The Olivia Letters - Emily Edson Briggs

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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.

       Table of Contents

      Considered the Proper Size for Presidential Timber.

      Washington, April 21, 1868.

      The dying throes of the rebellion end with the impeachment trial. Whilst Grant crushed the head of the reptile in Virginia, and Sherman’s swarming legions cut the monster in twain, it is left for a loyal Congress to deal with that part of the serpent which it is said “never dies till the sun goes down.” The death-dealing rattle of the Ku Klux Klan is borne to us on the breath of the soft south wind; the lonely cane-brake still echoes the hunted fugitive’s cry; the hand of palsy grasps our Southern sister States; and the nation is heart-sick, well nigh unto death. But the warm glow of another sunrise is upon us. A new day already dawns in the East, and the coming man stands before the people, whom destiny has called to be the leader, and to guide the ship of state into a peaceful sea. All hail! Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio.

      Massachusetts spared him room to be born, but the great West nourished him upon her broad bosom, and there his mind drank in the grand landscape of dimpled lake and sunny, dew-kissed prairie, and there he learned, irrespective of color or sex, devotion to his race.

      A self-made man like our own lamented Lincoln, looking out upon the world with the same kind, brown eyes; but there the comparison ends. Mr. Wade is not tall, ungainly, or awkward. Rather above the medium height, broad shouldered, he was apparently built for use instead of ornament, like a printing-press or a steam engine. Handsome, for the reason that not a weak place in form or feature shows itself; comely, because every point is purely masculine, with no trace of the other sex, unless his mother’s soul looks out of his brown eyes—for it is well known that Mr. Wade is one of the kindest men in Congress, also woman’s best and truest friend. It is for this alone that we stand in his presence with uncovered head. It was Senator Wade who brought the bill before Congress giving to woman in the District of Columbia the right to hold her own property and earnings in direct opposition to the rights of a dissolute husband. It was his personal efforts in the beginning that changed the laws of Ohio in woman’s favor; and, to use his own language: “I did not do it because they are women but because it is right. The strong have no business to oppress the weak.”

      Sitting in his presence the other day, we ventured to remark, “How did it happen, Mr. Wade, that you signed the petition of Mrs. Frances Lord Bond, recommending her for a consulate? Would you really advise the country to give a woman such a position?”

      The spirit of mirth danced over his face as he replied, “I would sign any petition that reads as that did. It said, ‘if she could perform the services better than any one else?’ I had a doubt in my mind about that; but if she could do the work better than any one else I would not prevent her because she is a woman.”

      There has been a time within the memory of us all when a shuddering chill has crept up to the vitals of the nation. Then a plain, straightforward honest man was lifted above all others, far up to the highest pinnacle of power. As God gave him light to see the right, he led us through the smoke of battle, over the burning desert of war, and when the green oasis of peace was in view, he fell by the bullet of the assassin. Is it Fate, is it God, who reaches forth his hand and again lifts another straight-forward, unpretending man to the highest place in the gift of the American people? As a Senator, who had a purer record? In every crisis, on every national question, who for a moment doubted where Ben Wade would be found? Who ever caught him balancing on the top of the fence, if the seeds of life or death were to be sown broadcast over the land? Admitting that he has none of the polish of Chesterfield; that he sometimes nails his sentences with words noted for strength rather than for elegance and beauty (or that might be left out altogether); that he may not possess all the classical culture that some of his brother Senators may boast; yet, as a people sore and heavy laden, let us thank our Maker for Benjamin F. Wade—kind, noble, honest citizen, great, not in himself, for men themselves are paltry, but great, just like a mathematical figure which stands to represent the distance of the sun. He may be rubbed out, like the digit on the big blackboard, but the principles embodied in him are as enduring as the mountains of granite of his own native State.

      Olivia.

       Table of Contents

      Mrs. Kate Chase Sprague and Mrs. Oakes Ames.

      Washington, April 23, 1868.

      Like a rolling avalanche, impeachment gathers in size and velocity as it rushes on to its final resting place. The testimony has all been taken; the arguments have already commenced. Manager Boutwell occupied many hours yesterday in reading his arguments. This able effort will soon find its way into every household in the land, there to be weighed and judged discriminately; but Manager Boutwell is no wizard or brownie, and therefore cannot go himself where his words

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