The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-05-10
from behind screened doors, and where a
weiss-beer sign is conspicuously hung above
the latch-string.
ENTERTAINING GHosTs.


ENTERTAINING GHOSTS.
Enormously interesting reading to a gossip
loving world would be n certain big, bulky,
velvet-covered book that Mrs. Wilcox regards
as chief among her possessions, book which
she does not open to everyday visitors, and of
which the curious reporter is only permitted
small glimpses In this huge book, so hand
somely bound and carefully preserved, are
pasted and preserved large and interesting
part of President Jackson's correspondence.
1t is the private family, social, and political
correspondence of several administrations.
There is curious fascination in all ghosts of
the dead, these shadows of buried loves and
hates and ambitions We are all curious to
catch these echoes of great plans and forgotten
dreams, but letters of the historic dead are pre-
eminently readable. To read for ones self the
fading characters traced by Tyler, Madison
and Monroe, by Washington Irving and La
fayette, by Fillmore, Cass, and Van Bursn, is
infinitely more interesting than to read the
same letters set up in type
Mrs. Wilcox regards this collection as of ex-
treme historic value, but the state secrets and
social complications stored away between
those red covers would have created much
more of a sensation If published in 1910 than
in 1892.
Among the letters which Mrs. Wilcox ieal-
ouplJ Sutido liOui pIuldnC newspaper eye
is one in the free, running hand of James X.
Polk, of Tennessee. 1t is confidential letter,
written in 1914 just before the nominating con-
vention in Baltimore, and, Mrs. Wilcox hints,
is of compromising character and for the pos
session of which the descendants of the
eleventh President would pay good round
sum. Alongside the autograph of Polk is that
of Washington Irving, q letter very like those
of to-day, in which the man of letters urges the
appointment of some friend, who, as usual, is
hnn hut q
Even more interesting public reading would
the next letter make, one from Mrs Donelson
when mistress of the White House to Mrs.
Eaton, wife of the Secretary of War. 1t re-
lates to the notorious Eaton scandal, which
set polite society by the ears during Jackson's
administration and necessitated formal ad-
justment of social relations between the first
lady of the land and the wife of the Cabinet
officer. This is the letter in which a request
for private or informal visit from the lady in
question is refused by Mrs. Donelson. 1t is
very fine piece of literary composition, such
lofty and dignihed epistle as is rarely composed
by the latter-day rapid-transit man or woman.
Most courteously, and in phrases very quaint
and fine, Mrs. Donelson explains that while
her public position necessitates her receiving
all manner of persons publicly, in her private
life and association she aims to preserve the
White House as temple OF virtue.
PRESIDENT JACKsoN's RECEPTIONS.
Another most entertaining letter is from the
same lady to her own mother, while en- route
from Nashville to Washington with the Presi-
dental party, The letter of January 30, 1929,
written on board the steamboat Pennsylvania
between Cincinnati and Wheeling describes
the ovation given them in the famous place,
tue booming of cannon and the military and
civil honors that greeted "Uncle Jackson" In
somewhat stilted but correct and beautiful Eng
lish she describes the tremendous crush, and
after minutely describing the Presidents ply
sical condition, and how the rheumatic pains
in his limbs were better, she added, ''But his
arm is very lame and his hand is very sore and
swollen from the handshaking he received in
Cincinnati" This letter, which consisted of