Читать книгу The Olivia Letters - Emily Edson Briggs - Страница 17

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The Maker of and Sharer in Her Husband’s Triumphs.

Washington, March 17, 1868.

A calm steals over the restless political waters, and whilst we are waiting for the next act in the great drama let us draw near those who, by the sudden turn of the wheel of fate, are lifted high above the multitude. Never, even in the days of the French Revolution, have the women performed more conspicuous parts in the national play of politics than at the present time in Washington. It can truthfully be said that there is nothing so malignant and heart-rending in its effects upon a good man as the burning desire to be President. God help the man when this iron has entered his soul, for this fiery ambition drinks up every other sweet virtue, just as the July sun licks up the purling brook and precious dew drop. It is not man alone who is consumed by ambition; it is woman also, who, in this as well as in everything else, often takes the lion’s share. It was Eve who first ate of the fruit, and gave it unto Adam, and he did partake of it also. It is a woman who apparently has everything that the visible or invisible world has to bestow, and yet, like the princess in the fairy tale, deems her place incomplete unless a roc’s egg is hung in the centre of the jeweled chamber. There is only one position at the “republican court” that this most elegant woman has not attained. She has never “reigned” at the White House. Every other triumph has palled upon her taste, and if the nation would like the finest and amongst the largest of diamonds in the country to glisten in the Executive Mansion, and the most graceful and queenly woman of the day to eat bread and honey in the national pantry, they will hasten to withdraw their support from any military chieftain, and bestow the awful burden upon a man who at this very moment is staggering under as much as any faithful public servant can very well carry.

Come, reader; let us leave the dusty highway of frivolity and fashion. Come into the cool, refreshing shade. You are in the presence of the woman who, in all human probability, will be the one above all others of her sex to whom the argus eyes of this great nation will soon be directed. She is in the full meridian of middle life, tall and distinguished-looking, as one would imagine a Roman matron might be in the days of Italian glory, and it would seem that she is precisely such a mate as her bluff and out-spoken husband would select for a life-long journey in double harness. It is evident that he must have chosen for qualities that would wear under the most trying circumstances; and the material must have met his expectations, else why should they bear such a strong personal resemblance to each other—the very same expression of countenance—unless they have suffered and rejoiced together, and hand in hand tasted the bitter with the sweet?

It is well known in Washington that Mrs. Wade has not the least ambition to shine in the fashionable world; that she has been heard to express her exceeding distaste for the formal reception; it has even been whispered by those who ought to know that she has the old-fashioned love for the click of the knitting needles; and the nation may yet find out that the reason why Senator Wade has always stood so firm for the right was because his feet have been clad in stockings of domestic manufacture, for this is no more astonishing than had Archimedes the slightest point on which to place his fulcrum he might have moved the whole world.

For many years Mrs. Wade’s name has been prominently identified with the public charitable institutions at Washington as well as elsewhere. Says the secretary of the “News-Boys’ Home:” “It is her private benevolence that will longest be remembered, for it is yet to be known when a worthy object was sent from her presence unrelieved.”

When we remember her scholarly culture, her extensive reading, and her acquaintance with the best minds of the age, would it not almost seem that this second tragedy, this suicide instead of assassination at the White House, was the providential means taken to purify the halls of legislation at the very fountain head? For if Senator Wade drifts into the Executive chair, through no fault or effort of his own, bound by no promise to friend or foe, what hinders him from seizing the helm of the ship of state, and, with the aid of Congress, guiding her out of the breakers into the calm, still waters of Republican prosperity and peace? As only a Hercules can perform this labor, this may account for the succession, as well as for Senator Wade’s clear head, broad shoulders, and stout heart; and when it happens that there will accompany him to the Executive Mansion the same social atmosphere that characterized the days of Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Madison, will it not seem like a return of the honest simplicity of our forefathers, or like the long-delayed perfecting of the Republic’s youthful days?

Olivia.