CHAPTER XII1875

Garibaldi.--Page 96.

King Victor Emmanuel.--Page 96.

The scene, when Garibaldi came to Rome from the solitude of his little island, to enter parliament the next year, was worthy the brush of a great artist. The Italy that he had made, and presented to Victor Emmanuel, had seemed to have forgotten the old man of Caprera. He was feeble and poor and rheumatic. Suddenly all Italy,hisItaly, remembered him. The King sent a gilded chariot drawn by six white horses, to take him through the streets of Rome. As the old cripple, wearing his Garibaldi mantle, limped into the Parliament house, every member rose to do him honor. I would rather have been Garibaldi in Rome that day, than to have been Cæsar, riding along the same streets, with slaves and subjugated peoples in his train.

March 5.--Looked at numbers of the historic Roman palaces. The one that affected me most was the dingy and neglected old building in the Ghetto, where the Cenci lived. This immense and half-empty pile, in an obscure part of Rome, would attract nobody, save for the story of a beautiful girl, immortalized by the pencil of Guido Reni. All the time I was within the building, my mind was on a scene in a prison, where this same girl hung in torments before her cruel tormentors, crying to be let down, and she “would tell it all”--the killing of her own father.

And then came that morning before daylight, the morning of her execution. Herself and an artist are in a cell. A little candle burns, the executioners wait outside the door, and Guido Reni, to make her picture striking, drapes a sheet about her head and shoulders, while all the time she is waiting there for death. Saddest tale of Rome!

Next morning I called at the American Legation. Mr. W----, the secretary, affected the utmost ignorance and indifference as to who I was, or whether my card would finally reach Mr. Marsh, our Minister. I asked him to hand the card back to me, and walked over to the Rospigliosi palace, where Mr. Marsh promptly received me, and in thekindest manner. I was in the presence of a statesman and a scholar--not a snob.

Mr. Marsh had followed the Italian court all about Italy--to Turin, Florence, Rome. He stood high in the estimation of the Italian court and foreign diplomats. His genius and scholarship were now casting luster on the American name.

“Don’t tell anybody at home what a palace I live in,” he said to me, jocosely. “They will think me an aristocrat over there, whereas I am the plainest of republicans. Here in Rome a palace is just as cheap as anything. Everybody lives in a palace here.”

In another part of the palace, I saw Guido’s great picture of Aurora. I noticed the mark of the French cannon ball that went through it when Garibaldi was defending Rome.

Bought a copy of Guido’s Cenci, and then went and looked at the Angelo bridge, where they cut off the head of Beatrice.

I went often to Mr. Freeman’s studio. He was the first American painter to live in Rome. He was, too, the first U.S. Consul to Italy, and he it was who protected Margaret Fuller, on a time, from the danger of a mob. It was at the time the French forced their way into Rome. He planted the Stars and Stripes on her balcony, and the mob fell back. That was in 1849.

Freeman painted a picture for me that has inspired a poem by J. Buchanan Read. It was “The Princess.” The model was a blonde, with hair like gold. Freeman corrected my notion that there were no blondes in Italy. There are many, just as there were in the time of the earlier masters. Yellow was Titian’s favorite color.

Freeman told me much of Rome, as it was when he first went there, in 1840. He lived there under three popes, Gregory, Pius IX and Leo XIII.

Rome was entirely different from to-day. The houses had open entrances, or, where there were doors, they swungoutward to the street, like American barn doors. There were almost no sidewalks, and the few seen were only wide enough for one person. The streets were dimly lighted by occasional oil lamps, great distances apart. Of course, assassination in such streets was of common occurrence. The water spouts of the houses were so projected as to empty themselves in cataracts on the heads of passers-by.

The pavements were made of cobble stones, that had to be covered with straw or earth when the Pope went abroad in his grandeur.

The city was full of foreign artists, along in the fifties, as now. Among them were Crawford and Greenough, Story andWest, whom Byron called “Europe’s worst painter and poor England’s best.”

The fact is, West was a Pennsylvania Quaker, though he became King George’s court artist, and at last got buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

I went often to the Vatican, not to see the palace itself, for that impressed me not at all, or only as a great and miscellaneous pile, but to see a certain picture there. The artist who made it was but thirty-seven years old when he died. Yet, it has been said that in the “Transfiguration” one sees “the last perfection of art.” This picture seems to be one of those things that no one ever thinks to try to emulate. Like the Iliad and Paradise Lost, nothing of their kind came before them, and nothing is looked for to follow them.

One morning I was drinking my coffee in a little den in the Via Condotti. A very singular-looking man came in and sat down at the little table next to mine. Hearing me speak English with a friend, he addressed me. “You are the Consul at Zurich, are you not? You were pointed out to me the other day in the street. I am Joaquin Miller of California. Let us get acquainted.” I moved my chair and coffee over to his table. I was greatly gratified at meeting a poet who seemed to me to have some of the genius ofByron. His “Songs of the Sierras” have the ring of the master. Last summer I read them in Switzerland. Their freshness, their flavor of the prairie and the mountain, their passionate utterance, took me by storm. What the English said of him, in their extravagant joy at “discovering” a live genius in the wilds of the United States, did not affect me, it was the stirring passion of the verse itself. The buffalo, the Indian scout, the burning prairie, the people of the desert, the women with bronzed arms and palpitating hearts, the men in sombreros, with brave lives, and love worth the dying for--that was what he was writing about, and they were all alive before me.

Sitting here at the little white marble table of an Italian café, he seemed all out of place. There was nothing in the surroundings of which this half-wild looking poet-scout of the prairies was a part. His yellow locks, flashing blue eyes, stormy face, athletic form, careless dress, and broad-brimmed hat on the floor by his feet, all told of another kind of life.

Much of his talk was cynical in the extreme. He was ridiculing everything, everybody, even himself, and he looked about him as if constantly thinking to grab his hat, bound for the door, and rush over the Tiber with a yell. He hated restraint of any kind whatever--dress, custom, language.

Miller was now writing in some little attic in Rome, but none of his friends knew where. He would not tell them; he wanted to be alone.

A boy brought us the morning journal, and we talked of newspapers. I asked him what English and American papers he read. He smiled, and answered ironically: “When I wantseriousness, I read the LondonPunch, and fortruth, I take the New YorkHerald.”

There was no talk that morning with him about poetry, but he was jocose and cynical.

He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was gettingready to try my hand at a drama. “Don’t do it--all damned nonsense!” he cried. “Dramas worth anything are not wanted, and if you write in blank verse, as you say you propose, not one actor in five hundred knows how to recite the lines. It must bemighty plain prosefor these wind sawyers.”

Just then a tall, fine looking young man came and sat down by our table. Mr. Miller nudged me, and whispered, “Bingen on the Rhine.” “That is young Norton, son of the woman who wrote ‘Bingen on the Rhine.’” I looked at him with interest; but he was English, and I was a stranger, so conversation at that particular table suddenly stopped.

It was on this visit to Rome that I often saw Victor Emmanuel, Italy’s first King. Every Sunday afternoon he drove on the Pincian Hill. The extreme Catholics of Rome, the Pope’s party, paid him little or no attention, and scarcely greeted him when he passed; but all the rest of Rome and all Italy nearly worshiped the “Re Galantuomo.” He was a stout, dark looking man, with black eyes and a mustache like a horse’s mane. He was fifty-six years old then, and had been twelve years King of Sardinia, and sixteen years King of Italy.

At this time our Minister, Mr. Marsh, arranged to have a friend and myself presented to Pope Pius IX, but a sudden attack of Roman fever deprived me of the pleasure.

Two men have existed in my life-time whom I should have given much to know,--Mr. Gladstone and Abraham Lincoln. Once I was a bearer of dispatches to Mr. Lincoln, but illness led me to hurry away, after giving the trust to General Grant. It has been the regret of my life that I missed grasping the hand of, possibly, the greatest man that ever lived.

Back in Switzerland.Great excitement on this May Day, 1874, for on the 19th of last month, by a popular vote, the people changed the Swiss Constitution. Instead of twenty-two little cantons, doing just as they pleased, theywill now have a centralized republic, more like the United States.

Some interesting features of the new Swiss system are these: The President is chosen for but a year, and can not succeed himself in office. No military surrender is allowed. The post and telegraph and telephone belong to the government, which also controls all railroads and owns some. Schools are free and compulsory. Salt and gunpowder are government monopolies, and factories are under national control or regulation. Abuse of the freedom of the press may be punished by the general council. Supreme Court Judges are elected, but from the legislative body. National laws must be submitted to popular vote if demanded by 30,000 people. The President must be chosen by the Assembly from among its own members. Members of the Cabinet have seats and votes in the Assembly.

August 18, 1874.--Had a long letter some time since from General Sherman. He says: “Don’t rely too much on my influence here in Washington. Privately, we feel here that President Grant has somewhat gone back on his old friends, in trying to make alliances with new ones. Besides, I am compelled to endorse a good many on their war record, and would not like to be found to choose among them.” He also says that this fall he will probably move to St. Louis. “There are too many commanding officers here in Washington.”

On the 7th he writes interestingly about the histories of the war.

“Washington, D. C., August 7, 1874.“Dear Byers:--I was glad to receive your letter of the 19th of July, and, with you, think the Centennial of Philadelphia will prove a lamentable failure. Congress will not probably adopt it as a national affair, and it will degenerate into a mere state or city affair.“Economy is now the cry here, and it may be that it is forced on us by the vast cost of the Civil War, which wasbridged over by paper money, that now calls for interest and principal. As in former years, the first blow falls on the Army and Navy, that are treated as mere pensioners, and every cent is begrudged.“No one who was an actor in the Grand Drama of the Civil War, seems willing to risk its history. I have endeavored to interest Members of Congress in the preliminary steps of preparing and printing in convenient form the official dispatches, but find great opposition, lest the task should fall on some prejudiced person who would in the preparation and compilation favor McClellan or Grant or some one party.“All histories thus far, of which Draper’s is the best, are based for facts on the newspaper reports, which were necessarily hasty and imperfect. Till the official reports are accessible, it would be unsafe for any one to attempt a narration of events beyond his personal vision, and no single person saw a tenth part of the whole. I have some notes of my own part in manuscript, and copies of all my reports and letters, but am unwilling to have them printed lest it should involve me in personal controversies.“Minnie will be married Oct. 1st, and we will all remove to St. Louis soon thereafter.“All send you and Mrs. Byers the assurance of their affection. Believe me always your friend,“W. T. Sherman.”

“Washington, D. C., August 7, 1874.

“Dear Byers:--I was glad to receive your letter of the 19th of July, and, with you, think the Centennial of Philadelphia will prove a lamentable failure. Congress will not probably adopt it as a national affair, and it will degenerate into a mere state or city affair.

“Economy is now the cry here, and it may be that it is forced on us by the vast cost of the Civil War, which wasbridged over by paper money, that now calls for interest and principal. As in former years, the first blow falls on the Army and Navy, that are treated as mere pensioners, and every cent is begrudged.

“No one who was an actor in the Grand Drama of the Civil War, seems willing to risk its history. I have endeavored to interest Members of Congress in the preliminary steps of preparing and printing in convenient form the official dispatches, but find great opposition, lest the task should fall on some prejudiced person who would in the preparation and compilation favor McClellan or Grant or some one party.

“All histories thus far, of which Draper’s is the best, are based for facts on the newspaper reports, which were necessarily hasty and imperfect. Till the official reports are accessible, it would be unsafe for any one to attempt a narration of events beyond his personal vision, and no single person saw a tenth part of the whole. I have some notes of my own part in manuscript, and copies of all my reports and letters, but am unwilling to have them printed lest it should involve me in personal controversies.

“Minnie will be married Oct. 1st, and we will all remove to St. Louis soon thereafter.

“All send you and Mrs. Byers the assurance of their affection. Believe me always your friend,

“W. T. Sherman.”

LETTERS FROM MRS. SHERMAN AND THE GENERAL--HE TELLS ME HE IS WRITING HIS LIFE--THE NEGRO QUESTION--A CHATEAU BY LAKE ZURICH--I WRITE A BOOK ON SWITZERLAND--ALSO WRITE A PLAY--A CITY OF DEAD KINGS--GO TO LONDON--MEET COLONEL FORNEY--DINNER AT GEO. W. SMALLEY’S--KATE FIELD--VISIT BOUCICAULT--CONVERSATIONS WITH THE NEWER SHAKESPEARE--THE BEAUTIFUL MINNIE WALTON--BREAKFAST AT HER HOME--PROF. FICK--HIS HOUSE BUILT IN THE OLD ROMAN WALL--LECTURES--HOLIDAYS AT THE CONSULATE--MRS. CONGRESSMAN KELLEY--A STUDENT COMMERS--BEER DRINKING--DUKES OF THE REPUBLIC--DUELS--LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--PRUSSIAN ARMY MANEUVERS.

March 24, 1875.--Received a welcome and gossipy letter from Mrs. General Sherman. It reads:

“St. Louis, Mo., March 12, 1875.“My Dear Major:--Your welcome letter would have been answered immediately, but I have not been well. My general health is very good, but the weather this Winter has been exceptionally cold.“Minnie and her good husband, with whom she is very happy, live a few squares from us, and we see them every day; Minnie having learned to be a great walker, during her sojourn in Europe. We find our circle of friends and acquaintances very large, and we find that almost as muchtime has to be devoted to visiting here as in Washington. We are delightfully situated in the home we occupied for several years, before we removed to Washington, and which belongs to us. We have plenty of spare room for friends, and shall certainly claim a good, long visit from you and Mrs. Byers and the children, when you return to your own country. Should the next Administration be Democratic, that may not be very long hence. Pray remember that I shall expect you.“I have seen, and admire very much, your poem on ‘The Sea’ in the ‘Navy Journal.’“I am very glad you were gratified to receive the pretty copy of your grand song, ‘When Sherman Marched Down to the Sea.’ I shall have something else to send you soon. The General’s Memoirs are in the hands of the publishers, Appleton & Co., of N. Y., and will be out in May. It will be in two volumes, excellent print, and I am sure you will find it entertaining. I will see that you get an early copy. Please write to me when you receive it, without waiting to read it, because I shall be anxious to know if it has gone safely. Should you not receive it by the last of May, let me know. Do not buy a copy, for I wish to send you one. The book begins in 1846 and extends to the close of the war. The chapters that I have read arehighly interesting.“The General seems to be growing older in appearance, but his health is good, and his spirits are the same; his vivacity has not sensibly diminished. To-night he is off to the theater, to see Charlotte Cushman, who makes her last appearance in St. Louis to-morrow. We have had a great many attractive actors and actresses here this Winter, and we have yet in store a greater treat than all. Ristori is playing in New York and will be here some time during the Spring. The General and Lizzie both admired Albani exceedingly, and think her a superior actress to Nielson and as good a singer. I did not see her, as the weather was bad and my cold was severe during her stay here.“St. Louis is a city of great commercial enterprise and has a wonderful future before her. Perhaps you will select this as a place of residence on your return home. We would be very glad to have you here.“I hope Mrs. Byers and the children are well and that your own health grows stronger. Lizzie joins me in best love to all. She and I are alone to-night. Elly and Rachel are away at school, Minnie in a home of her own, and Cumpsy in bed.“Believe me very truly and warmly your friend,“Ellen Ewing Sherman.”

“St. Louis, Mo., March 12, 1875.

“My Dear Major:--Your welcome letter would have been answered immediately, but I have not been well. My general health is very good, but the weather this Winter has been exceptionally cold.

“Minnie and her good husband, with whom she is very happy, live a few squares from us, and we see them every day; Minnie having learned to be a great walker, during her sojourn in Europe. We find our circle of friends and acquaintances very large, and we find that almost as muchtime has to be devoted to visiting here as in Washington. We are delightfully situated in the home we occupied for several years, before we removed to Washington, and which belongs to us. We have plenty of spare room for friends, and shall certainly claim a good, long visit from you and Mrs. Byers and the children, when you return to your own country. Should the next Administration be Democratic, that may not be very long hence. Pray remember that I shall expect you.

“I have seen, and admire very much, your poem on ‘The Sea’ in the ‘Navy Journal.’

“I am very glad you were gratified to receive the pretty copy of your grand song, ‘When Sherman Marched Down to the Sea.’ I shall have something else to send you soon. The General’s Memoirs are in the hands of the publishers, Appleton & Co., of N. Y., and will be out in May. It will be in two volumes, excellent print, and I am sure you will find it entertaining. I will see that you get an early copy. Please write to me when you receive it, without waiting to read it, because I shall be anxious to know if it has gone safely. Should you not receive it by the last of May, let me know. Do not buy a copy, for I wish to send you one. The book begins in 1846 and extends to the close of the war. The chapters that I have read arehighly interesting.

“The General seems to be growing older in appearance, but his health is good, and his spirits are the same; his vivacity has not sensibly diminished. To-night he is off to the theater, to see Charlotte Cushman, who makes her last appearance in St. Louis to-morrow. We have had a great many attractive actors and actresses here this Winter, and we have yet in store a greater treat than all. Ristori is playing in New York and will be here some time during the Spring. The General and Lizzie both admired Albani exceedingly, and think her a superior actress to Nielson and as good a singer. I did not see her, as the weather was bad and my cold was severe during her stay here.

“St. Louis is a city of great commercial enterprise and has a wonderful future before her. Perhaps you will select this as a place of residence on your return home. We would be very glad to have you here.

“I hope Mrs. Byers and the children are well and that your own health grows stronger. Lizzie joins me in best love to all. She and I are alone to-night. Elly and Rachel are away at school, Minnie in a home of her own, and Cumpsy in bed.

“Believe me very truly and warmly your friend,

“Ellen Ewing Sherman.”

I find this in my diary. On returning from Italy, we went over to “Wangensbach” by Kussnacht, on Lake Zurich, to live for a Summer or two. Wangensbach is an old chateau, or half castle-place, built by the Knights of St. John in the long, long ago. The walls are three feet thick, in places more, and there are all sorts of vaulted wine cellars and mysterious, walled-in places, under the building. The view from the windows and terrace, of blue lake and snowy mountains, is superb in the extreme. The chateau is now owned by Conrad Meyer, the Swiss poet and novelist. It is six miles to my office in the city, and I walk in and out daily, though I could go on the pretty steamers for a sixpence. Here, on a May day, “Baby Hélène” came into the world, to gladden eight sweet years for us.

Wangensbach.--Page 106.

Spite of Joaquin Miller’s prognostications at Rome about plays, I was foolish enough to go ahead, and write a melodrama in blank verse. Schultz-Beuthen, a friend of Liszt and follower of Wagner, wrote delightful music for its songs. I went up to Mannheim, and attended the plays in the old theater where Schiller was once a director, and where some of his best plays were brought out.

Miller wrote me about this little play of mine as follows:

“N. Y. Hotel, N. Y., U. S. A., Feb. 11, 1879.“My Dear Mr. Byers:--I remember you with pleasure, remember the compliment you paid me in preferring a visit to me before the good Pope.“I have read your pretty play with pleasure, and have the opinion of able managers. And I am bound to say, my dear boy, that it is for the leisure, not for the stage. Like all your work, it is well done, versesespecially, but how on earth do you expect to present five scenes in one act in this swift modern day? All modern plays have, as a rule, but one scene to the act. Then you have almost altogether omittedhumor. Try again. By the by, I last night brought forth a play. See enclosed bill. It was most emphaticallydamned. Write me if I can do ought for you, and believe meTruly yours,J. W. Miller.”

“N. Y. Hotel, N. Y., U. S. A., Feb. 11, 1879.

“My Dear Mr. Byers:--I remember you with pleasure, remember the compliment you paid me in preferring a visit to me before the good Pope.

“I have read your pretty play with pleasure, and have the opinion of able managers. And I am bound to say, my dear boy, that it is for the leisure, not for the stage. Like all your work, it is well done, versesespecially, but how on earth do you expect to present five scenes in one act in this swift modern day? All modern plays have, as a rule, but one scene to the act. Then you have almost altogether omittedhumor. Try again. By the by, I last night brought forth a play. See enclosed bill. It was most emphaticallydamned. Write me if I can do ought for you, and believe me

Truly yours,J. W. Miller.”

My libretto and the music had pleased Minnie Hauk, the singer, and she herself thought of using it, but the objection to the Wagner kind of music came up. Her husband, Count Wartegg, wrote me from Paris: “The libretto is very interesting, so original, and so well written that its success is assured.”

Minnie Hauk.--Page 107.

Minnie Hauk was just now at the height of her fame. In Scotland and England she was very popular. At Edinburg the college students one night, at the close of the opera, unhitched the horses from her carriage and pulled her to the hotel themselves. I knew her quite well in Switzerland. In fact, her secret marriage with Count Wartegg had taken place in my office, and I had been a part of the little adventure. She was a wife for years before the public found it out. Her husband had an historic old castle over in the mountains of the Tyrol.

In the meantime I had prepared another little play, and Miss Kate Field had given them both to Genevieve Ward, who sent me this about them:

“232 Rue de Rivoli, Paris, 26 Dec., 1875.“Dear Sir:--I received the plays you confided to Miss Field, and read them with much pleasure. Pocahontas should be very popular in America, and I trust you will be fortunate in having it well produced. The sympathies of the public should also be warmly enlisted for the ‘Princess Tula,’ a charming character, which requires delicate handling. Miss Clara Morris would personate it most charmingly. I regret that they are both lighter than my line of business, which is the heaviest. I feel none the less honored that you should have sent them to me, and again thanking you, and wishing you every success, I remainYours truly,“Genevieve Ward.”

“232 Rue de Rivoli, Paris, 26 Dec., 1875.

“Dear Sir:--I received the plays you confided to Miss Field, and read them with much pleasure. Pocahontas should be very popular in America, and I trust you will be fortunate in having it well produced. The sympathies of the public should also be warmly enlisted for the ‘Princess Tula,’ a charming character, which requires delicate handling. Miss Clara Morris would personate it most charmingly. I regret that they are both lighter than my line of business, which is the heaviest. I feel none the less honored that you should have sent them to me, and again thanking you, and wishing you every success, I remain

Yours truly,“Genevieve Ward.”

The second drama was not offered to the managers at all, and the two plays were laid away forever.

While on the Rhine I also visited Speyer, “The City of Dead Kings.” In one crypt seven German monarchs lie side by side. Next to Westminster Abbey in London, and the Capuchin Church in Vienna, no one spot can show so much royal dust, and nowhere on earth can one feel so much the fleeting littleness of man as in these three places.

*****

I had spent much time in preparing my book, called “Switzerland and the Swiss.” Now when I asked permission of our State Department to print it they promptly telegraphed me a refusal.

A Consul, not long before, had published a book on Turkey that was not liked by some of the satraps of the Sultan. So a veto was put on all books by Consuls.

My book was then printed anonymously, but received most favorable comment. “Whoever the author is,” said the “Zurcher Zeitung,” the principal Swiss journal, “he has shown more thorough knowledge of the Swiss people thanany foreigner who has written about us.” The large edition was sold, spite of its being publishedanonymously.3

The London papers have much to say now about the mixed condition of party affairs in America. Yesterday I had a letter from General Sherman bearing on the same subject. It also tells me he is writing a history of his life. It also gives his views of negroes voting.

“St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 26, 1875.“Dear Byers:--Your letter of Nov. 21st, sending a copy of the London Saturday Review, has been in my pigeon hole ‘For answer’ so long that I am ashamed. I have always intended to avail myself of the opportunity to write you a long, gossipy letter, but have as usual put it off from day to day, so that now I hardly know what to tell you. We are now most comfortably established in St. Louis, a large, growing and most dirty city, but which in my opinion is a far better place for the children than the clean and aristocratic Washington. Minnie, also, is domiciled near us in a comfortable home, whilst her husband seems busy on his new work in connection with a manufactory of wire.“I have no doubt that General Grant and the Cabinet think me less enthusiastic in the political management than I ought to be. And they may be right. In some respects they have been selfish and arrogant, and are fast losing that hold on public respect they used to enjoy, and there is now but little doubt but that they have thrown the political power into an opposition that the old Democratic party will utilize for itself. The mistake began in 1865 when they gave votes to the negroes, and then legislated so as tomake the negro dominant at the South where the old Rebel whites represent eight millions to the four of the blacks, and the first have united solidly into a dangerous opposition. In our form of Government, when the majority rules in local Government, it is hard for the National Government to coerce this majority to be docile and submissive to a party outside, however respectable.“I had seen that article in the Review, as also many others of mine which, on the whole, are flattering. I have, after considerable hesitation, agreed to publish the whole, of which that one was the conclusion. The book, still in manuscript, is estimated to make two octavo volumes of about four hundred pages each, and I have given the manuscript of the first volume to the Appletons of New York, and will send the balance this week. The whole should be out in about three months, when I trust it will afford you a couple of days of pleasant reading. Thus far the public has no knowledge of this thing, but I suppose I can not conceal it much longer.“We are all well. Give our best love to Mrs. Byers, and believe me truly your friend,“W. T. Sherman.”

“St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 26, 1875.

“Dear Byers:--Your letter of Nov. 21st, sending a copy of the London Saturday Review, has been in my pigeon hole ‘For answer’ so long that I am ashamed. I have always intended to avail myself of the opportunity to write you a long, gossipy letter, but have as usual put it off from day to day, so that now I hardly know what to tell you. We are now most comfortably established in St. Louis, a large, growing and most dirty city, but which in my opinion is a far better place for the children than the clean and aristocratic Washington. Minnie, also, is domiciled near us in a comfortable home, whilst her husband seems busy on his new work in connection with a manufactory of wire.

“I have no doubt that General Grant and the Cabinet think me less enthusiastic in the political management than I ought to be. And they may be right. In some respects they have been selfish and arrogant, and are fast losing that hold on public respect they used to enjoy, and there is now but little doubt but that they have thrown the political power into an opposition that the old Democratic party will utilize for itself. The mistake began in 1865 when they gave votes to the negroes, and then legislated so as tomake the negro dominant at the South where the old Rebel whites represent eight millions to the four of the blacks, and the first have united solidly into a dangerous opposition. In our form of Government, when the majority rules in local Government, it is hard for the National Government to coerce this majority to be docile and submissive to a party outside, however respectable.

“I had seen that article in the Review, as also many others of mine which, on the whole, are flattering. I have, after considerable hesitation, agreed to publish the whole, of which that one was the conclusion. The book, still in manuscript, is estimated to make two octavo volumes of about four hundred pages each, and I have given the manuscript of the first volume to the Appletons of New York, and will send the balance this week. The whole should be out in about three months, when I trust it will afford you a couple of days of pleasant reading. Thus far the public has no knowledge of this thing, but I suppose I can not conceal it much longer.

“We are all well. Give our best love to Mrs. Byers, and believe me truly your friend,

“W. T. Sherman.”

After a while the book appeared, and again the General wrote about it.

“St. Louis, Mo., Aug. 31, 1875.“My Dear Friend:--I have received your welcome favor of July 31st. Mrs. Sherman has since got one of later date, in which you acknowledge the receipt of the Memoirs. I am glad, of course, that they pleased you in form and substance. Such is the general judgment of those who embraced the whole book, whilst others, picking out a paragraph here and there, find great fault. When I had made up my mind to publish, I prepared myself for the inevitable consequences of offending some. I tried to make a truthful picture of the case, as it was left in my mind, withoutfear, favor or affection, and though it may cause bad feelings now, will in the end be vindicated. I want no friend to eulogize or apologize, but leave the volumes to fight out their own battle.“We are all now at home except Minnie, who has her own home not far from us. Her baby is growing and beginning to assume the form of humanity, recognizing objects and manifesting a will and purpose of his own.“Early in September all the children will resume their schools--Tom at Yale, Elly at Manhattanville, N. Y., the rest here in St. Louis. With the exception of some minor excursions I will remain close at home. Our annual meeting of the Army of the Tennessee will be at Des Moines this year--Sept. 29–30. We don’t expect much, only to keep it alive. We look for a stormy political Winter, and next year another of the hurricanes that test our strength every four years.“My best love to Mrs. B. and the children.“Yours,W. T. Sherman.”

“St. Louis, Mo., Aug. 31, 1875.

“My Dear Friend:--I have received your welcome favor of July 31st. Mrs. Sherman has since got one of later date, in which you acknowledge the receipt of the Memoirs. I am glad, of course, that they pleased you in form and substance. Such is the general judgment of those who embraced the whole book, whilst others, picking out a paragraph here and there, find great fault. When I had made up my mind to publish, I prepared myself for the inevitable consequences of offending some. I tried to make a truthful picture of the case, as it was left in my mind, withoutfear, favor or affection, and though it may cause bad feelings now, will in the end be vindicated. I want no friend to eulogize or apologize, but leave the volumes to fight out their own battle.

“We are all now at home except Minnie, who has her own home not far from us. Her baby is growing and beginning to assume the form of humanity, recognizing objects and manifesting a will and purpose of his own.

“Early in September all the children will resume their schools--Tom at Yale, Elly at Manhattanville, N. Y., the rest here in St. Louis. With the exception of some minor excursions I will remain close at home. Our annual meeting of the Army of the Tennessee will be at Des Moines this year--Sept. 29–30. We don’t expect much, only to keep it alive. We look for a stormy political Winter, and next year another of the hurricanes that test our strength every four years.

“My best love to Mrs. B. and the children.

“Yours,W. T. Sherman.”

January, 1875.--I went to London to see about my play. Stopped at 10 Duchess Street. General Schenck was our Minister then, and he and Colonel John W. Forney gave me letters to theatrical people. Mr. Geo. W. Smalley was also polite to me.

It was a nice American dinner-party I participated in at Mr. Smalley’s home, and while there was a little air of stiffness in the white-gloved, side-whiskered waiters, it was a hospitable, jolly occasion. Among the guests were Kate Field, Col. Forney, Secretary McCullough, and some English literary people. Kate Field was wide awake, and she, and Col. Forney, one of the best talkers and best informed men I ever knew, kept things lively till midnight. Col. Forney was one of the handsomest men I ever met, and was loyally faithful to friends.

One of my letters was to Dion Boucicault, the actor,probably the biggest dramatic plagiarist since Shakespeare. His name was to about two hundred plays, of which he certainly never wrote a dozen complete. He was of immense talent in the way of absorbing, or transposing, or cribbing outright other people’s work, without their even knowing it. In a sense, he did make things his own. If what he afterward said to me about there not being an absolutely new idea in the world is true, then he was not a stage plagiarist, as much as a first class boiler-over.

In this Winter of 1874–5 he was the most popular actor in London, and Joe Jefferson was playing there too, as was Henry Irving. At Drury Lane theater, there was nothing but standing room, day or night, when Boucicault was on the boards. His wife was playing with him. Several times I stood up among a crowd of Londoners whose hands were too pressed in to clap, but they made it up in crying or laughing. It was melodrama in perfection. All the immense crowd felt themselves actual participants in the play. What a bag full of money the English-American must have lugged home this winter.

One evening a note came for me to call on him at his house, at 9 o’clock next morning. It was foggy and almost dark on the streets when I rang the door bell. I was shown into a drawing room dimly lighted, where, sitting in the half dark, by a low open fire, was a man I could have taken for William Shakespeare. The lofty brow, the intellectual face, the partly bald head, looked like no other. He did not see me as I entered, nor did he turn around, but went on looking into the fireplace. I looked at him a moment sitting there, and then said good morning. “Ah,” he said, looking up as calmly as if his whole attitude had been affected. “Good morning, take a seat. I read your play, it is melodrama, it is no account; that is, as it stands, you know. You had best hire a good stage man to go over it for you. You haven’t studied the stage, that’s clear, and that is what is the matter of our countrymen, Mr. ----and Mr. ----. They can write, but they know no more about the stage plays than new-born babes.” I sat there and listened to him in astonishment.

He talked much of himself, and related some of his methods of making playsplay. But the real secret, he could not translate for me further than to say, “The way to write a play, is towrite a play.”

I could not help thinking, as I sat there listening to the voice by the firelight, of the time when Boucicault had to sell a play for from $200 to $300, and of that later time when a play with his name to it brought him almost $50,000.

I took his advice as to my melodrama and had a playwright go through it with pencil and shears.

When I got home to Zurich a telegram asked that I forward the music at once. A London theater had accepted my play. Shortly the theatrical hard times set in; my theater closed doors, and that was the last of “Pocahontas,” a melodrama.

Thomas’ orchestra took some of the music later, and played it with success at the Philadelphia Centennial.

Minnie Walton.--Page 113.

One morning when in London, I was invited to breakfast with Minnie Walton, the actress. She was at the “Hay-market,” playing with Byron, I think. She was noted then as the most beautiful actress in London. At the appointed hour I was at her house, but she was still in bed. I entertained myself in the drawing room for half an hour with her two pretty children. Then she herself came in, and I certainly saw a brilliantly beautiful woman. Her features were smooth and perfect, her complexion very fair, and her manners most captivating. She wore a white morning dress with network bodice that outlined a form as beautiful as her face. She had no wonderful reputation as an actress, but her beauty attracted many Londoners to the theater. Everywhere in the shop windows, one saw pictures of “The pretty Minnie Walton.” She had a power in London, allher own. It was “the fatal gift of beauty,” but a gift more attractive to women than birthrights and coronets.

November, 1875.--Upon my return from London, we went back into town for the winter. House rent has doubled here in four years. We now pay 2,500 francs for a centrally located apartment of seven rooms. Everything has grown dearer. The pension where we used to live for four francs a day now charges seven and eight and nine francs.

Zurich too is becoming a fine, modern, commercial city. The railway station is almost the finest in the world, and big, granite business blocks are building, that would do credit to New York or London. Where the city moat and a graveyard used to be, is now one of the finest short streets in Europe.

Almost the only house on this street, left of the olden time, is the “Ringmauer,” the home of our friend, Prof. Fick. Its front is an absolute wall of ivy, from the pavement to the gables. The whole front wall of the house is a part of the ancient city wall itself, built possibly by the Romans. The rooms are low, and the windows used to be ironed like a prison. Near by, still stands one of the old wall towers. Inside this ivy-covered old domicile, we have spent many happy hours. Many a time, over the walnuts and the wine, with the genial Professor and his family, we have sat far into the night and conjured up the people who were wining and dining here in this same room, may be a thousand years ago. Fick, a brother-in-law of Frankland, the English scientist, was a distinguished law professor in the University. He originated the Swiss railroad law, and knew more of American affairs than any German I met abroad.

In late years, he suffered horribly with rheumatism, and he had a queer habit, when severe attacks came on, of sitting down and comparing the severity of each attack with one in some previous month. He kept his watch lying openbefore him, and carefully recorded each twang and pain in a diary.

Spite of my sympathy for his suffering, I could at times hardly refrain from smiling, on hearing him exclaim: “Ah! that was a whacker, that catch was--must write that down. Let me see--lasted two minutes, pulse 80; this day, last year, minute and a half, pulse 100.” So for an hour he would sit, his feet wrapped in flannel, and his mind occupied in measuring and timing his pains.

“What do you do that for, Professor?” I asked him once. “My God!” he replied, “it helps busy my mind. I would die without this watch and diary.”

In the afternoon the attack would cease, and in the evening the students would see the loved Professor delivering his lecture as smilingly as if he had never had a pain in his life.

December, 1875.--Through Fick, Kinkel, Scherr and others of our friends among the University professors, we had free entrée to lectures when we pleased; could come or go. Scherr’s on France, and Kinkel’s on art, we heard throughout, as also Henne’s on Swiss history. There were numbers of American students too in the Polytechnic and University, so that our relations with teachers and taught were very friendly. The American students were always at our home on all American holidays, when the Consulate and our apartment were opened up together and decorated with our national colors. Speeches were made, toasts drunk, and a general good American time had. We ourselves greatly enjoyed these reunions on a foreign soil, and the students and American residents gave many proofs that they enjoyed them too.

I recall how just before one Christmas, Mrs. Kelley, wife of Congressman Kelley, of Philadelphia, who was then living in Zurich, asked me to go with her to help select a picture for an American friend. I felt honored that sheshould consult my taste. A very fine and expensive engraving of Dante at Florence was selected.

What was my surprise, on Christmas evening, to see her head the American party to our house, with this picture and a speech to the Consul.

The treasured gift hangs in my Iowa home, but the kind words of that Christmas evening are stored away in the depths of our hearts. It was the sign, not the gift itself, that gratified us most.

Most of us mortals are so constituted that to have the esteem of our fellow beings gives us a most comfortable feelinghere, anyway, whatever it may do for ushereafter.

December 7.--Last night Prof. Kinkel invited me to attend a Students’ Commers or festival. There must have been a thousand students present in the big skating rink. They sat at long tables; the corps students in high boots, and wearing their corps caps, badges and ribbons. In front of every one stood a mighty schooner of beer. All smoked, and the narcotic cloud was so dense I could scarcely see to the stage. There were decorations everywhere, and a band of music in the gallery. There were sentinels outside at the door, and whenever a particularly popular professor was about to enter, signals were waved along the tables and to the band. Then, as he walked blushing through the aisles to the stage, pandemonium itself was let loose in the way of clanging glasses, band playing, pounding tables, hurrahing and singing, until the conquering hero was seated on the platform. It was a great time for the professors. Lunge, the chemist; Kinkel, the poet; Hermann, the physiologist; Scherr, the historian; Meyer, the chemist; Klebs, the bacteriologist, and other men with names that sound all over Europe, were literally carried to the stage on the wings of noise, smoke, music and lager beer.

These great Zurich professors are the men whom Hepworth Dixon calls the “Dukes of the Republic.” Theyare the only people in Switzerland appointed to their places for life.

Students near me got away with a dozen and more schooners of Munich’s best. I don’t know where it went to, but they have been known to drink twenty glasses at a sitting. For myself, to keep up appearances I did away with three glasses and a half, and absorbed smoke enough, without touching a cigar, to give me the headache for a week.

Here, as at the German Universities, the corps students fought duels. The most self-important young man in the city is the one with the little red corps cap, the big top boots, the ribbon across his breast, and the fresh patch of muslin on his nose, showing a recent engagement.

If the duelist has attended still other universities, he will probably have a half a dozen welts and scars across his face. He may not know much about text-books, but these unseemly welts on the face are signs of great honor; and as the man of danger struts down the street with a big-mouthed bull-dog in tow, he is a spectacle to behold. His greatest happiness in life is to have some passer-by turn and gaze on him.

And this was what Bismarck was doing at twenty; this, and shooting off pistols in his bedroom!

These University warriors are not so dangerous as their slit-up noses indicate. I have known of fifty duels in the past few years and not a soul, save one, was badly hurt. Hedidget really killed.

The offenses for which the students bleed and die are all petty, fanciful, and even provoked. Sometimes corps members are simply compelled by their different societies to go out and seek a fight and try their mettle. Ill feeling or enmity, I have noticed, has not of necessity anything to do with student dueling.

*****

November 20.--Had this from General Sherman:

“Washington, D. C., Nov. 9, 1875.“Dear Byers:--I am indebted to you two letters, the last one enclosing the comments on the Prussian Army as developed in the Autumn maneuvers in Silesia. There is no doubt Prussia, otherwise the German Empire, is determined to keep up the physique, organization and instruction to meet any possible conflict, thus necessitating much loss of labor, and constant trouble in furnishing arms and food. We cannot attempt to follow her example, though of course we can learn much from their experience. General Meigs was present on the occasion of these maneuvers and will on his return make an official report which will be in book form, easy of preservation.“Republican successes here this fall make the officials feel better, but the fact that the House of Representatives is Democratic will cause much confusion and heartburning this Winter, and until the nominations are made next Summer.“My best love to Mrs. Byers.“Yours truly,W. T. Sherman.”

“Washington, D. C., Nov. 9, 1875.

“Dear Byers:--I am indebted to you two letters, the last one enclosing the comments on the Prussian Army as developed in the Autumn maneuvers in Silesia. There is no doubt Prussia, otherwise the German Empire, is determined to keep up the physique, organization and instruction to meet any possible conflict, thus necessitating much loss of labor, and constant trouble in furnishing arms and food. We cannot attempt to follow her example, though of course we can learn much from their experience. General Meigs was present on the occasion of these maneuvers and will on his return make an official report which will be in book form, easy of preservation.

“Republican successes here this fall make the officials feel better, but the fact that the House of Representatives is Democratic will cause much confusion and heartburning this Winter, and until the nominations are made next Summer.

“My best love to Mrs. Byers.

“Yours truly,W. T. Sherman.”

STORM IN THE ALPS--MR. BENJAMIN--KATE SHERWOOD BONNER--ICEBERGS--A SCOTCH POET--HORATIO KING’S LITERARY EVENINGS--COL. FORNEY--MR. ROBERT--A NEW YORK MILLIONAIRE’S HOME--A CHRISTMAS NIGHT HURRICANE AT SEA--THE TILDEN-HAYES FIGHT--CIVIL WAR FEARED IN WASHINGTON--DENNISON, THE INVENTOR--A STRANGE MURDER--THE WRECK OF THE SCHILLER AND LOSS OF MISS DIMMICK.

September 1.--Spent a day or so of each week this summer up at the Alpine hamlet, Obstalden, where we could look down a thousand feet into a blue lake, or up five thousand to the tops of snow peaks. Tried to read Milton up there on the green grass above the lake; stopped when half way through. I got it into my head that it was only a poetical paraphrase of the Bible. That is what Goethe thought once of doing, turning parts of the Holy Book into verse; but as the Bible is already done well, why not let it alone? Where is there anything in Goethe, or Milton either, to compare with the magnificent language of the Scriptures, and no human being woulddareto change thethought. Curious, Byron, too, thought of putting Job into verse. Is not the book of Job already the grandest poem of the world? When among the Alps, I never cared to read anybody’s description of them; language is too weak, unless the language were Lord Byron’s.

One night near Obstalden, a terrible storm of thunder and lightning was leaping back and forth across the lake,and at moments every peak was illuminated. In the darkness the lake was at an immeasurable depth below us; a clap of thunder, a flash, and it seemed for an instant a bright mirror shining in the air. We had been coming down the path from Amden and had lost our way in the darkness, and when the lightning flashed, it was so vivid, we were afraid to go ahead. We took shelter under a projecting rock there on the mountain side, and watched the spectacle. All the artificial things that man ever dreamed of would be nothing in the presence of these elements, battling with each other over the mountain tops.

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