Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-01-12
husband more than three decades,

husband more than three decades,
and has seen all of bis contempora-
rates pass away. Although the storms
OF four-score years have fallen upon
her, she is yet cheerful as a lass of
twenty, and her smile is as natural
and flee as it could have been when
it was lavished upon the generation
that is how forgotten. The brown
curls of her youth arc yet faultlessly
initiated on her finely cut forehead,
and her turban crown of black, with
the widows silver lining, gives her
the appearance of a genial and we'll
preserved dame of sixty summers.
Her step Is firm; her eyes are scarce
ly dimmed by the long lapse of more
than patriarchal years and her mem
cry is unaba ted. She does not toll
crate in a conventional way the many
trespassers upon her time, but she
greets all with queenly dignity and
yet with that generous welcome that
makes the visitor mark his visit as
one of the fadeless memories Of life.
She is glad to have the stranger, even
as her guest, and she talks of both
the past and present with a degree Of
interest, intelligence and freedom
from the common weaknesses of age,
which charm every class of listeners.
[ had never met either her or her hus-
band. and / feared that my visit would
be an intrusion upon the retirement
of feeble woman hsrrassed by the
calls of the curious, but she met me
with the expression: II saw by the
morning papers that you were in the
city, and hoped you would pass nae
| by A visit that was intended to be
only the briefest of calls was thus
prolonged into hours, and then re-
luctantly terminated only because
other and imperative engagements
could not be further encroached
upon. She is O constant reader of
the leading newspapers, and is as
well informed about the events of the
present as she was of the politics and
conflicts of the days of Clay, when
her husband triumphed over the most
idolized political leader of our his
tory, and her discussion of Clay and
his galaxy of brilliant contemporaries
is wonderfully interesting and in
structive. She realizes that times and
customs have greatly changed, both
in the nation and it's capital, and she
speaks of it with all her natural de-
votion for the customs of the past,
but with dellcacy and liberality
which forbid offense to the most posi-
tive convictions. She is 80 univer.-
sally beloved by all parties and
classes in Tennessee that her little
fortune in state bonds-all SIZE pos
sesses in the world-has been, by un-
broken consent, exempted from the
flooded tide of reputation that has
defaulted in the interest due to other
creditors. Republican or democrat.
white or black, high-tax or low-tax-
all agree that the interest shall be
paid promptly on the debt held by
her, and in all the mutation of public
credit in Tennessee there has been NO
default to the widow of James X.
Polk. She spoke freely of the hon
ors she had enjoyed, but her eye
frightened with all the lustre oil
youth when she named the ovstions
given to her husband when retiring
from power, and the kindness to hel
by her own state and by strangers
from every section as the most
cherished of all the distinctions o.
her life. "The worship of the set.
ting SUM-, she said, sis not the com
, mon homage of the world, and il
outweighs all the fattery of pomI
and power" In the slopiDg lawn
3 midway between the house anc
street, the dust of the ex presiden
is preserved, and a modest grant,
monument, sheltered by an opel
temple, marks the resting place.