Читать книгу The Olivia Letters - Emily Edson Briggs - Страница 20

Table of Contents

“Ad Interim” Thomas Flayed by General Butler—Kindness of the Wife of Senator Wilson.

Washington, April 14, 1868.

The interest surrounding the impeachment trial deepens. The blows of the aggressive Butler are met and sometimes parried by the sharp rapier of Evarts or the stout claymore of Stanbery. The President has wisely chosen some of the subtlest minds in the country to defend him, and it is almost worth the fruit of a lifetime to sit in the presence of such a court, the jury composed of the choicest men of each sister State, the lawyers upon both sides the picked men of the country, whilst some of the witnesses have a world-wide reputation, and the spectators, with but few exceptions, are rare exotics, gathered from the best hothouses in the land.

The sparring on both sides during Friday and Saturday was a perfect feast to those who like to see mind meet mind—who enjoy the din and crash of ideas; but what is the use of stirring up the cesspool into which Andrew Johnson has plunged, and for whom there is no earthly resurrection? Is not the country sick unto death of these poisonous exhalations? Andrew Johnson has broken the laws of the land. In the name of the humblest citizen, what can be offered in his defence?

The Sage of the Tribune says, “Stick to the point, gentlemen; stick to the point,” and a placard to this effect should be paraded before their eyes in every loyal paper of the country. The President’s conversations with General Sherman and other officers are of no more importance to the people of the United States than his delicate semi-official talk with Mrs. Cobb. If we are to have one, why not the other? Why not let the land shake its rocky sides, and one broad grin stretch its awful mouth from Plymouth Rock to the silver sands of the Pacific slope? “Stick to the point, gentlemen; stick to the point.”

For all future time General Lorenzo Thomas will be known only as “Ad Interim” Thomas. Even the newsboys cry, “Here’s your evening paper. Testimony of ‘Ad Interim.’ ” If the poet had only lived long enough to have seen this man he would never have written, “Frailty, thy name is woman!” unless he had put in a clause intimating that sometimes Dame Nature in her haste makes mistakes; for Nature intended Lorenzo Thomas to be feminine. She gave him a slender waist and sloping shoulders, arched instep and taper fingers, and in place of a beard planted a few seed on his chin; and long years of cultivation have only proved that some productions of nature will not flourish on a foreign soil. If any more proof were necessary it is his testimony before the Senate on Friday, when he says: “Mr. Stanton put his arm around my neck, as he used to do, in a familiar manner, and says—” No matter about that. As the heroic and honorable Secretary of War thus far has made no mistake, is it not to be inferred that he knew what was so deftly hidden from mortal view? The spiritual intercourse between the two must have been complete.

If anything more was wanting to touch a sympathetic chord in every woman’s soul in the vast galleries, to bring her nearer in sympathy with Lorenzo Thomas, it was the cruel, merciless way in which General Butler laid bare the heart of this interesting witness. He brought his little amiable foibles and weaknesses to light of day, just as the surgeon brings out the queer things with the dissecting knife. The galleries breathed easy when the tortures were over.

It was refreshing, at last, to see the soldierly form of General Sherman advancing to the witness stand. There are some handsomer men in the Senate chamber at this moment, but none of finer or more exquisite workmanship. The high forehead and eagle eyes; the thin, quivering nostril, and square manly shoulders; the muscles of wire-drawn steel. Like an exquisite stringed instrument, he must be kept up to concert pitch, and then follows such ravishing melody; but out of tune, or with a string broken, horrible discord would be sure to follow. He may be the best of husbands and fathers, but it is very plain that Nature was intent upon fashioning a good soldier, a leader amongst men, and in this particular instance she had made no mistake.

Reader, let your mind’s eye wander to the galleries. At the right of the diplomatic seats sits a woman reminding us of an English duchess. She is not delicate or sylph-like; on the contrary, nothing shall be said about avoirdupois. She is elegant and distinguished looking. Her black, flowing drapery is moire antique; a costly camel’s-hair shawl is thrown carelessly back from her shoulders, and lilac plumes dance and flutter with every turn of her head; amethysts and diamonds hang suspended from her ears, and her left hand sparkles with the weight of a moderate fortune. Would you know her title? It is the same whose name flew all over the country in connection with the Prince of Wales at the time the Gothamites feasted the Prince and provided him with a partner also. It will be remembered that on that most important evening the floor fell into the cellar, and there are people of to-day who are no wiser than to say, “No wonder! No wonder!” In the sky of wealth and fashion in Washington, this queenly woman is a flaming star of the first magnitude; or, more properly speaking, she is the Pleiades, Hyades, and possibly the “big dipper” also.

And now, reader, you are to know about the wife of a Senator who is not in her coveted seat to-day, for the reason that she has given to one of her husband’s constituents her ticket, and, therefore, like the humblest amongst us, has to remain at home. Would you know this pure type of womanhood, who says with her own lips, “We owe more to our constituents than to ourselves”? Would you know the woman whose sincere pity goes unchallenged amidst all this frivolity and wickedness, and whose unostentatious charity would be as refreshing and as broadcast as the evening dew if the source of supply was as unfailing as her own generous heart? Scarcely a public institution of charity exists in Washington without her name on the roll call and she alone gathered the first thousand dollars that made the “Newsboys’ Home” a success.

There are holy places in the mosque of the Moslems where only the “faithful” can tread with unsandaled feet, and there are some human lives so purified and exalted that only the pen of the Recording Angel is worthy to transfix their fleeting lights and shadows, their struggles in their upward flight. Ah! reader, would you know why Senator Wilson lies so close to the heart of cold, haughty Massachusetts; why he has the least of this world’s goods of any man in Congress; why he fights so manfully for the poor and down-trodden; why he is one of the most popular and best-beloved men in the land? It is because he is strengthened and solaced and the armor for life’s battle is girded on at home.

Olivia.