. Mrs Thaxter (Celia Laighton) came to see me. She brought her little poem “Landlocked” exquisitely illustrated by Mrs Marquand for Mrs Rutherford famous almanac.
Bessie Johnson and Annie Verplanck two of Dr Lewis’s pupils from Lexington passed the afternoon forgetful of an engagement to dine, looking over pictures, books and seeing what the various rooms contained. They would have gone away, Bessie who was to return to Dr L. to fast until the morning if I had not at the last discovered they had been roaming since breakfast without touching food.
It is delightful to watch the enjoyment of school-girls over works of art or beautiful things, it is so ebullient. They were here two full hours. What a grand work Dr Lewis is doing, unfortunately he is becoming overworked and somewhat nervous himself. He has one hundred pupils besides patients, teachers and the rest which go to make up a family.
