The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-02-13

lighting up with interest and satisfaction as
ne listened to my details. | met him and
Mrs. Lincoln afterward at their receptions,
ana presented Mrs. Grant to them when she
made her first visit to the White House, over
which she was destined to provide for so
many years. On the second floor was the
room where the body of the murdered Presl-
dent had been laid after that terrible Good
Friday night in 1865, and opposite this an
other chamber, TO which, though knew IL
not, another President was to be taken alter
the assassin's bullet, there TO linger and SUI
fer while nation and world waited anx-
iously to know wheter he would live 0. die
In the East Room below, where once | had
seen Buchanan and his Southern Cabinet
and counsellors. johnson had received the
delegation from the Philadelphia "arm-in-
arm" convention, as it was called. There,
too, Lincoln had lain in state, and thither
Garfield was destined to follow him-a sue
cessor In fate and funeral, in place and pen--
atty. Aow the memories crowded as l
walked up and down and thought Of the ear
lier Presidents; of the war; of Buchanan
and Lincoln and johnson: of the hours
when poor Mrs. Lincoln sat there sadly, half
demented, unwilling to. leave the house
where she had queened it. while johnson
waited decorously and gracously till her
grief subsidized; then on the thrcng Of South
erners who returned, first, to ask pardon of
the tailor from Tennessee, and afterward to
suggest, and at last almost to dictate his pol
icy; his strongest, warmest friends, who had
been his bltterest enemies. As thought OF
them so lately swarming about him in these
very rooms, but now certain not to clust0r
around Grant, the Republican incumbent,
the vicissitudes of mortal fate as its highest
point came wildly before me, and the lonli-
ness of the halls made my vaccinations more
sad than suspicious when the night fell
around the empty mansion with me solitary
on the inside.
Had been able to summon up the future
as well as the past, should have seen al
most as many startling changes aud contin-
gencies. First of all. the crowd of those who
thought they had won an entrance to. the
White House by the sword, and yet had been
kept out of it by the man they had them
selves placed there, were now to return with
the victorious soldier at their head; then
Grants Presidential career of difficulties and
chagrins, mingled with some splendid
achievements, and in its mixture typical of
every human lot, his reelection, his tempo.
rary unpopularity, and the final detection of
many political friends; the uncertainties of
Hayes's election; the Inauguration on that
Sunday night in the Red Room, when only
the new President, Chief Justice and Ulysses
Grant, Jr., were present while Hayes took
the oath. No stranger scene ever occurred In
the White House than this anticipatory in
auguration, preceding the formal one OF the
next day at the Capitol-to preclude the pos
dispute or resistance. The Hayes admins
tration left little trace, and afterward came
Garfield filling the White House with acri-
monious wranglings of those who had been
his political friends, and then the horror of
assassination, the long agony OF expectation
and another Presidential funeral. After
this again Vce-President was elevated.
There was brief period of mourning, the
great columns of the porch were draped in
black and official correspondence was writ
ten on paper with the broadcast edge; but
soon there followed parade of feasting and
ostentation, of public display and private
junketing such rs the Presidential Mansion
had never known 1.-The second rate mimicry
in morals and manners Of courts that no
one about the President had ever seen, and
the introduction of forms which the republic
had long before determided to put aside.
Last Of all political revolution. The Dem
ocrats returned to power after an absence of
quarter of century. The same men some
times who had ruled in Washington before
the war, the Southeners who had been fore
most in council and in the feldi in the seced-
fatted calf was killed in fact, a stalled OK.
The White House walls must have whisp-
cred to themselves behind the curtains when
they saw the old faces or heard the old
names, and some of the men who had sought
to capture the capital felt strange, am
sure, when they found themselves welcomed
as guests where they had once hoped to come
as conquerors. At the very afternoon |
spoke of met Southern woman whom
had not seen in more than twenty years.
fore Mrs. Cleveland was born, and was a
staunch Union woman until Virginia seced-
ed. After that never met her until Rich
m0nd fell. / was then sent to the captured
city, and CHANGED to pass my former friend
standing in front of her own house, which
had been burned. cannot say that at first
she was cordial, and am afraid there are
Northern women who would hardly have
greeted warmly, when their houses were
were burning, those who they thought,
even unjustly, had caused the de-
struction. But when found this lady at
the White House she was as inexhaustible
and irresistible in grace and spirit and charm
as if years and rebellions and CONGREGATIONS
had never been. She salnted me as affably
and amiably as of old, and said, with spice
of espiegleric; 81 fear was not quite civil
enough when we last met, but under the cir
cumstances, you know"
An dmende after twenty three yearsi Ii
that wasn't high breeding what was it? But
where would you look for good breeding if
not at the Presidents house and at Mrs.
Cleyeland's receptions?
For the new President has introduced one
custom never inaugurated by his predeces-
s0rs. He married a young wife i'll the Blue
Room. Other girls have become brides at
the White House, but she is the first who
became the mistress of the historic mansion
because of her marriage there. This is
new story for the storytellers, new memory
chroniclers will tell it, doubtless, in detail.
and they will have no more graceful heroine
or popular figure in all their annals than the
young and attractive wife who has made
herself and her husband so many personal
friends. and subdued by her winning quail
ties to her own mild sway even the bitterest
political opponent.