THE FIRST OF HEARTS

Selected Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams 1865 - 1883By WARD THORON

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Cokie Roberts
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-2452-7

Contents

Introduction by Cokie Roberts..........................................................................iiiPart I. An Early Letter: May 1865......................................................................1Marian Hooper to Mary Louise Shaw The Grand Review of Grant's and Sherman's Armies.....................3Part II. Letters to Her Father From Washington: 1880-1883..............................................11Epilogue...............................................................................................208Bibliography...........................................................................................210

Chapter One

WASHINGTON OCTOBER 1880-MAY 1881

Washington, Sunday, 10th October, 1880.

Dear Pater: Thanks for your note of the 7th. It seems unnatural to be seeing old friends here before all of you. We left New York Thursday; Misses Schurz waited a day to come on with us, and Wayne MacVeagh was on the train,—Cameron's brother-in-law,—full of politics and most interesting to our long-famished souls. He is an Independent, and the clan Cameron is not in sympathy with him.

Lovely weather here—cool and crisp, a fire every evening. Up to our eyes in work, hardly time to eat and sleep; Corcoran sweet as barley candy, and the house bids fair to suit us well. All plumbing is to be in new brick addition on east side, separated from main house by double brick wall; laundry in brick building in yard, which has five rooms and will hold coachman and any servants we may wish. We ought to stay and oversee everything, but of course shall not. We find a cabinet-maker who will make wooden mantelpieces and library bookcases; his work in two of our friends' new houses is quite as good as Leach's. This saves us much bother and expense. Have taken six years' lease with right to renew, pay two hundred dollars a month; Corcoran spends twenty-five hundred dollars in repairs and pays all taxes. On the second floor we get six bedrooms, two bathrooms, and new servants' staircase—verandas behind all three stories.

Miss Clymer and her brother here this A.M.; he sailed in White Star three days before us and had nasty voyage—head winds and gale. What a scratch we had! We go to New York Wednesday and hope to head for Boston Friday; will write or telegraph from there. Adíós. Affectionately M. A.

Washington, Sunday, October 31st, 1880.

Dear Pater: Just a few lines to tell you of our being here. We had a very busy day in New York on Thursday—on our feet from breakfast time to dusk, Boojum knowing himself a champion shopper and enjoying it, especially the feminine blandishments which fell on his ears: "That sweet little dog!" We bagged our library paper at Herter's, four vases at Vantine's for gas lamps. Tell Ned the last importation of which he sent word to Bil Bigelow was Chinese. Got five cheap bedroom rugs at Sloane's; said "How do you do" and "Good-bye" in the same breath to Mrs. Lawrence and Miss Chapman at the Brevoort, and fled South into a warm storm. After heroic struggles we got some south rooms out of Wormley,—squalid and dear,—but we shall do very well and it will be an incentive to driving workmen as hard as we can. We find the house progressing and no mistakes are made in our absence. It is a solid old pile, outside all round fourteen inches of brick; no laths, but plastered on to the brick; such stout chimneys that we can have four-foot openings in the ground-floor rooms.

Yesterday was such a driving storm that we saw no one except those in the house, a cup of tea at Miss Schurz's off my own table being the only outing. Today is warm and windy; Mrs. Loring and Harriet have just been to see me; the former is to celebrate her golden wedding in the winter. We hear nothing of politics—have seen only diplomats, who never talk of them. I hope you too are warm and sunny today; Boojum sends his love and thanks to Betsy; mine to Fanny and the magpies—I send them three pairs India rubbers tomorrow. Ever affectionately M. A.

P.S. I forgot to say that on Thursday evening Henry met at the Brevoort my partner in the emerald mine scheme. He took the Spanish papers from me in March on his way home; has since then consulted the superintendent of mines of New Granada, finds from him that the mine I found in the British Museum manuscript has been reopened from local tradition, but they find the quartz too hard to work the emeralds profitably in that mine. But it shows that my trail was not a false one, though fruitless, and blows his theory to atoms. So, like your oft-quoted friend, we have split on that rock called quartz's.

Washington, Sunday, November 7th, 1880.

Dear Pater: Thanks for yours of Sunday last. Doll's death is indeed a real loss to Boston—his partner will scarcely fill his place. We've had a quiet, restful week here, our work at the house not yet begun—several days of rain, alternating with summer heat, making even a wood fire impossible. Wednesday we took a lovely drive; the leaves hang on bravely here. Our stable is painting, and so much epizoöty raging that we shall let our horses stay in Virginia for a week yet. The election news gave quiet satisfaction here, except to our Southern friends. I'm told Mr. Corcoran gave ten thousand dollars toward the Democratic campaign fund. Miss Eustis, who lives with him, says our red outbuildings throw a "cheerful glow" into their dining room, and though he gasped at first, I am amused to find that he has ordered the sides of that and stable which abut on his yard painted red too, at his expense; I had ordered them left brown, as they were on his side. The addition was plastered yesterday, and today a high northwest wind will dry it bravely. I took my ebony cook to see her new quarters the other day and when she entered the kitchen her lips parted like a black walnut piano suddenly opening, and she exclaimed: "Oh, it's powerful large!"—twenty-seven by twenty-two is pretty ample.

Sunday evening we divided between the Bancrofts' and Judge Loring's; the former seemed younger and fresher even than when we left, Mr. Bancroft chuckling over Evarts's mot in saying that he was "overeighted." Judge and Mrs. Loring are to have a golden wedding this winter. Dined Thursday with the Hopkinses in their pretty new house. Miss Beale sends you many kind messages; wants you to bring Kitty when you come. Why can't you in your spring visit anyway—and scour the country when the dogwood is in bloom? Have a vile cold in my head, so adiós. Affectionately Clover

Wormley's, November 9th, 10 A.M.

Dear Pater: Yours of the 7th came last night. I want you to do something for me. Can't get any tea here fit to drink; as you know where "Heard Mixture" can be got, will you kindly order me a small chest—about fifteen pounds or so—and tell...