Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1870-05-13
The American Senate.
SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF A WOMAN

Mrs. Mary c. Ames, who has had
seven years experience as Washington
correspondent, writes as follows to the
Independent:
l have tried to adjust old seats and
new Senators with satisfaction, and have
failed. My private opinion (Which as
usual, l am making public) is that a
number of these gentlemen might quite
as we'll have staid in their native wilds,
or be still pursuing destiny, carpet bag
in hand, 1t is very evident that they do
not Belong here.
In personal aspect the Senate has ret
regarded within four years. Among all
its elders, one looks in vain for two such
"grave and reverend seignors," TWO such
grand old men, as Foote and Collamer
of Vermont. Senator Cameron carries
his seventy years straight and stately as
winter pine; but he has not the noble
head, the open, large expression, the
grandeur of mein, which made these
men the most senatorial of Senator's
And who, looking down ON his wonted
seat, can cease to mourn for
FEssENDEN, THE GREAT DEBATER,
the incorruptible statesman, the irascible
sensible, loving-hearted man! Not in
his seat, it seems as if waiting moment
we should see him meditatively pacing
up and down behind it; or slowly slipp-
ing through the door of the cloak-room,
his hands in his pockets, his slightfigure
bent, his great head-so much too great
for the frame which could not support it
always dropping forward, as if weigh
ed down with thought, his lips compress.
ed, his expression one of WEAKNESS, often
of pain. The longer we look the more
we miss his presence, and the more I'M
reconciled we feel to his untimely taking
off. The longer we listen to dry drib-
BILE of talk the more we long to hear
pierce the dullness, one of his old keen,
incisive sentences, cutting straight to the
marrow of things. Without him his
longtime, generous antagonist, Sumner,
finds no foe at once so provocative and
worthy of his speech. Trumbull, more
pugnacious and irate, lacks the far sight
and wide mental comprehension of Fes-
sender.
CHARLESSU MINER
still sits the fgure-head of the Senate
The ladies look at him as much as ever
and many and remarkable are the COM
ments which may be heard on him in the
galleries. He sits as he sat years and
years ago--not an attitude, not gesture
changed, apparently in the identical suit
of grey, with dark coat, in which he
lowered the New England schoolgirls
Pericles score of years ago. Time,
which has spared his clothes, has dealt
less gently with him. Life, which leaves
its subtle tracery on all our faces, has
laid its hand heavily on his, as it always
does on the face of man or woman in
whom existence is battle, not dream.
The evening gray has fallen on his hair,
the trace of many an inward and out
ward conflict is craven in the strong
features; but he has still unbroken what
he had in the beginning, that which is
Indispensable to the successful statesman
and orator." the physical basis of ora,
tory" Without his six feet of altitude
and his thunderous ayes and noes Charles
Sumner could never have been Charles
Sumner. If he had been compelled by
feeble lungs and defective throat t.
shrek his dictum in shrill treble or il
a squeaking pipe, he could never, as Q
statesman, have been at once the king
and the conqueror of an idea. If hi
had been as little as Lord Russell, moi
even Sydney Smiths excuse to the dis
appointed farmers of Deyonshire-" thai
he was naturally bigger, but had beer
reduced by his labors in the cause of re
form-could ever have given him that
personal impressment which now, by fill
ing the eyes and ears, more than fulfil:
the prestige of his name. Without spe
cial reconciliation, l have strayed back
to the thought from whence we started
the physical basis of the statesman. For
lack of it Fessenden died. For lack Of
it, and it only, he missed the highest in
tellectual success without its ministry
even his fine brain could not fulfil its
loftiest function. Fer lack of it some
of the most intellectual men in the Sem
ate to-day are slowly dying.
Excepting, perhaps, dozen really
noble-looking men, the United States
Senate has nothing to be proud of in its
external aspect. The remainder are a
mussy and inferior looking company
We have a right to be disappointed in
them. In the House of Representatives
We expect to see a heterogeneous assem-
bly,, typical of many climates and con-