CHAPTER XXV1884

*****

Was with Professor Scherr and others last night at the Orsini again. Scherr is not only a literary man, he is an educated German thinker. I was interested in some things he said about human existence. “Nine men,” said he, “were born to serve a tenth. It never was otherwise; it never would be otherwise; it never could be otherwise.” “Education of the masses is all a mistake,” he continued. “Education only makes them discontented, and humanity is not bettered.” I wondered to myself if this were true. In America, I reflected, the masses are educated. They are, too, the most discontented people on earth. Nobody ever saw an American quite satisfied with his condition. I observed to Prof. Scherr that in certain Italian districts where the people were wholly illiterate and poor, I had noticed many signs of happiness. “Exactly,” replied the Professor. “They don’t hear constantly of what somebody else has got, and so believe they have got it all. This belief satisfies them, they want nothing more; their ignorance is their greatest blessing.”

“The Swiss, though,” I said, “are all educated and are happy.” “Not a bit of it,” he answered, “they are growing more discontented every day. They were happy till they got free schools and education, and till they saw your richAmerican and English tourists living in luxury and scattering gold like French compliments. No, education without talent, is a curse. The first social revolution in Europe will be here within a gun shot of where we are sitting, here in so-called educated Switzerland.”

January, 1883.--Spent the holidays at Berlin visiting in the home of Mr. Sargent, our American Minister.

Mr. Sargent had for weeks been in a stew with the German Government on account of their prohibiting our American meats. The same kind of trouble was had in Switzerland; but when it happened that I was able to prove that the American hams in which trichina wereofficially found, wereAntwerphams “fixed up” and stamped “American,” the ban on American meats to Switzerland was raised.

Germany, however, for her own reasons, intended fight, and press and Government opposed Mr. Sargent and the American exporters’ rights. In the train on our way to Berlin, a German newspaper happened to fall into my hands that told, not intending it, the whole story of Bismarck’s opposition to Mr. Sargent and the American pig. On his great estates he had pigs himself to sell, so said the newspaper. I translated this article and put it in Mr. Sargent’s hands at once.

In a secret official dispatch to Washington, he quoted this German newspaper as to Bismarck’s pigs, and put it in quotation marks. By some means the dispatch was given to the public by the Department, and the quotation marks of Mr. Sargent left out. The newspapers printed it as an official declaration by the American Minister at Berlin. Bismarck and his followers naturally were soon furious, and a course of action was adopted that should be as offensive as possible to Americans.

We reached the capital one morning before daylight. Mr. Sargent met us, sent us to his house in his carriage, and hurried off to report our names to the Chief of Police.We had a great laugh over it all at the breakfast table, when he came back. There is a fine of many marks for taking people to one’s house in the German capital, without letting the police know who they are. It is by such means that Germany keeps track of everybody.

Kaiser Wilhelm.--Page 226.

Our Minister’s home was close to the Thiergarten, and there we saw the old Emperor William, the Crown Prince Frederick and others of the royal family, walking or driving daily. They were simple enough and were not run after in their walks. I was told that every time the Emperor leaves the palace for a drive, the fact is telephoned to every police station in the city, and that extra officials and detectives in civilian dress are abroad everywhere in parks and public places. It seemed to me that on all occasions in Berlin half the people we met were soldiers or policemen.

The history of the German capital is of more interest than the city itself. One wonders that the Germans had courage to build a city on this great ugly sand plain, nor can one think of comparing Berlin for beauty with Paris or Florence, Vienna, Dresden or Washington. But Berlin is a great city and its collections and museums are among the greatest in the world.

At one of these museums we saw the golden necklaces, and rich headgear of Helen of Troy. Dr. Schliemann, the explorer, had presented them to the German Government. They are of immense interest and enormous value. Every night the case containing them is let down into a great vault under the museum. The elaborate gold work of Helen’s arm bands is as fresh and bright as if made yesterday.

At Potsdam nothing interested us so much as “Sans Souci,” and especially the chair that Frederick the Great was sitting in when he died. We also stood by Frederick’s coffin under the pulpit of the old Garrison Church.

Our conductor let me have a candle that burned abovethe coffin. I thought of the time when Napoleon stood in this little dark chamber by the body of one as great in Germany as he himself was in France. But both the great men did their countries more harm than good.

Mr. Sargent gave one or two large dinners while we were at his house. There was little talk of interest, but plenty of good music, and plenty of good wine, which in a German company, might have stimulated to notable sayings. Perhaps there were too many American teetotalers present for a good time. I notice a few turn their glasses upside down, in a sort of “I am better than you” fashion. Had they quietly allowed their glasses to be filled, nobody would have asked why they did not empty them. I have noticed always at German and Swiss dinners how the talk sparkled with the wine, and how the witty things said were in some way a test of the quality of the stuff in the decanter.

We went with the Sargents to the circus and saw the Crown Prince Frederick and his boys and girls in a box. The Prince had a singular and delicate way of applauding softly, with the palm of one gloved hand on the back of the other. His children were all glee at the antics of the performers, and expressed their joy in a much more boisterous way.

An enormous closed cage of wild lions was hauled into the arena, and when the boards were let down and they saw the blinding lights and the crowds of people their roaring was terrific.

A big African armed with a shotgun was let into the cage from an iron hood suspended against the doors. There was the greatest excitement. Many people instantly rose and left, fearing to see the man killed before their eyes. We kept our seats. There was no performing with the lions; it was simply a dare-devil venture to go among them, for they were absolutely untamed. The African had serious difficulty in getting back into his hood.It was his last act but one; the next night he was torn in pieces.

In one of the public halls of Berlin, we recognized to our surprise a party of American Indians performing war dances. They were the same Indians who had been at Zurich and whom I had helped out of serious difficulties, as their manager, it was claimed, had broken his contract and left the poor barbarians stranded. They said then they would never forget me. On seeing my wife and myself in the Berlin hall, they suddenly stopped their dancing and to the astonishment of the assembled spectators leaped from the platform, grasped me by the hand and called to each other: “It is Mr. Byers! It is Mr. Byers!” They were overjoyed at seeing some one in all Europe who had been kind to them.

A little later, in March, these Indians took passage home on the steamer from Bremen. The vessel was wrecked, still in sight of land, and every soul of them drowned. I, too, had engaged passage on the steamer, but business detained me in Zurich till the next boat.

On Sunday morning we went to the Zoölogical Gardens, where one of the keepers pleased my wife by raking a baby tiger and a baby lion out of their cages and giving them to her to hold in her arms. The lion was a chubby, woolly little fellow, the size of a cat and very cunning. While we had it in our hands, the mother stood perfectly quiet and glared at us as much as to say: “Hurt it, and these iron bars won’t hold me a moment.” She manifested great joy when the little fellow was passed back into the cage. The action of the tiger mother was not different, except that she gave a revengeful growl when she got her baby back.

Several times in going to the city, I passed the home of Bismarck. It was an unpretentious place, but armed sentinels walked up and down the pavement in front of it.

At noon one day, I noticed hundreds of people standing in front of the Emperor’s palace. I stopped to see whatwas the matter. The increasing crowd stood there in the rain. “There he is,” I heard some one cry out, and there was a doffing of hats. “There’s who?” I asked of a man near me. “Why, don’t you see him at the window?” he answered. It was the old Emperor standing there, smiling.

Once a day all Berlin can look on their Kaiser, and once a day the Kaiser interrupts his Cabinet council, steps to the front window and looks upon his people. It is much better than the crazy hand-shaking of the mob at the White House.

On our way back to Switzerland, we stopped at beautiful Dresden. One night at the opera we saw a white-haired old gentleman in a box, closely following the libretto and the singers, whose face seemed familiar to my wife. It was the King of Saxony--kind old Albert who, incognito, had played with our children that day in the mountains, and to whom our little girl had cried as he left, “Good-bye Mr. Albert.”

*****

Our Minister’s difficulties at Berlin increased. The matter of American pig, or no pig, became a battle between German and American newspapers. Correcting the false statement and the misrepresentations as to Mr. Sargent’s Washington letter, helped none at all. The German newspapers simply did not want American meat. To American farmers and shippers, it meant hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Sargent stuck to his post and did his duty, and in a way, our Government supported him. One night Bismarck gave a grand diplomatic dinner. How could he receive Sargent socially when turning the cold shoulder to him officially? The press wondered what would happen. Of course our Minister had to be invited, and of course he had to go, or else show the white feather. Mr. Sargent was not the white feather kind, and he went. “Things went smoothly enough,” he wrote me, “and the newspapersgot no sensation to report. It was a very quiet and rather tame party. Of course Bismarck and I did not spend the entire evening talking together. He didn’t effuse and I didn’t effuse. That was all there was of it.”8

Our Government approved his course at Berlin by appointing him Minister to St. Petersburg, but he declined.

Sargent, on coming home, was talked of for the Presidency. An abler man, a purer patriot, a clearer headed statesman, is not often thought of for that exalted post.

June 30, 1883.--On the 29th of March I went to America on the “Wieland.” Had thirteen days at sea and twelve of them storm and hurricane. The ship was an old rat trap, on her last voyage before repairs. I did not know this until we were in the middle of the ocean.

A young German, a gilded youth, the son of Prince ----, was on board with me, proposing to try gay life a few years in America. One day he asked me if the American shop girls were all “fast,” as in certain continental cities, and if young men were interfered with for ruining them. I observed that there was a difficulty; these girls mostly had brothers who would shoot such a scoundrel on sight. The princelet became pensive all at once, and seemed to be reflecting that his visions of fun in the United States were turning all to fog.

*****

Just before my return to Switzerland, I happened to be in Washington again. It was the day set for the public funeral of the author of “Home, Sweet Home.” Corcoran, the Washington banker, was paying all the expenses, and a warship had brought the poet’s remains home from Africa. The President and the Cabinet and all the dignitaries in Washington, as well as many invited guests, took part. Howard Payne had been a consul at the time ofhis death. I was asked to participate in the ceremony, and went as one of the staff of General Hancock. The ceremonies commenced in the Corcoran Art Gallery. It was an impressive occasion. I felt very strange, standing there close by the little white coffin that contained all that was left of the sweet singer. President Arthur was one of the pall bearers. At the cemetery there were long rows of elevated seats for the participants. I recall sitting beside General Hancock and looking with interest on the magnificent figure of the Gettysburg hero. He certainly was the most splendid looking military man I ever saw anywhere. A statue of Payne was unveiled at the grave, and a chorus of five hundred voices sang “Home, Sweet Home.” A storm was threatening and black clouds hung over the scene. Just as the flag was being drawn aside from the marble face, the sun suddenly came out through a rift in the clouds, while at the very same instant a myriad of yellow butterflies fluttered and clustered about the poet’s face. The vast multitude present saw it, and were moved to exclamations of delight.

I visited my home out West, and returned on the “Hammonia.” My old school-fellow, J. D. Edmundson, went along. We had then, and more than once afterward, good times together, excursioning among the Swiss Alps.

His was a case of American pluck. When we left school neither of us had a penny. I soon went to the war, and he to a Western town to earn a fortune. Not twenty years went by when the penniless youth, a banker now, traveled the world over, with his check good for half a million, and his mind stored from books and travel.

September, 1883.--The Swiss National Exhibition is open all this summer. Though small, the finest in detail I ever saw anywhere. Never saw so much of real beauty arranged together. The location, too, in a great park between two rapid running rivers, is romantic. It is in view of the Alps and the beautiful lake.

On “Newspaper Day” I had the honor, for the want of a better, to reply to the toast, “The American Press.”

I also wrote reports of the successful exhibition to our Government.

The Hon. Emil Frey, Swiss Cabinet Minister, now visited us out on the lake. Col. Frey had been a soldier in our army, was captured and suffered, with me, many horrid months in Libby prison. Our reunion under such different scenes will never be forgotten. He is a great big, generous man in body, mind, and heart. Because of his deserts, there is no post in Switzerland he can not have for the asking. In fact, he don’t have to ask. He is one of Shakespeare’s men who achieve honor and also have honor thrust upon them.

He was later elected President of Switzerland.

January, 1884.--These were the days when certain unscrupulous silk shippers were robbing the United States Treasury of almost millions yearly by undervaluation of invoiced goods. Honest importers were nearly driven out of the market. There was a constant warfare between the consul and the undervaluer. At last I succeeded in my own district, by employing (at my own expense) trained silk experts. The plan worked well, and Uncle Sam soon employed experts at many of the leading consulates. There was tremendous profit in it for the Government. For my zeal in stopping the frauds, and because of my long service, President Arthur promoted me. A little later, an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury reported officially that Consul Byers had saved the Government in his own district not less than a million dollars, or enough to support the whole consular service for years. He urged a recognition of these services. General Sherman, too, had joined in asking my advancement. One day, later, I saw this little note among the Department files:

“22nd January, 1881.“Dear Mr. Secretary:--I commend Mr. Byers to the President’s most favorable notice. He was one of my soldier boys, whom I released from prison at Columbia. He is now at Zurich, is a real poet, a good writer, and is one of the most modest, unselfish, and zealous men I ever knew. His promotion would be a beautiful recognition of past services.W. T.Sherman.”

“22nd January, 1881.

“Dear Mr. Secretary:--I commend Mr. Byers to the President’s most favorable notice. He was one of my soldier boys, whom I released from prison at Columbia. He is now at Zurich, is a real poet, a good writer, and is one of the most modest, unselfish, and zealous men I ever knew. His promotion would be a beautiful recognition of past services.

W. T.Sherman.”

November 10.--Yesterday I received the following letter from General Sherman:

“Washington, D. C, Oct. 24, 1883.“Dear Byers:--I received in due season your valued letter of September 30th, enclosing the editorial of the LondonTimes, which I had seen, but am none the less obliged for the thought which suggested your action. The time is now near at hand when I shall return to St. Louis, where my family is already happily domiciled. I have never known Mrs. Sherman more content, for she never regarded Washington as a home, but she recognizes her present house as a real home. The girls seem equally satisfied. The actual date of my retirement is Feb. 8, 1884, but I thought it right to allow Sheridan to come in at an earlier date so as to make any recommendations he chose for the action of the next Congress, and I asked of the President an order to authorize me to turn over the command on the first day of November, which he did in a very complimentary way on that day. I will turn over my office to Sheridan with as little fuss or ceremony as a Colonel would do in transferring his Regt. to the Lt. Col.“I will then pay a visit to Elly at Philadelphia, afterward New York and then St. Louis. My address there will be Number 912 Garrison Avenue, a house you must remember. I have had it fitted up nicely. We are all very well, and I am especially so.“I do not feel the least slighted in this whole business, for Congress has acted most liberally with me.“I am constantly asked how I shall occupy my active mind and body. I postpone all thought of this till the time come, but I am resolved not to be tempted into politics, or to enter into any employment which could bring money liability.“I hope you also will get your promotion, and then come home and settle on your Iowa farm. We should then be neighbors. Love to Mrs. Byers and the family.“Your friend,W. T. Sherman.”

“Washington, D. C, Oct. 24, 1883.

“Dear Byers:--I received in due season your valued letter of September 30th, enclosing the editorial of the LondonTimes, which I had seen, but am none the less obliged for the thought which suggested your action. The time is now near at hand when I shall return to St. Louis, where my family is already happily domiciled. I have never known Mrs. Sherman more content, for she never regarded Washington as a home, but she recognizes her present house as a real home. The girls seem equally satisfied. The actual date of my retirement is Feb. 8, 1884, but I thought it right to allow Sheridan to come in at an earlier date so as to make any recommendations he chose for the action of the next Congress, and I asked of the President an order to authorize me to turn over the command on the first day of November, which he did in a very complimentary way on that day. I will turn over my office to Sheridan with as little fuss or ceremony as a Colonel would do in transferring his Regt. to the Lt. Col.

“I will then pay a visit to Elly at Philadelphia, afterward New York and then St. Louis. My address there will be Number 912 Garrison Avenue, a house you must remember. I have had it fitted up nicely. We are all very well, and I am especially so.

“I do not feel the least slighted in this whole business, for Congress has acted most liberally with me.

“I am constantly asked how I shall occupy my active mind and body. I postpone all thought of this till the time come, but I am resolved not to be tempted into politics, or to enter into any employment which could bring money liability.

“I hope you also will get your promotion, and then come home and settle on your Iowa farm. We should then be neighbors. Love to Mrs. Byers and the family.

“Your friend,W. T. Sherman.”

SOME INTERESTING LETTERS FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--REQUESTS FOR SOUVENIRS--HIS “FLAMING SWORD”--ONE ON THE PRESIDENCY--I AM APPOINTED CONSUL GENERAL FOR ITALY--AN AMERICAN FOURTH OF JULY PICNIC ON LAKE ZURICH--LORD BYRON’S HOME IN SWITZERLAND--SOME OLD LETTERS ABOUT HIS LIFE THERE--THE LAKE DWELLINGS OF SWITZERLAND--KELLER, THE ANTIQUARIAN--POWER OF SWISS TORRENTS.

In a recent volume of my poems, some little change had been made in the stanzas of “The March to the Sea.” General Sherman did not like these changes, and wrote me that in his opinion “no writer, having once given a thing to the public, had any right to change it.”

He refers again to his preference in the following letter:

“St. Louis, Mo., Feb. 24, 1884.“Dear Byers:--Yours of Feb. 6th is received. I had previously noticed that in the printed volumes there were variations, especially in the ‘March to the Sea.’ And I had simply noted on the margin of my copy that I liked the old version the best. Indeed, I think that Minnie has the original which was handed me at Columbia, which you remember was beautifully written. I have no doubt you will have occasion to enlarge your volume in time, and the last edition will always be accepted as the standard.“We have had universally a hard winter, with storms and flood, of which you have doubtless heard as muchat Zurich as if you were living in Iowa. The winter now begins to break, we have more sunshine, the grass begins to grow a green tint, and even the bark of the trees shows signs of a change. A hard winter makes a good summer, and I shall expect a pleasant summer.“I find not the least trouble in putting in my time. Everybody supposes that I have nothing to do, and writes to me for tokens of remembrance, from a baby whistle for a namesake, to the ‘flaming sword’ I carried aloft at the South, to decorate his or her library. To comply with their kind messages, I would need a fortune and an arsenal. In fact and truth, we have a good comfortable home, and by economy we can live out our appointed time, and I do aim to manage so that my children will not have to beg of Government some pitiable office. I will build a neat cottage on my Illinois farm, and two good dwelling houses for rent on some lots we have around here for a long time, on which we have been paying taxes.“In August, I will go to Minnetonka, to attend the meeting of the Army of the Tennessee.“We are all reasonably well and are always glad to hear from you. Give my best love to Mrs. Byers, and congratulate her on the development of that boy of yours.“Ever yours,W. T. Sherman.”

“St. Louis, Mo., Feb. 24, 1884.

“Dear Byers:--Yours of Feb. 6th is received. I had previously noticed that in the printed volumes there were variations, especially in the ‘March to the Sea.’ And I had simply noted on the margin of my copy that I liked the old version the best. Indeed, I think that Minnie has the original which was handed me at Columbia, which you remember was beautifully written. I have no doubt you will have occasion to enlarge your volume in time, and the last edition will always be accepted as the standard.

“We have had universally a hard winter, with storms and flood, of which you have doubtless heard as muchat Zurich as if you were living in Iowa. The winter now begins to break, we have more sunshine, the grass begins to grow a green tint, and even the bark of the trees shows signs of a change. A hard winter makes a good summer, and I shall expect a pleasant summer.

“I find not the least trouble in putting in my time. Everybody supposes that I have nothing to do, and writes to me for tokens of remembrance, from a baby whistle for a namesake, to the ‘flaming sword’ I carried aloft at the South, to decorate his or her library. To comply with their kind messages, I would need a fortune and an arsenal. In fact and truth, we have a good comfortable home, and by economy we can live out our appointed time, and I do aim to manage so that my children will not have to beg of Government some pitiable office. I will build a neat cottage on my Illinois farm, and two good dwelling houses for rent on some lots we have around here for a long time, on which we have been paying taxes.

“In August, I will go to Minnetonka, to attend the meeting of the Army of the Tennessee.

“We are all reasonably well and are always glad to hear from you. Give my best love to Mrs. Byers, and congratulate her on the development of that boy of yours.

“Ever yours,W. T. Sherman.”

July 3.--Received a most interesting letter from General Sherman telling of his opposition to the use of his name for the Presidency.

“St. Louis, Mo., June 21, 1884.“Dear Byers:--I received your letter of June 1st some days ago, and would have answered earlier, but had to go down to Carthage, Joplin, etc., in Southwest Missouri, to see a district of country settled up in great part by our old soldiers, who have made it a real garden, with nice farms, pretty houses, with churches, schools, etc., resembling New England, North Ohio, etc., rather than oldMissouri, for which the Creator has done so much and man so little. So after all, we at St. Louis must look for civilization and refinement to come as a reflex wave from the West.“We are now established in the very house in which you found us in 1875–6, in good condition, and with employment sufficient for recreation, diversion, etc.“Last night I had to make a sort of an address to the Grand Army, in presenting the portrait of Brig. Gen. T. E. G. Ransom, after whom the post is named, and if printed, I may send you a copy. I do all that I can to keep out of the newspapers, but they keep paid spies to catch one’s chance expressions, to circulate over the earth as substantial news. Recently I was informed by parties of National fame that in the Chicago Republican Convention, in case of a dead-lock between Blaine and Arthur, my name would be used. I begged to be spared the nomination but was answered that no mandaredrefuse a call of the people. I took issue that a political party convention was not the people of the U. S., and that I was not a bit afraid and would decline a nomination in such language as would do both myself and the convention harm. Fortunately Blaine and Logan were nominated, and they are fair representatives of the Republican party. Next month another set of fellows will meet at Chicago and will nominate Jeff Davis, Ben Butler, Tilden, Cleveland or some other fellow--no matter whom--and the two parties can fight it out. Fortunately, and thanks to the brave volunteer soldiers and sailors, the ship of state is now anchored in a safe harbor, and it makes little difference who is the captain. Our best Presidents have been accidents, and it is demonstrated by experience that men of prominent qualities cannot be elected. Therefore I will take little part, sure that whoever occupies the White House the next four years, will have a hard time of it, and be turned out to grass by a new and impatient, disappointed set. Meantime all the fertilespots of a vast domain are being occupied by an industrious class, who will produce all the food needed by our own population and the rest of the world, and will buy what they need, including the silks of France and Switzerland. Of course you do right in watching the invoices to see that the revenues of Uncle Sam are not defrauded, but if you expect to attract the notice of the State Department or the country, I fear you will be disappointed.“I will go up to Minnesota about the middle of July to attend an encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, and will wait over at Minnetonka till the middle of August, for a meeting of the society of the Army of the Tennessee, after which I will return to St. Louis till mid-winter, when I will go East for social engagements and the meetings of the Regents of the Smithsonian of which I retain membership. Marriages and deaths and the hundreds of incidents in every community, occupy my time so that thus far I have not been oppressed by ennui. I recall perfectly the house in Bocken in which I saw you in 1873, and sometimes doubt if you will be able to content yourself equally well in Iowa when the time forces itself on you; but the world moves right along, and we must conform.“I am as always your friend,W. T. Sherman.”

“St. Louis, Mo., June 21, 1884.

“Dear Byers:--I received your letter of June 1st some days ago, and would have answered earlier, but had to go down to Carthage, Joplin, etc., in Southwest Missouri, to see a district of country settled up in great part by our old soldiers, who have made it a real garden, with nice farms, pretty houses, with churches, schools, etc., resembling New England, North Ohio, etc., rather than oldMissouri, for which the Creator has done so much and man so little. So after all, we at St. Louis must look for civilization and refinement to come as a reflex wave from the West.

“We are now established in the very house in which you found us in 1875–6, in good condition, and with employment sufficient for recreation, diversion, etc.

“Last night I had to make a sort of an address to the Grand Army, in presenting the portrait of Brig. Gen. T. E. G. Ransom, after whom the post is named, and if printed, I may send you a copy. I do all that I can to keep out of the newspapers, but they keep paid spies to catch one’s chance expressions, to circulate over the earth as substantial news. Recently I was informed by parties of National fame that in the Chicago Republican Convention, in case of a dead-lock between Blaine and Arthur, my name would be used. I begged to be spared the nomination but was answered that no mandaredrefuse a call of the people. I took issue that a political party convention was not the people of the U. S., and that I was not a bit afraid and would decline a nomination in such language as would do both myself and the convention harm. Fortunately Blaine and Logan were nominated, and they are fair representatives of the Republican party. Next month another set of fellows will meet at Chicago and will nominate Jeff Davis, Ben Butler, Tilden, Cleveland or some other fellow--no matter whom--and the two parties can fight it out. Fortunately, and thanks to the brave volunteer soldiers and sailors, the ship of state is now anchored in a safe harbor, and it makes little difference who is the captain. Our best Presidents have been accidents, and it is demonstrated by experience that men of prominent qualities cannot be elected. Therefore I will take little part, sure that whoever occupies the White House the next four years, will have a hard time of it, and be turned out to grass by a new and impatient, disappointed set. Meantime all the fertilespots of a vast domain are being occupied by an industrious class, who will produce all the food needed by our own population and the rest of the world, and will buy what they need, including the silks of France and Switzerland. Of course you do right in watching the invoices to see that the revenues of Uncle Sam are not defrauded, but if you expect to attract the notice of the State Department or the country, I fear you will be disappointed.

“I will go up to Minnesota about the middle of July to attend an encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, and will wait over at Minnetonka till the middle of August, for a meeting of the society of the Army of the Tennessee, after which I will return to St. Louis till mid-winter, when I will go East for social engagements and the meetings of the Regents of the Smithsonian of which I retain membership. Marriages and deaths and the hundreds of incidents in every community, occupy my time so that thus far I have not been oppressed by ennui. I recall perfectly the house in Bocken in which I saw you in 1873, and sometimes doubt if you will be able to content yourself equally well in Iowa when the time forces itself on you; but the world moves right along, and we must conform.

“I am as always your friend,W. T. Sherman.”

July 4.--To-day, joined by all the Americans we could muster, and a few Swiss and English friends, we chartered a pretty steamer and went to the Island of Ufenau. It was a nice sight to see the boat sailing along the Zurich waters, covered with American flags. The Swiss band could play none of our American airs, but “God Save the Queen” did just as well.

“She’s nothing but an old granny, though, and everybody laughs at her, privately,” exclaimed an English lady to me as the band struck up the tune. This want of respect for the Queen is not so uncommon among English living on the continent as one would imagine.

Gladstone, too, whose name I honor, comes in for any amount of bullying and abusing among traveling Englishmen. “He simply ought to be hung, that’s what ought to happen to him,” I heard one Englishman bawl out to another Englishman once. I was not so especially surprised. For some reason or other, most of the English we meet shake their heads, when we praise the great Christian statesman. I wonder if only the jingo English are rich enough to travel. Gladstone’s friends, if any abroad, are dreadfully silent.

We had a fine picnic on the island to-day, with the blue waters of the lake about us and white Alps right in front of us. One American signalized himself by getting drunk. We left him in a farmhouse on the island.

Came home with a glorious sunset turning the Alps into crimson and gold. One view like this evening would repay for a journey over the ocean, and we have had it almost daily for fifteen years.

On reaching Bocken I found a cablegram from Senator Wilson saying I had been promoted to be Consul General at Rome. I was happier that the news came on this particular day. When I went out on the terrace though, and looked at the beautiful and familiar scenes around me that I must leave forever, the pleasure over my promotion was almost turned into a pang.

*****

A few weeks ago, Cupples, Upham & Co., in Boston, printed the first edition of my volume of poems called “The Happy Isles.” They are now sending me reviews and notices of the book. They are as good as I could wish. It was pleasant to-day, too, to receive a warm letter commending my poems from Oliver Wendell Holmes. Some of them “had brought the tears to his eyes.” To me this was sweeter praise than anything the reviewers could possibly say. Whittier, too, wrote a pretty little Quaker letter, full of kind praise. One of the poems, “The Marriage ofthe Flowers,” he had picked out as the best of all. I hear it is being much copied. “If You Want a Kiss, Why Take It” also seems to please the editors. A friend writes “they are copying it, everywhere.”

*****

Recently we went to see Byron’s home, villa “Diadati,” a few miles out from Geneva. It is a handsome house with windows and balconies opening on to the lake. Here he wrote “Manfred,” “The Dream,” parts of “Childe Harold” and “Darkness.”

Byron’s Home on Lake Geneva.--Page 240.

I could not help thinking of him and Shelley and Shelley’s wife, sitting out there on the veranda nights, telling ghost stories. I came across some letters the other day, long out of print, written by a Swiss, who also was whiling his days away on this lake in 1816. The first one says, “Last night I met Lord Byron at Madame de Stael’s. I can compare no creature to him. His tones are music, and his features the features of an angel. One sees, though, a little Satan shining in his eyes which, however, is itself half pious. The ladies are mad after him. They surround him like little bacchantes, and nearly tear him to pieces. I hold him as the greatest living poet. Every stormy passion is witnessed in his glance. One sees the corsair in his look, which, though, often is good, tender, and even melancholy.”

I also have followed Byron’s footsteps in his trips in the higher Alps. He went up into the Simmenthal to Thun, to Interlacken, and the heights near to the Jungfrau. “These scenes,” he wrote, “are beyond all description or previous conception.”

My boy made a picture of the old ruin of a tower near Interlacken, pointed out as the scene where the “Manfred” of the poem struggled with the spirits. Manfred was Byron’s best work, but the printers left the best line of it out, by accident. What would Tennyson nowadays say to a publisher’s leaving the best line out of his best poem?

Byron liked the Jungfrau better than Mt. Blanc, and the scenes about the upper end of Lake Geneva inspired him. “All about here,” he exclaimed once, “is a sense of existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our participation of its good and its glory.”

His trip among the grandeur of the higher Alps did not tear him away from his wretched self. He could not forget that he was Byron, and his “Manfred,” arguing with ghosts in the old ruin by Lake Thun, might have been a photograph of himself. That’s what Goethe believed it to be, anyway.

Last week, Professor Ferdinand Keller, the Swiss antiquarian, asked me to visit the Lake Dwelling excavations at Robenhausen. This is an excavated village of the stone age, 5,000 years old, the experts think--maybe older still. The famous Keller himself is a marvel, and might be out of some other age. He is eighty or ninety years old, a little, short man, with white hair standing straight on end, shaggy eyebrows, perfectly immense in their projection above a pair of eyes that burn like stars. Spite of his many years, he is bright, cheery and active, and capable of labor as a boy of thirty. His face is as well known in Zurich as one of the city monuments. The young people think he has walked the streets always, and nobody expects him ever to die.

His antiquarian rooms look out over the lake. Indeed the old stone Helmhouse is built in the lake, and it contains the greatest curiosities of the world. One day Keller was looking out of his window and observed some queer shadows of things down in the water. Investigation proved these “things” to be piles, on which in some remote age, houses and towers had been built. Shortly, the shallow inlets of half the lakes of the country were found to have once been the abode of peoples. The oldest of all, like Robenhausen, were of the age of stone. I was glad of a chance to go, and excavate a little for myself in these townsthat were old and forgotten a thousand years before Pompeii was even born. This particular village has been perhaps twelve hundred feet square and stood on a platform supported by 100,000 piles. It was three hundred feet from the shore and was once connected with the mainland by a bridge. In some of the villages once lived a people possibly as much civilized as the Mexican of to-day. This is proved by the relics found in the later ones of looms and cloth, and swords and jewelry of lovely patterns. At Robenhausen life had been simple, but I myself dug out specimens of good cloth. There is nothing to see at Robenhausen save the myriad of rotting piles where the turf bed that took the place of what was once a lake has been removed. All the belongings of the village are buried in mud and water. The cedar and beech poles on which the town once stood had been sharpened by fire before driving. They were twelve feet long and eighteen inches around and stood in regular rows. The huts on the platform (two or three complete ones have been found) were one story high, twenty-two feet wide and twenty-seven feet long, built of upright poles matted together with willows and plastered with clay inside and out. The floors, too, were plastered and the roofs were made of rushes. The remains of grinding stones and mills have been found in every cabin. Not the sign of a hieroglyphic or an alphabet has ever been found, to show who those people were.

I prepared for Harper’s Magazine a paper called “The Swiss Lake Dwellers,” describing the excavations at all the Swiss lakes up to the present time. A Swiss artist illustrated it forme.9

*****

We hear much of the awful force of Swiss mountain torrents. The other day I saw what is ordinarily a brook suddenly rise and sweep thousands of tons of huge rockson to farms in the valley. The debris of rock and granite was from three to ten feet deep for a mile. The force of these streams is simply tremendous beyond belief--the fall is so great; even the wide river Reuss falls 5,000 feet in thirty miles.

It is a constant wonder why people build homes and hamlets in the way of these awful torrents when their destruction some day is almost certain. However, it is on a par with their building villages on mountain crags and on almost unapproachable slopes when there is plenty of level land in the word.

*****

Yesterday Koller, the animal painter, asked us to take tea in his studio. Congressman Lacey and his wife went with us. Koller is pronounced, by the Swiss at least, to be the greatest animal painter living. He had a splendid harvest scene on the easel--storm coming up, peasants hurrying to get the hay on the wagon, the threatening sky, the uneasy horses, their tails and manes, like the dresses of the girls, blown aside with the wind. It seemed to me I never saw so much action in a picture. Koller was threatened with blindness not long ago, when the prices of his pictures went sky high. Agents were sent out of Germany to buy them up at whatever figure. His great painting of the St. Gothard diligence crossing the Alps is famous. Nothing finer in the way of galloping horses and mountain pass scenery can be imagined. His home and studio are on a little horn of land running out into the lake. He keeps a herd of his own cattle for painting, and every day these beautiful dumb helpers of his are seen in the shallow water of the lake. Mrs. Koller poured the tea for us. She looks like an artist’s wife. Koller is a big, full-bearded German-looking Swiss, seventy years old, who is beloved all over the little republic for his supreme art. Switzerland has four great names in art: Calame, Stückelberg, Böcklin, Koller.

START FOR ITALY--THE CHOLERA--TEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE ON LAKE MAGGIORE--A HEROIC KING--WE ARE PRESENTED TO QUEEN MARGARET--AMERICAN ARTISTS IN ROME--THE ROYAL BALLS--RECEPTIONS AND PARTIES--MEET MANY PEOPLE OF NOTE--THE HILLS OF ROME--MINISTER ASTOR AND HIS HOME--HUGH CONWAY--IBSEN--MARION CRAWFORD--ONE OF THE BONAPARTES--KEAT’S ROOM--THE CARDINALS--ISCHIA DESTROYED--CHRISTMAS IN ROME--LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--HIS VIEWS OF ROME--CLEVELAND’S ELECTION--FRANZ LISZT AGAIN.

August 4.--Sunday evening I walked from Bocken to Zurich to take the train for my new post at Rome. Walked along the Albis hills above the lake, ten miles. It was a delightful summer evening and the view of mountains and lake seemed finer than ever before. I could not help stopping many times to turn round and drink in the glorious scene, possibly for the last time. It was the only time I ever shed tears on leaving a scene of beauty. Besides I was leaving Switzerland, where I had had fifteen happy years.

It was a dangerous time to go to Italy. The cholera was raging in Spezia not less than in Marseilles and Toulon. Many Italians were flying home from the scourge-stricken districts, and at the last moment I learned that a quarantine had been established on the Italian frontier. I hoped, however, to get through at a little village on Lake Maggiore. To my surprise all the lake region wasfilled with guards and I was soon arrested and cooped up with a thousand others at an old sawmill by the lake.

For ten long days I walked alone up and down the upper floor of that big sawmill, every hour expecting the cholera to break out among the crowd of refugees down in the yard. Once a day a guard was sent to conduct me down to the lake, where I could go in and swim. What a treat that was for me! The guard stood on the shore with fixed bayonet, watching that I did not swim out too far and get away. Mrs. Terry, our good American friend, happened to be spending the summer in the mountains near by. She heard of me and, like a good Samaritan, brought me grapes and other delicacies. We could only stand and talk to each other at a distance with the line of guards between us.

One morning I received a great big document, it looked like a college diploma, saying that I had finished with the quarantine and could proceed on my way.

In the early morning twilight I crossed beautiful Lake Maggiore in a row boat, and like a bird let loose from its cage flew away to Rome.

Once on a time when my wife and I had been in Rome visiting, a lady friend said to us just as we were about leaving: “Come first with me to the fountain of Trevi, throw a penny into the water, and you will return to Rome.” We went one beautiful moonlight night and tossed our coins into the fountain. And now, sure enough, here I was again in the Eternal City.

The officials of the consulate met me at the train. I went through another terrible fumigation for the cholera, and was soon settled down to live in Italy. The office was at once moved to Palazzo Mariani, 30 Via Venti Settembre, and there later we made our home, when it was safe for my family to follow me.

My friends, Congressman Lacey and wife, who seemed to be about the only strangers in Rome, also met me. Westopped at the great, big, empty “Hotel di Roma.” We had it all to ourselves, and we had much amusement with the waiter, who understood none of our lingo, nor we his, further than the word “ancora” (more). The little mugs of milk he brought us for our figs, were but spoonfuls, so we constantly cried “ancora!” He smiled, and the mugs came almost by the dozen. I was no little surprised to see on my bill a long list of repeated charges, sometimes written out, sometimes dotted down, for half a yard. It was the word “ancora,” at a half a franc apiece.

The Laceys left Rome, after taking one long, last look at me at the station, for they believed they were leaving me there to die of the cholera.

Rome was as silent as a grave that summer. Everybody seemed seized with a panic, and fled to the sea or the mountains. I was indeed lonesome, and with just half of an attack of cholera would have probably succumbed. I saw little but closed shop windows, silent streets, and men going about the alleys and corners scattering lime and disinfectants. Everybody I knew or met carried a bottle of “cholera cure” in his coat pocket for there was danger any moment of tumbling over in the street. Away from the office I scarcely met a soul I could talk with. Suddenly I bethought myself of my friend Frank Simmons, the sculptor, and was at once ensconced with him in the rooms above his studio. When not busy at the consulate I could spend my time watching him turn his live models into clay and marble, and in the beautiful summer nights we sat up in his rooms and talked of art, and America, till midnight.

Mr. Hooker, the banker, (what American that ever went to Rome in the last twenty-five years did not know him?) invited Mr. Simmons and myself to supper. He lived in the palace once owned by Madame Bonaparte, the mother of Napoleon. Here she died. The chambers were still filled with paintings and sculpture and other souvenirs of theNapoleon family. That night Mr. Hooker, Mr. Simmons and myself sat till towards the morning round the little table in the very room where Napoleon’s mother spent her evenings thinking of her eight children, seven of whom were kings.

In a few weeks, the scare over, the people commenced returning. Then the cholera broke out in Italy sure enough. It was at Naples now, and with horrible fatality.

The brave King Humbert took train and went there to help and to encourage the afflicted. He went into the hospitals everywhere, took the sick by the hand, and possibly helped many a dying one to take courage and live. He took his own provisions with him, even drinking water, from Rome, and whenever he went among the sick he smoked constantly. His staff complained he was leading them all to death, but they had to follow into dens and holes and hospitals more dangerous than a battle field.

King Humbert.--Page 247.

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