GROVER CLEVELAND. FROM THE LATEST PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY PACK BROTHERS OF NEW YORK.
GROVER CLEVELAND. FROM THE LATEST PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY PACK BROTHERS OF NEW YORK.
The Buffalo bar at that time was a brilliant one. The leaders of it were men of great ambition. It would have been impossible for a young man, and especially for a young Democrat, to have gained influence with those men had there not been even then some personal quality which won their respect; and Mr. Cleveland gained a great measure of respect while he was still a very young man, and he seems to have been able to form close and permanent intimacies with young men whose advantage in beginning life had been much greater than his. He passed swiftly from the ranks of the poor law-student to the companionship of such men.
When young Bissell, fresh from his successful career at Yale College, blessed with some wealth, and possessing all the advantages which gentle social relations give, returned to Buffalo from his college life, one of his closest intimacies was developed with Grover Cleveland. Mr. Folsom, one of the brightest men at the Buffalo bar, must have been early impressedby this quality of Cleveland’s, for he took the young man into partnership, and before Cleveland was thirty years of age he had established, with men of intellectual power, a standing not due to unusual mental gifts, but to this same personal quality which has made him conspicuous above other Americans for the past twelve years.
In 1884, after Mr. Cleveland’s nomination for the presidency, President Arthur was asked if he knew the man whom the Democratic party had nominated.
“I know him slightly, and have heard much of him,†was the President’s reply. “I know that he is a good companion among the rather worldly men at the Buffalo bar, or was when he was there; but I also know this of him: he is a man of splendid moral fibre, and I have been told that his fidelity to his convictions and professional duties is regarded by his associates at the Buffalo bar as something wonderful. I do not think that he is a man of strong, original mind, but he is the faithfullest man to what he believes to be right and his duty that his party has—at least in New York State.â€
Roscoe Conkling, not long after Mr. Cleveland’s nomination, was asked if he knew the Democratic candidate, and Mr. Conkling replied, with more of emphasis than he was accustomed to employ in speaking of any public man at that time:
“I do not know much about Mr. Cleveland as a politician, but my impression is that he is no politician, as the word is commonly understood. But I do know this about him. As a lawyer he prepares his cases well, as thoroughly, perhaps, as any man whom I have known in my practice.â€
Mr. Manning said, after he had retired from Mr. Cleveland’s cabinet:
“Whatever may be said of the President as to his relations with the politicians, this much must be said, that he has never done anything since he has been in the White House for any selfish, personal motive, and that he is the most conscientious man in his adherence to what he believes to be his duty, and in his attempts to make out his duty when he is not entirely clear about it, that I have ever seen; and I do not believe any President has ever exceeded him in these respects.â€
One of the greater powers in one of the greatest railway systems of the United States, not long ago meeting a company of friends at a private dinner in the Union League Club, sat for some time listening to the very interesting and acute analyses of Cleveland which were made by many brilliant men who were in that party.
This railway prince, for that word justly describes him, at last said:
“I do not think any of you has touched upon what is, after all, the quality which has made Mr. Cleveland what he is in American politics. I had some reason to know wherein his power lies, at a time when he probably had no other thought of his future than the expectation of earning a competence at the bar. It so happened that I was associated with certain litigations in which Mr. Cleveland was employed as counsel. He was not employed either for or against the interests which I represented, for they were merely incidental to these suits. I was amazed, after a little experience with him, to see the way in which he worked. I thought I had seen hard work and patient fidelity, but I never saw a lawyer so patient and so faithful to his clients as Cleveland was. I remember speaking about it to an eminent lawyer who has since become a judge, and he told me that Grover Cleveland was the most conscientious man in his relations with his clients that he had ever met. I spoke of it to somebody else, and that man told me that Cleveland had once actually lost a case by over-conscientiousness and too thorough preparation. He had examined his witnesses so persistently and exhaustively in private, and had pursued the case in all its details with such supreme drudgery, that when his witnesses went upon the stand their testimony seemed to the jury to be almost parrot-like; to be so glib, so perfectly consistent, that it seemed as though there must be a weakness in the case, and that such perfection must have come from rehearsals. For that reason the jury decided against him,although he won the case afterwards on appeal.
“Now, I am satisfied that it is just this quality in that man which made it possible for him, in Buffalo, where the Republican party was predominant, to gain minor political victories, and it certainly was that which brought to him such Republican support as enabled him to carry the city in a mayoralty election. We have been seeing just this thing manifested throughout the country since Cleveland became prominent. There probably never was a President since Washington who so completely gained the confidence of a great element in the opposing party as Mr. Cleveland has done; and you can’t explain it in any other way than that just as in Buffalo, in his professional struggles, or in political contests, he was believed to be a faithful man, rigid and true in his convictions; so the opinion has spread throughout the United States, and is entertained by a great many members of the opposing political party, that here is a man who is absolutely true to his own convictions and who is faithful to his responsibilities as he understands them. Now, I have seen enough of American politics to know that while our people admire talent, and sometimes go into spasms of enthusiasm over men who have emotional qualities which appeal to the masses, and which make them personally popular, yet, after all, there is an abiding faith in sincerity, fidelity, and character which compels the American masses to choose the man who has these qualities rather than that one who has brilliant talents; and I think there is no doubt that it was a latent suspicion that Mr. Blaine did not always possess that higher character, while endowed with far more brilliant genius than Mr. Cleveland possesses, which caused the people to choose Cleveland rather than Blaine in 1884.â€
We had some indication that this railway prince was correct in his estimate, at a time during the past summer when Mr. Cleveland was in some peril of physical ailment. The greatest of American advocates, himself an ardent Republican, a man whom his party would be delighted to honor if he would permit it, having heard of Mr. Cleveland’s illness, said to a friend:
“I am more deeply interested in these reports about Mr. Cleveland’s health than I can tell you. I have every confidence in Mr. Cleveland’s integrity of purpose, and in the sincerity of his desire to lift these financial questions above the range of partisanship, and it would be a terrible misfortune for this country if he were to be disabled by illness at this time.â€
This from a man who did not vote for Cleveland, who had never met him more than once or twice, but who had intuitively recognized that quality which is Cleveland’s power. Again, another man, one of preëminent genius in the world of finance, a very strong Republican, having also heard that Mr. Cleveland was seriously ill, went to a friend who had intimacy with the President, and said:
“I wish you would find out for me whether it is true that the President is in danger. I have heard that it is so, and if it is, it is the blackest cloud upon our horizon to-day. I did not vote for Mr. Cleveland, for I do not believe in some of the principles of his party, and I do not agree with him in some of his views. Yet if he had been the candidate of my party I would gladly have voted for him, for I think he is the most conscientious man I ever knew. I have perfect faith in his fidelity to his sense of duty, and I have never seen an action of his as President which I thought was inspired simply by a desire for partisan advantage. I think he is the faithfullest public man that we have had since Lincoln in his adherence to his convictions.â€
There is only one word that will give a name to this quality that distinguishes Mr. Cleveland, and that is,Character—that quality which Emerson describes as a reserve force which acts directly and without means, whose essence, with Mr. Cleveland, is the courage of truth.
Not long ago a group of notable men were discussing Cleveland as a politician, and they seemed to be agreed that in the sense in which the word “politician†is customarily usedhe is not a man of remarkable ability, and there were anecdotes told to justify such opinion as that. His nomination for governor was the result of as purely political manipulation as New York State has ever seen, but he had no part in it. Those who were sincerely urging his nomination permitted him to take no part in these politics, for they had learned that he was possessed of two weaknesses as a politician, which, unless he were restrained, would be likely to defeat their plans: one of them the political fault of honesty. It was displayed in Buffalo once, when, it being proposed to nominate him for mayor, and the ticket agreed upon having been shown to him, he declared, with expressions more emphatic than pious, that he would not permit his name to go on the ticket upon which was the name of a certain man whom he believed to be unworthy, although this man had great political influence.
Another weakness, from the politicians’ point of view, is a seeming incapacity to understand the need of organization in political work. It is not only incapacity to understand the need, but also ignorance of the way in which organization can be effected. It has been revealed in all of Mr. Cleveland’s campaigns. After his election as Governor of New York by a plurality of nearly two hundred thousand, his availability as a presidential candidate was recognized, and, later, was strengthened by the assurance that his messages while Mayor of Buffalo had brought him the respect and confidence of the independent element; yet Mr. Cleveland’s friends very soon discovered that if they were to bring about his nomination for President, it must be done through organization of which he was either ignorant or to which he would be indifferent. So Mr. Cleveland had almost no part in that splendid game of 1884. He knew almost nothing of those things which were being done for him. Mr. Manning and the others had taken him up at first because of his availability; but Mr. Manning soon discovered that a man might be available and still be as ignorant of the science of politics, as understood by those who make it a professional pursuit, as a child.
After Mr. Cleveland became President, he sometimes drove his friends almost to distraction by his seeming incapacity to understand movements in the game of politics, which his friends suggested to him. A number of them went to him some time near the middle of his term as President, to set forth the political condition in New York State. They were men of long training and considerable achievement in politics. They had made successes both in New York City and New York State. They spoke to him with freedom—some of them with bluntness. They said to Mr. Cleveland that the then Governor of New York, Mr. Hill, was constructing with unusual cunning and consummate ability a political machine which might not be friendly, and was perhaps likely to be actively hostile, to him; and then, with much of detail, they showed Mr. Cleveland how he could break down such organization, utterly scatter it, and create and maintain in New York State one upon which he could rely with serenity. The merest tyro in politics can easily understand with what chagrin and astonishment these friends departed from his presence, because he did not seem to have been impressed in the slightest by their assertion that he was in political danger in New York State, and did not appear to comprehend the methods which they suggested by which the danger could be overcome.
Then again, in the spring and summer of 1892, when it seemed for a time as though the tide was setting against his nomination, when it was certain that the most powerful influence ever arrayed against a leading candidate for a presidential nomination had been secured, and one which, according to all precedent, would be successful, Mr. Cleveland astonished and almost vexed those friends of his who were working in and out of season to bring about his nomination, by professing indifference to the opposition of the New York State delegation, and of some of the most powerful politicians in the Democratic party. He had been at the Victoria Hotel one evening, listeningin an almost perfunctory way to the plaints and warnings of his friends. He had no suggestions to offer, no advice to give. A stranger seeing him there would have thought that he was not one of that company holding this consultation, but perhaps a friend, there by chance, whose presence was not offensive, and was therefore tolerated.
At last, complaining of the warmth of the evening, he proposed a stroll; then, taking two friends by their arms, he walked slowly up Fifth Avenue, and astonished them by saying:
“These things which you have told me do not alarm me at all. They can do their worst, and yet I shall be nominated in spite of them.â€
And, later on, after his prediction was justified, and his name in the Chicago Convention had triumphed over all political precedent, and conquered the most powerful and perfect opposition ever arrayed against a candidate, while there was still grumbling and bitter feeling and revengeful threats of New York State, he again amazed these friends by saying to them, when they proposed a certain form of counter-organization to prevent treachery, “No, no, do not do it. Let them do their worst; I can be elected without New York.â€
At a time when the financial clouds were gathering last spring, a little company of politicians, who were personal friends as well, called upon Mr. Cleveland by appointment, and were received in that upper chamber through which for many days a persistent procession filed before the President asking for office. Mr. Cleveland planted himself firmly for an instant before each supplicant, so firmly that it almost seemed to these friends of his standing a little way off that his determination to be persuaded by no appeal to emotion, gratitude, friendship, or by any other thing than fitness revealed itself even in the rigidness of the muscles of his body. Patiently listening to each request and making perfunctory response, the President then received the next and then the next, and no man of all that number who thus met him knew whether his plea had met with favor or refusal. At last the throng was gone, the doors were closed, and there came to the face of the President a strange, hard look, tinged with something of surprise, and turning to his friends who remained he threw himself wearily into his chair and was silent for a moment. When he spoke there was something of sadness, something of reproach, in his tone and manner, and he said:
“You have seen a picture which I see every day, and you may now know why it is that my ears must be deaf to such appeals; why I scarcely hear the words they speak; why I almost fear that with most men who seek with great persistence political office the sense of truth is apt to be blunted, and why, therefore, it is imperative for me to be always suspicious.†Then the President added, with something of indignation:
“But how any man who is a good citizen can come to me now and plead for office, when there is impending financial calamity, I cannot understand. Politics! Is it possible that the politicians do not see that the best as well as the imperative politics now is that which will bring the country back to financial prosperity?â€
Some hours later, one of that company had another glimpse of the President. Washington was still for the night. The White House was dark, excepting for a light that burned in the room where the President works. At his desk sat the man who had said in the morning that his ears were deaf to the office-seekers’ appeals, and yet with patient drudgery he was now examining the indorsements and recommendations of the different applicants, as he had been doing for hours. Then, taking up his pen, he began to write. The pen seemed scarcely ever to stop, and, watching through the partly opened door that led into an outer office, the President’s friend was reminded by it of something which he had read or heard. “Where have I heard or seen something which that sight brings to my memory?†he asked himself. The impression remained with him after he left Washington, until at last, taking down fromhis library shelf a biography, he read this passage:
“Since we sat down I have been watching a hand which I see behind the window of that room across the street. It fascinates my eye; it never stops. Page after page is finished and put upon a heap of manuscript, and still the hand goes on unwearied, and so it will be till candles are brought, and God knows how long after that. It is the same every night. I well know what hand it is—’tis Walter Scott’s.â€
Cleveland is not, however, indifferent to political organization. He believes in it; he supports it. That was revealed at the conference which he held in October, 1892, in the Victoria Hotel, with some of the leaders of what is called the Democratic machine in New York. Some time there will be a revelation of what was said and done there in all detail, and it will furnish important light upon Mr. Cleveland’s character as well as his more purely political capacity. This much is known: that he did there and with emphasis maintain the right and duty of party men to form associations, to submit to discipline, and to act by common agreement—in other words, to use a colloquialism, he “recognized the machine.†But he also made one magnificent manifestation of that higher quality of his which is his character, for when there was something like threatening intimation made by one of those present, Mr. Cleveland declared that rather than do the thing that was asked of him he would withdraw from the ticket, and the country would know why he had withdrawn; and, after he said that, he held those men who had dared to make such intimation of threat subdued and supple in the hollow of his fist, from which condition they have not strayed from that day to this.
He would have been a failure in the House of Representatives as a parliamentary leader, probably a failure as a debater. The parliamentary leader is for his party always, right or wrong, and Mr. Cleveland could never have assumed command incurring such responsibilities as that. His intellectual processes are not quick enough for the give and take of debate. Blaine or Garfield, Randall or Thurman, would have overmatched him. Probably no member of either House has more greatly interested him than Mr. Reed, who in all respects, excepting personal force, differs from him. Each has expressed something of regard for the personal qualities of the other, and there has come to light a keen interest in Mr. Cleveland’s eyes as friends have described Reed, the parliamentary leader and debater, to him. He has never seen Reed standing in the aisle just beyond his desk, a throng of associates with hot, eager faces surrounding him, he towering above them, his head thrust slightly forward and a little to one side, a half-whimsical, half-defiant curl upon his lips, and the sneer of the coming sarcasm already betrayed by suggestive swelling of his nostrils; or else with the placid, serene, and tantalizing composure with which he prepares to hurl an epigram, already in his mind, at his antagonists. Nor has Mr. Cleveland seen that readiness to deliver almost tiger-like ferocity of attack if it be needed. The black flag—no quarter asked or given—hoisted when necessary, that furious, all-controlling, unconquerable determination to win, to beat down opposition at all hazards and any cost except outright dishonor, straining even a little toward unfair advantage when that and nothing else will win, and expecting to meet unfairness in return; bent on winning—somehow, anyhow, but winning—Mr. Cleveland has never seen such impressive spectacle as Reed makes when at his finest as the champion of his party in parliamentary battle and debate. But they have told him of these things, and he has seemed not to tire, but to delight to hear them.
He could not do that. He would stand by a principle or fall with it. Reed might beat him down in a turbulent body like the House, but he would go down like Galileo, crying, “But the worldDOESmove!â€
Mr. Cleveland has himself recognized this intellectual defect, if it be one, for last spring, when a company of New York friends were speaking to him about the financial condition, hesaid, with great earnestness, “I do not quite see where I am; I must have time;†and then added a favorite expression of his, “My head is in a bag now; I cannot see clearly.†But these men, when they heard him say this, realized that when he did see clearly, as he believed, then his convictions would become established, and it would almost be as easy to move the earth from its axis as to shift him from them.
When he met his first cabinet, there were gathered around the table two men of extraordinary brilliancy of intellect, another of splendid repute and vast experience, and all of them were men of perhaps finer intellectual quality, and certainly had many advantages, both natural and acquired, which he did not possess. Yet Secretary Whitney, speaking of this meeting to an old college friend of his, some time after, said, “When we met the President in the cabinet room, we had not been there ten minutes before we realized that ‘Where MacGregor sat, there was the head of the table.’†Whitney himself was the only member of the cabinet who was younger than Cleveland, and three members of it had been active in public life before Cleveland was admitted to the bar.
After Mr. Cleveland had been elected to the presidency the second time, but before his inauguration, he spent an evening with a gentleman whose political experience began with the formation of the Republican party. They were together in Mr. Cleveland’s library in New York, until long past midnight. The conversation touched upon public men and political history, and it was then revealed to his visitor that Mr. Cleveland had that order of intellect which absorbs not from books but from personal contact with men of experience. It was evident that he had learned far more of public men than he was believed to know, and he had gleaned this information by persistent inquiry. It was made plain that he got such grasp of public questions as he possessed, by searching investigation, not of books, but of men’s minds and experience. Late that night Mr. Cleveland asked his visitor about Lincoln, being anxious to know everything that this man could tell him about the Republican party’s first President; and when Mr. Cleveland put a certain question to his friend, then it was made plain that Lincoln’s career had been deeply studied by Mr. Cleveland, and that he anxiously sought to learn the secret of his mastery of men and direction of events. That question was, “How was Mr. Lincoln able to overcome the politicians, to defeat conspiracies, to control a half-rebellious and not personally loyal cabinet, and to maintain himself in spite of attack, open and insidious?†And the visitor, who knew Lincoln well, said in reply, “Mr. Cleveland, Lincoln did this because he weighed every act by his judgment of what the estimation of the plain people of the country would be about it. He reached over the heads of the politicians, and out to that great body of American citizens whom he called ‘the plain people.’ He believed that the plain people were year in and out accurate in their judgments, and he believed that the man who had their confidence could face the politicians with contempt even, because he was sure to be right.â€
For some moments Mr. Cleveland said nothing, and then, with great impressiveness and something of serenity, he said, “I have long seen that. The public man cannot go astray who follows the plain people, nor can the politician err who respects their impulses.†In this single remark we have probably the secret revealed of the influence which controls Mr. Cleveland.
It has been said of Mr. Cleveland that Republicans have supported him because he is a better man than his party, but the assertion seems a flippant and thoughtless one. Mr. Cleveland is no better than the best ideals of the Democratic party, although he is immeasurably better than the false and abhorrent influences and elements which have been pleased to associate themselves with that party. At its best the Democratic party is a splendid force. Mr. Cleveland is esteemed better than his party by some Republicans, because his party has not always been true to its principles. But he is a true Democrat.
By Arthur Warren.
Two queens travel from the Paddington station of the Great Western Railway in London to their palatial homes—the Queen of England, and the Queen of Song. If you ask at Paddington for directions to Craig-y-Nos Castle, the porters will inform you with not less alacrity than they would have shown had you inquired the way to Windsor. And you observe they delight in the duty. They make you as comfortable as possible for your two-hundred-mile journey. You depart with the circumstance of an ambassador. Had you been accredited to the foot of the throne by some reigning monarch of the continent you could not be more thoughtfully attended by the railway serving-men. You are a guest of Madame Patti, and that, in the eyes of these honest fellows, is as good as being a guest of Queen Victoria.
I pulled up at the end of a broiling hot day in August, at a wee bit station on the top of a Welsh mountain. The station is called “Penwyllt;†it overlooks the Swansea Valley, and stands about half-way between Brecon and the sea. When a traveller alights at Penwyllt there is no need to question his purpose. He can have but one destination, and that is Craig-y-Nos Castle. A carriage from the castle was awaiting me, and we set off down the steep road to the valley, a sudden turn showing the Patti palace there on the banks of the Tawe. The place was two miles distant, and a thousand feet below our wheels, but I could see an American flag flying from the square tower, and there it waved during the successive days of my visit; for it is Madame Patti’s way to welcome a guest with the emblem of his nationality. A prettier compliment is not conceivable.
Mr. Gladstone, in a vein of pleasantry, once told Madame Patti that he would like to make her Queen of Wales. But she is that already, and more. She is Queen of Hearts the world over, and every soul with an ear is her liege. But, literally, in Wales Madame Patti is very like a queen. She lives in a palace; people come to her from the ends of the earth; she is attended with “love, honor, troops of friends;†and whenever she stirs beyond her own immediate domain the country folk gather by the roadside, dropping courtesies, and throwing kisses to her bonny majesty.
Her greeting of me was characteristic of this most famous and fortunate of women, this unspoiled favorite of our whirling planet. A group of her friends stood merrily chatting in the hall, and, as I approached, a dainty little woman with big brown eyes came running out from the centre of the company, stretched forth a hand, spoke a hearty welcome, and accompanied it with the inimitable smile which has made slaves of emperors. The vivacious and charming creature was Madame Patti, or, as we know her in private life, Madame Patti-Nicolini. Her husband is a handsome man of fifty-eight, though he looks twenty years younger. He is as devoted as if he were the newly accepted lover of an entrancing lass in her teens, and though his English is rather hazardous, he contrives to get about bravely in Wales.
My visit could not have been more happily timed. I found a sort of family party at Craig-y-Nos, and there was no stiff ceremonial to be encountered.
Note.—Our illustrations of Craig-y-Nos, interior and exterior, are reproductions from photographs specially taken forMcClure’s Magazineby W. Arthur Smith, Swansea, South Wales.—Ed.as the case usually is in British country-houses. La Diva’s guests were intimate friends, and chiefly a company of fair English girls who pass every summer with her. When the guests, in full dinner-dress, assembled in the drawing-room, I found that we covered five nationalities—Italian, German, French, English, and American—and while we awaited the appearance of our hostess, the gathering seemed like a polyglot congress.
As the chimes in the clock-tower pealed the hour of eight, a pretty vision appeared at the drawing-room door. It was Patti, royally bedecked. The defects of the masculine mind leave me incapable of describing the attire of that sparkling little woman. But the spectacle brought us to our feet, bowing as if we had been a company of court-gallants in the “spacious days of great Elizabeth,†and we added the modern tribute of applause, which our queen acknowledged with a silvery laugh. I remember only that the gown was white, and of some silky stuff, and that about La Diva’s neck were loops of pearls, and that above her fluffy chestnut hair were glittering jewels. With women it may be different, but no man can give a list of Patti’s adornments on any occasion; he knows only that they become her, and that he sees only her radiant face. Before our murmurs of delight had ceased, Patti, who had not entered the room, but merely stood in the portal of it, turned, taking the arm of the guest who was to sit at her right hand, and away we marched in her train, as if she were truly the queen, through the corridors to the conservatory, where dinner was served.
CRAIG-Y-NOS.
CRAIG-Y-NOS.
It was my privilege at the castle table to sit at Madame Patti’s left. At her right was one whose friendship with her dates from the instant of her first European triumph, thirty-two years ago. I was taken into the family, as it were. But the best of my privilege was that it brought me so near our hostess, and made easy conversation possible. The delight of thosedéjeunersand dinners at Craig-y-Nos is not to be forgotten. There is a notionabroad that these meals are held in state; but they are not. There is merely the ordinary dinner custom of an English mansion. Themenu, though, is stately enough, for the art culinary is practised in its most exquisite fashion there. The dining-room is very seldom used, for, handsome as that apartment is, Patti, and her guests too, for that matter, prefer to eat in the great glass room which was formerly the conservatory and is still called so. There we sit, as far as outlook goes, out of doors, for, in whatever direction we gaze, we look up or down the Swansea Valley, across to the mountains, and along the tumbling course of the river Tawe. To the imminent neglect of my repast, I sat gazing at the wood-covered cliffs of Craig-y-Nos (Rock-of-the-Night) opposite, and listening to the ceaseless music of the mountain stream. Patti, noticing my admiration for the view, said, “You see what a dreadful place it is in which I bury myself.â€
CRAIG-Y-NOS AND TERRACES FROM THE RIVER.
CRAIG-Y-NOS AND TERRACES FROM THE RIVER.
“‘Bury’ yourself! On the contrary, you have here all the charms of life, and you seem to have discovered the fountain of perpetual youth. A ‘dreadful’ place? Indeed, it is a paradise in miniature!â€
“But one of your countrymen says that I hide far from the world among the ugly Welsh hills. He writes it in an American journal of fabulous circulation, and I suppose people believe the tale, do they not?†La Diva laughed heartily at the thought of a too credulous public, and then she added: “Really, they do write the oddest things about my home, as if it were either the scene of Jack the Giant-killer’s exploits on the top of the Beanstalk, or a prison in a desolate land.â€
After visiting Patti at Craig-y-Nos one need no longer wonder why this enchanting woman sings “Home, Sweet Home†with such feeling. For she inhabits a paradise. There is not anywhere a lovelier spot, nor is there elsewhere a place so remote and at the same time so complete in attractiveness, and in every resource of civilization.
The dinner passed on merrily. Merrily is exactly the word to describe it. Up and down the table good stories flew, sometimes faster than we could catch them. Nobody likes a good joke better than Patti, and when she heard one that particularly pleased her she would interpret it to some guest who had not sufficiently mastered the language in which the original anecdote was told. It was delightful comedy, and after watching it with high pleasure, while La Diva spoke in a brace of languages, I said: “I wonder if you have what people call a native tongue, or whether in all of them you are ‘native and to the manner born’?â€
“Oh, I don’t know so many,†she replied, “only—let’s see—English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian.â€
“And which language do you speak best, if I may ask?â€
“I really don’t know. To me there is no difference, as far as readiness goes,and I suppose that in all of them readiness helps.â€
MADAME PATTI’S FATHER.
MADAME PATTI’S FATHER.
“But you have a favorite among them?â€
“Oh, yes, Italian. Listen!†And then she recited an Italian poem. Next to hearing Patti sing, the sweetest sound is her Italian speech. I expressed my delight, and she said:
“Speaking of languages, Mr. Gladstone paid me a pretty compliment a little while ago. I will show you his letter to-morrow, if you care to see it.â€
Patti forgets nothing. The next day she brought me Mr. Gladstone’s letter. The Grand Old Man had been among her auditors at Edinburgh, and after her performance he went upon the stage to thank her for the pleasure he had felt in listening to her songs. He complained a little of a cold which had been troubling him, and Patti begged him to try some lozenges which she had found useful. That night she sent a little box of them to Mr. Gladstone, and the statesman acknowledged the gift with this letter:
“6Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh,October 22, 1890.“Dear Madame Patti:“I do not know how to thank you enough for your charming gift. I am afraid, however, that the use of your lozenges will not make me your rival.Voce quastata di ottante’ anni non si ricupera.“It was a rare treat to hear from your Italian lips last night the songs of my own tongue, rendered with a delicacy of modulation and a fineness of utterance such as no native ever in my hearing has reached or even approached. Believe me,“Faithfully yours,“W. E. Gladstone.â€
“6Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh,October 22, 1890.
“Dear Madame Patti:
“I do not know how to thank you enough for your charming gift. I am afraid, however, that the use of your lozenges will not make me your rival.Voce quastata di ottante’ anni non si ricupera.
“It was a rare treat to hear from your Italian lips last night the songs of my own tongue, rendered with a delicacy of modulation and a fineness of utterance such as no native ever in my hearing has reached or even approached. Believe me,
“Faithfully yours,
“W. E. Gladstone.â€
MADAME PATTI AT EIGHTEEN.
MADAME PATTI AT EIGHTEEN.
This letter very naturally gave our conversation a reminiscent turn, and, after some talk of great folk she has known, I asked Madame Patti what had been the proudest experience in her career. “For a great and unexpected honor most gracefully tendered, nothing that has touched me deeper than a compliment paid by the Prince of Wales and a distinguished company, at a dinner given in honor of the Duke of York and the Princess May, a little while before their wedding. The dinner was given by Mr. Alfred Rothschild, one of my oldest and best friends. There were many royalties present, and more dukes and duchesses than I can easily remember. During the ceremonies the Prince of Wales arose, and to my great astonishment, proposed the health of his ‘old and valued friend Madame Patti.’ He madesucha pretty speech, and in the course of it said that he had first seen and heard me in Philadelphia in 1860, when I sang in ‘Martha,’ andthat since then his own attendance at what he was good enough to call my ‘victories in the realm of song’ had been among his most pleasant recollections. He recalled the fact that on one of the occasions when the princess and himself had invited me to Marlborough House, his wife had held up little Prince George, in whose honor we were this night assembled, and bade him kiss me, so that in after life he might say that he had ‘kissed the famous Madame Patti.’ And then, do you know, that whole company of royalty, nobility, and men of genius rose and cheered me and drank my health. Don’t you think that any little woman would be proud, and ought to be proud, of a spontaneous tribute like that?â€
It is difficult, when repeating thus in print such snatches of autobiography, to suggest the modest tone and manner of the person whose words may be recorded. It is particularly difficult in the case of Madame Patti, who is as absolutely unspoiled as the freshestingénue. Autobiography such as hers must read a little fanciful to most folk; it is so far removed from the common experiences of us all, and even from the extraordinary experiences of the renowned persons we usually hear about. But there is not a patch of vanity in Patti’s sunny nature. Her life has been a long, unbroken record of success—success of a degree attained by no other woman; no one else has won and held such homage; no one else has been so wondrously endowed with beauty and genius and sweet simplicity of nature—a nature unspoiled by flattery, by applause, by wealth, by the possession and exercise of power. Patti at fifty is like a girl in her ways, in her thoughts, in her spirit, in her disinterestedness, in her enjoyments. Time has dimmed none of her charms, it has lessened none of her superb gifts. She said to me one day: “They tell me I am getting to be an old woman, but I don’t believe it. I don’t feel old. I feel young. I am the youngest person of my acquaintance.†That is true enough, as they know who see Patti from day to day. She has all the enthusiasms and none of the affectations of a young girl. When she speaks of herself it is with the most delicious frankness and lack of self-consciousness. She is perfectly natural.
MADAME PATTI IN 1869 AND IN 1877.
MADAME PATTI IN 1869 AND IN 1877.
She promised to show me the programme of that Philadelphia performance before the Prince of Wales so long ago, and the next day she put it before me. It is a satin programme with gilt fringe, and its announcement is surmounted by the Prince of Wales’s feathers. At that Philadelphia performance Adelina Patti made her first appearance before royalty. In the next year she made her London début. It was at Covent Garden, as Amina in “La Sonnambula.†The next morning Europe rang with the fame of thenew prima donna from America. “I tried to show them that the young lady from America was entitled to a hearing,†said she, as we looked over the old programmes.
THE DINING-ROOM.
THE DINING-ROOM.
“And has the ‘young lady from America’ retained that spirit of national pride, or has she become so much a citizen of the world that no corner of it has any greater claim than another upon her affections?â€
“I love the Italian language, the American people, the English country, and my Welsh home.â€
“A choice yet catholic selection. The national preferences, if you can be said to own any, have reason on their side. Your parents were Italian, you were born in Spain, you grew from girlhood to womanhood in America, you first won international fame in England, and among these Welsh hills you have planted a paradise.â€
“How nice of you! That evening at Mr. Alfred Rothschild’s, the Prince of Wales asked me why I do not stay in London during ‘the season,’ and take some part in its endless social pleasures. ‘Because, your Royal Highness,’ I replied, ‘I have a lovely home in Wales, and whenever I come away from it I leave my heart there.’ ‘After all,’ said the prince, ‘why should you stay in London when the whole world is only too glad to make pilgrimages to Craig-y-Nos?’ Wasn’t that pretty?â€
I wish I could somehow convey thenaïvetéwith which the last three words were uttered. The tone expressed the most innocent pleasure in the world. Indeed, when Patti speaks in this way she seems to be wondering why people should say and do so many pleasant things in her behalf. There is an air of childish wonder in her look and voice.
I said: “All good republicans have a passion for royalty. I find that an article about a king or a queen or a prince is in greater demand in the United States than anywhere else in the world. Do tell me something more about the Prince and Princess of Wales. I promise you, as a zealous democrat, that no one on the far side of the Atlantic will skip a word. Have the prince and princess visited Craig-y-Nos?â€
“No. But they were coming here a couple of years ago. See—here isthe prince’s letter fixing the date. But it was followed by their sudden bereavement, and then for many, many months they lived in quiet and mourning, only coming forth in their usual way just before the recent royal wedding. They sent me an invitation to the wedding festivities. But alas! I could not attend them. I had just finished my season, and was lying painfully ill with rheumatism. You heard of that? For weeks I suffered acutely. It’s an old complaint. I have had it at intervals since I was a child. But about the royal wedding. When the Prince and Princess of Wales learned that I was too ill to accept their gracious invitation, they—well, what do you suppose they did next?â€
“Something very apt and graceful.â€
“They sent me two large portraits of themselves, bearing their autographs, and fitted into great gilt frames. You shall see the portraits after dinner. They occupy the place of honor in Craig-y-Nos Castle.â€
THE CONSERVATORY.
THE CONSERVATORY.
We had reached the coffee stage of the dinner, and the cigars were being passed. The ladies did not withdraw, according to the mediæval and popular English habit, but the company remained unbroken, and while the gentlemen smoked, the ladies kept them in conversation. Presently, some one proposed Patti’s health, and we all stood, singing “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.â€
That put the ball of merriment in motion. One of the young ladies, a goddaughter of our hostess, carolled a stanza from a popular ditty. At first I thought it audacious that any one should sing in the presence of La Diva. It seemed an act of sacrilege. But in another instant we were all at it, piping the chorus, and Patti leading off. The fun of the thing was infectious. The song finished, we ventured another, and Patti joined us in the refrains of a medley of music-hall airs, beginning with London’s latest mania, “Daisy Bell, or a Bicycle Made for Two,†and winding up with Chevalier’s “Old Kent Road†and the “Coster’s Serenade,†Coburn’s “Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo,†and the transatlantic “Daddy Wouldn’t Buy me a Bow-Wow.â€
Madame turned with an arch look—“You will think our behavior abominable.â€
“On the contrary, I find it very jolly, not to say a rare experience; for it is not everybody who has heard you sing comic songs.â€
Patti’s answer was a peal of laughter, and then she sat there singing very softly a stanza of “My Old Kentucky Home,†and as we finished the chorus she lifted a clear, sweet note, which thrilled us through and through, and stirred us to rapturous applause. “What have I done?†Patti put the question with a puzzled look. The reply came from the adjoining library: “High E.†One of our number had run to sound the piano pitch. Then I recalled what Sir Morell Mackenzie had told me a little while before he died. I was chatting with the great physician in that famous room of his in Harley Street. We happened to mention Madame Patti. “That great singer,†said Sir Morell, “has the most wonderful throat I have ever seen; it is the only one I have ever seen with the vocal chords in absolutely perfect condition after many years of use. They are not strained, or warped or roughened, but, as I tell you, they are absolutely perfect. There is no reason why they should not remain so ten years longer, and with care and health twenty years longer.â€