Chapter VIII: Section 2: The congress shall have power to enforce this article by (3)

... I took Elias (The old family servant.) into the secret, and he was so important, and so excited with it that I never expected he would get through waiting on table that dinner, without smashing something. You know we got it into the house very quietly, during church time, and hid it on the back piazza, and Elias got it up into the drawing-room while we were eating dinner, and coming down made such telegraphic signals that Erny (Ernest Longfellow) who was next me, said, “What has come over Elias? he is winking and making such faces at you. There’s some immense secret!”

As I had not my “eyes” on it was unfortunately thrown away. When Mamma did get up and saw it, she was fairly terrified, apparently thinking you were there yourself in some incomprehensible way. I don’t know but she will pull down “Rosalie” to have a place to hang it. Brother Tom takes a great interest in it, and brings artists to see it, who mostly think it Staigg’s best work.... Dear me. I have not told you about the piano we are having constructed to match our book cases, and with Mr. Staigg’s first sketch of you inserted in a panel,—truly lovely!

ON THE 11TH MY MOTHER WROTE:—

Your brother Tom has just been in to read a letter from Charlie. He was quite excited in hearing about Russia, and really wished he was with you to enjoy something so new. He would have been a great addition, and talked French and made everything as jolly as possible. He hopes that you have made known that you were officers in the army and wounded men, and I trust it is understood that C. A. L. is son of the “great poet.”

Your letters stir us all up, and though this is not a regular writing day, I could not resist telling you how much we enjoy hearing from you.

The “presentation” must have been rather a trial, not speaking French fluently. How T. G. A. would have rattled it off! He rather wonders that he came home. Of course the yachting will take him out in the Spring. We have now fine sleighing, and he is every day on the Brighton road, but not a “fascinating hood” is to be seen; all the women with veils tied tight over their faces. T. G. A. drives his pair and has some damsels with him.

Monday Eve: Little Billy (Curtis) came to see his Grandma this morning in full French costume; his pretty blue coat and hat, and Astrachan fur. It is lovely and very becoming to the little man.

All are so charmed with your picture. It gives life and light to the old house. I cannot bear to part with it, and I believe Staigg does not consider it finished.

I am glad you have nice quiet apartments, and are not at a hotel. Please be moderate, and do not dash about and make yourself conspicuous. It is foreign to the family name.

LETTER FROM GEO. B. SHATTUCK.

“Boston. January 8, 1867.

My dear Nathan.

A visit to No. 39, a few days since, and the exhibition of your portrait by Staigg, spurred me up to an undertaking which I have long been proposing to myself, answering a letter which you wrote to me before your departure and after mine from San Francisco, and which was forwarded to me here.... I was much pleased with your picture, and thought it an excellent likeness for the number of sittings I was told you had.

Of course, as is the duty of a good artist, he exerts his best effort that your personal pulchritude may not suffer, and the war-horse, etc. is rather in the style of General Washington. You ought to have had your negro “Joe” brought into the picture holding the charger. The horse, as well as I could judge from a short inspection, is well done, and surprisingly so, if, as Mrs. Appleton told me, this is Staigg’s first horse. I speak so at length as I suppose the thing to have been completed since you left home.”

ROSALIE.
]

ALLSTON’S ROSALIE.

The picture of “Rosalie” by Washington Allston, mentioned in my sister’s letter as hanging in the drawing-room at 39 Beacon street, and to which the author addressed some exquisite verses, became mine after the death of my father, at whose request it was painted.

It was in 1835, that my half-sister, the wife of the poet Longfellow, then Miss Frances Elizabeth Appleton, made a copy, which I now have in her own handwriting, of the following verse which was added by Allston some time after the original three verses were composed:—

“So, at that dreamy hour of day
When the last lingering ray
Stops on the highest cloud to play,
So thought the gentle Rosalie,
As in her maiden reverie,
First fell the strain of him who stole
In music to her soul.”

The original three verses are as follows:—

“Oh! pour upon my soul again
That sad unearthly strain
That seems from other worlds to plain;
Thus falling, falling, from afar,
As if some melancholy star
Had mingled with her light her sighs,
And dropped them from the skies.

· · · · ·

No—’tis not born of aught below,
That melting breath of wo
Which now doth o’er my spirit flow;
Waking the deeply-seated springs
Of silent joy; that round me flings
This nameless light—if light it be—
That veils the world I see.

For every form around me wears
The hue of other spheres:
And something mixed of smiles and tears
Comes from the very air I breathe.
Oh, nothing, sure, the stars beneath
Can mold a sadness like to this—
So like angelic bliss.” —_Wa. Allston._

These three verses have the signature as given above, in the copy in my possession. To the peculiar circumstances under which the picture was painted, an allusion is made in a letter to my brother Tom in Paris, by Mr. Tom Kemper Davis in Boston, a member of the legal profession with a strong leaning toward literary pursuits.

THOMAS SULLY.

“Sully, the artist,” he wrote, “is in town. I went with him yesterday and bowed at the shrine of the divine ‘Rosalie’. Sully’s first exclamation, after gazing some time at the picture, was,—

‘Raphael and Titian combined!’

Allston, by the way, has in conversation with me frequently alluded to your father’s purchase of this picture, and as I never heard him allude before to any like transaction. The manner in which the thing was done seems to have touched his heart.”

When they went to see it, the picture hung in the drawing-room of our old house, 39 Beacon street. That the artist Sully may have had a personal interest in the “Rosalie,” was suggested to me by a letter from the pen of a Washington correspondent of the New York _Daily Graphic_, signed “Mary E. Nealy,” which I chanced to see. I, being then in London, addressed a letter to this correspondent from 449 Strand, the Reading Room and Exchange of Robert Bowles, dated October 26, 1875, in the following words:—

“I noticed in a recent number of the _Graphic_, a letter of yours from Washington, in which you gave quite a long account of a collection of pictures painted by Sully. My attention was attracted to it by what you say of ‘Rosalie’, and the verses written by Allston, because I am the owner of the painting of ‘Rosalie’, which Washington Allston painted, and for which he wrote the verses.

This picture was painted for my late father and hung by the direction of Allston himself at our house, where it has remained many years, the admiration of all. Should you ever go to Boston, I think it will give you pleasure to see it.

I always supposed that the name was merely a fancy one, but what you say of Allston’s intimacy with Sully and his family, makes me believe that quite probably the name was taken from one of Sully’s daughters, and as such it may even be a sort of portrait of her.”

I closed by asking for further information in regard to the original of the picture, and received the following reply:—

MARY E. NEALY TO N. A.

618 Sixth Street, Washington City, D. C.
Nov. 18, 1875.

Your letter of enquiry in regard to the portrait of “Rosalie” by
Allston was duly received. Colonel Wheeler does not know about it, and
Mrs. Wheeler, formerly Ellen Sully, being married before her sister
Rosalie was grown, does not _know_ that the verses were inspired by
her sister, but thinks it highly probable, as Mr. Allston admired her
very much. She was very beautiful, as well as talented, but died at an
early age. Mrs. Wheeler could tell you certainly about your picture if
she could see a photograph of it.

I will be happy to call and see the picture if I ever go to Boston,
and thank you kindly for the privilege and the invitation. I have been
intensely interested in his pictures, and think that few artists ever
created more lovely female heads. I have an old annual called _The
Gift_, published in Philadelphia, in 1842. On the title page is a
lovely vignette head, which Col. Wheeler says is Rosalie Sully. If I
could send it to you without spoiling my book I would do so. But the
more simple way would be for you to photograph your painting.

P. S. This is a handsome and youthful brunette, with a spirited yet
most lovely and womanly expression. Her hand supports her head, and
the dark rich curls fall carelessly about her face. Sully painted his
daughters in many positions and in various characters, and many female
heads of his, supposed to be imaginary, are portraits of his own loved
ones.

_The Gift_, edition of 1842, is in the Boston Athenæum Library. The second picture on the title page really does look like “Rosalie” but younger.

Allston died in Cambridge, Mass., July 9, 1843. Mrs. Jameson, the English author, in her Memoir of Washington Allston, January 1, 1844, gives the following description:—

“‘Rosalie Listening to Music.’ The figure of a young girl, life-size
and three-quarters. She has been reading. The hand which holds the
book has dropped: the other is pressed on her bosom. The head a little
raised. Rapt, yet melancholy attention in the opening eyes and parted
lips. The coloring deep, delicate, rich.

When I first saw this picture, in the drawing-room of Mr. Appleton of
Boston, I had never seen Allston, did not even recollect his name. It
at once so captivated my attention, that I could not take my eyes from
it, even though one who might well have sat for a Rosalie was at my
side. I thought I had never beheld such a _countenance_, except in
some of the female heads of Titian or Palma. Yet the face was not what
would be termed _beautiful_; and oh, how far from the sentimental,
ringletted prettiness of our fashionable painters!

When I afterwards asked Mr. Allston whether his poem of ‘Rosalie’ had
suggested the picture, or the picture the stanzas, he replied, that,
‘as well as he could recollect, the conception of the poem and of the
picture had been simultaneous in his mind.’ He received for this
picture 1,200 dollars, about £250.”

The “Rosalie” was exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, and a lithograph was published by James R. Osgood & Co., Boston, in a collection entitled “Massachusetts Artists’ Centennial Album, 1876.” The description is as follows:—

“This picture was painted in 1835. It represents a beautiful girl
seated, facing the spectator, with one hand upon her bosom, and the
fingers of the other between the leaves of a red book which she holds
upon one knee. A piece of dark-brown drapery thrown across the lap
nearly hides the blue of the skirt. The waist of the dress is of gray,
with white sleeves, and is bound to the form by a yellow girdle. The
background is a dull red curtain with a gray column at the left. The
picture is owned by Mr. Nathan Appleton. The illustration is a
heliotype made from the original.”

I loaned it for some years to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and in 1893, it was exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. I afterward sold it to my brother W. S. Appleton, and it is now at 462 Beacon Street, Boston.

MY BROTHER TOM AND ALLSTON.
LETTER FROM T. G. A. TO MRS. SAMUEL APPLETON.

31st August, 1844.
Ashby de la Zouch.

I have been a week with Lady S. and her husband Mr. Smith Wright, not far from here. Lady S. is famous for her taste in flowers. Her conservatory is superb, and her white “yackas” unrivalled. She has a sister like “_ma chere Mire_” in Miss Bremer, with a wonderful face for energy. She is 87, but quick as a girl, a very clever botanist as well, and corresponding with all the best botanists in England. I drove and rode and walked over the country; magnetized a little, and drew a little, and so the hours flew. The Everetts were there a bit, and then flew to Scotland. To show how kind a man Mr. Smith Wright is,—he it was at Rome who got the Protestant burial ground enclosed, and did away with the burial by torchlight of old time. He is president of the Mechanics’ Institute at Nottingham. I shall hope to see these excellent friends again. I am the first American who ever visited them.

Yesterday Lady S. drove me to Sir George Beaumont’s, wishing herself to see Allston’s picture, I had so interested her in him. On the way there she told me how odd a person the present Sir George was,—the nephew of the famous art patron,—He received us at his superb porch in a blouse, with a funny white hat on, and was in great spirits to see us.... He took us over the fine house, a miracle of taste, as was everything of his uncle’s, and at length into a glass conservatory-like gallery he had built to hold the over abounding pictures. Here were all the first good things of Wilkie, Leslie, etc., which Sir George bought to encourage the young artists, but Sir G.’s own sketches were as interesting as any, and as good. The last one he was upon when he fell with apoplexy was peculiarly so. It represented boys playing over water upon a fallen tree, and every figure was in danger. Sir G. considered this very curious, so anticipating his own situation.

I mentioned Allston. He jumped. “I’ll show you a picture of his,”—and he ran for the key. It is in a lovely gray stone church, close to the house, a sort of guardian angel to the place.

Allston’s picture is the only one in the church. It is the one he often spoke to me about. It is ill placed, and ill lit, but wonderfully fine. An angel in white with sky blue scarf fluttering, points, while standing on the steps, to the prison door with a radiant hand, while Peter lifts a majestic face, heavy with sleep, upon the Angelus from between his bent and drowsy guards.

There is a huge _patine_ of moonlight breaking through the grates of the prison above.... The angel’s hair is nut brown and a little too pretty for so sacred a subject. It reminded me of “Rosalie’s” which is womanly, not angelic. The figures are life size and the picture one of Allston’s fine ones tho’ not equal to the “Jeremiah,” “Miriam” or “Balshazzar.”

We spent hours in wandering through the grounds....

Oh! the dairy, you should see that! An arched alcove, all _tiles_ above and below, rows of huge cream bowls standing upon marble slabs, and a fountain coolly splashing from an antique mask at one end. This gem of a dairy was dead Lady Beaumont’s doing.

There were poems of Wordsworth cut in stone about the walks. He was a great friend of the former Sir George, and I saw a stone seat, the rock cut, in which he wrote many of his poems. When one thinks of this lovely place and the great men, Sir George, Allston, Wordsworth, and Beaumont and Fletcher,—this is one of the family,—perhaps Shakespeare, one must allow this to be almost unmatched as a country seat.

On page 67, of brother Tom’s volume of poems entitled “Faded Leaves,” in one addressed to Allston after seeing his “Peter delivered from Prison” at Colcorton Hall, in Wordsworth’s winter garden, may be found the following stanzas:—

“A portion of thy soul divine
Is fitly shrined in yon meek aisle
Where arching roofs in prayer incline,
And chasten all the silent pile.

· · · · ·

Ah! yes, dear Allston, from the bars
And dungeon of this mortal sphere,
At length thy spirit seeks the stars,
Free in their happier atmosphere.”

FROM MY MOTHER AT BOSTON.

“February 24, 1867.

I do think you are having splendid times. The last princess seems to be the loveliest. And then the furs, and the slippers, and the table covers, and the malachite! Oh, what a boy!

Mr. Sayles (Henry Sayles) and Ned Brown (Edward Ingersol Brown) called to see me and were so much pleased with your picture. (Staigg portrait.)

They were told you _really sent_ a telegram from St. Petersburg on Christmas Day, and thought it so like you to do it. W. S. A. is in pursuit of a second pair for his four-in-hand. I do not approve so much display.”

In another letter my mother observes parenthetically:—“You must remember I am an old lady and belong to the old school of manners and propriety, which has sadly changed since my day.”

THE BLESSING OF THE NEVA. ILL. LONDON NEWS.
]

CHAPTER SIXTH.
ST. PETERSBURG. THE NEVA. NOVGOROD. POLAND.

“We look into each other’s eyes,
And see a friendly peace which says,
While on the snowy Cossack flies,
‘Rave ye without, here Quiet stays.’

This silent, unexpressed delight
Glows brighter so severely set:
Heart-warm against the stormy white,
The Rose of Joy burns warmer yet.”
—_Thomas Gold Appleton_
_A Snow Storm_, Jan. 17, 1867.

THE BLESSING OF THE NEVA.

St. Petersburg, Jan’y 20, 1867.

My dear Mama.

Here we are back at the capital, where we were most enthusiastically received by our hostess Madame Octavie, who expressed great joy at seeing her “little Americans” safely returned, and installed us into our old apartments.

Your letters came the next day, with accounts of Christmas festivities at home, and the prospective party for New Year.

I am so glad that the portrait _à la militaire_ has been accomplished enough to show what it is, and that the likeness is good, and the whole thing gives pleasure. I rather pride myself upon it, for the idea of the composition and pose was quite my own, and the secrecy with which it has all been done is commendable.

Driving down the Nevski from the Moscow station St. Petersburg looked _so_ funny, not in the least like a Russian city, but a great, sprawling capital, and they tell us it is not gay here at all, especially after Moscow. No balls at Court as yet, as the government is not very rich just now, and after the tremendous expenses of entertaining our fleet last summer, and later all the gorgeous display connected with the wedding of the Tsarevitch, they are really trying to economize a bit. This is good theoretically, but not for us individually, and I hope we shall see one big ball at the Winter Palace.

The morning after our return was the day of the ceremony of the baptism of the Neva, which the Emperor attends. We received invitations to the Palace to go with the Diplomatic Corps, and although we could not see much of the performance outside,—and how the poor fellows, Tsar, priests, and “strikers” have to suffer with uncovered heads in the bitter cold,—we got a very good idea of the male portion of the Russian court in the Palace, and afterwards enjoyed an excellent breakfast. It was quite striking to see us, the only two civilians in the big throng of officers, courtiers and diplomats, and it was a pleasant feeling that the grandeur of America does not go in for outside display.

We dined yesterday at the English Club with Curtin, the best one in the city, and English only in name, and later played Russian nine-pins with a party of officers.

I skated, also, on the Neva Club grounds, which have been carefully arranged during our absence, and it was very jolly there, with music and all the swells of the city. The costumes are very effective, and add much to the brilliancy of the scene, those of the gentlemen being quite as elaborate as of the ladies, velvet jackets and tight fitting tunics trimmed with fur and slashed _à la Polenaise_, with Knickerbockers and leggings. It is strange that if a gentleman with us should attempt to wear such a costume, elegant, comfortable, and appropriate for the ice, he would be set down as a snob. The democratic principle of every one always wearing the same style of raiment on all occasions may, perhaps, be good, but it certainly takes away much from the beauty of any assemblage of human beings.

The ladies were much as in New York or Jamaica Pond, with the addition of the omnipresent _basilisk_ or hood, made of different colored cloth, and trimmed with gold or silver braid. We mean to bring several of them home, as there is nothing prettier or more genuinely Russian here to take away, and for a lady to wear sleigh-riding they are perfect. I hope to see some of my own on the Brighton road next winter.

Today was held the first race of the season on the river, but it was so very cold that it was not particularly amusing to witness. The horses look fine, parading about covered with Persian blankets. Monday morning. Very early! We start in a few minutes on an excursion of two or three days to Novgorod the Great, once the capital of Russia, and I have just time to seal this up without finishing it.

Therefore in haste, Nathan.

FOX’S MISSION TO RUSSIA.

The reference in my letter to our fleet and its presence in Russia is to Fox’s mission. On the 16th of May, 1866, the President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, signed a joint resolution passed by Congress, congratulating the twenty million serfs upon the providential escape from assassination of the Emperor Alexander II., by the hand of an enemy of emancipation, and in order to give additional significance to the act, Congress selected the Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox, assistant secretary of the navy during the entire period of the war for the Preservation of the Union, to perform the delicate mission of carrying this resolution to the Emperor of Russia. He was sent in the two turreted monitor _Miantonomoh_, a class of vessel which had never before crossed the Atlantic, and the _Augusta_ and _Ashuelot_, two wooden men-of-war, accompanied the _Miantonomoh_.

August 6 (July 23) 1866, the fleet arrived in the harbor of Cronstadt, on the 17th the Tsar sent the address acknowledging the visit of Mr. Fox, and on Saturday, September 15 (3d) Mr. Fox left Saint Petersburg, after a farewell breakfast given on the Russian yacht _Rurik_ at which Lieutenant General Greig said in a speech while presenting a medal struck in memory of the enfranchisement of the peasants:—

“He will see on it the likeness of our blessed sovereign, and the effigy of a nobleman and of a peasant.”

A narrative of this mission to Russia from the Journal and Notes of J. F. Loubat (Duc deLoubat) was published in 1873, and presented to me in New York, by the author, September 28th of the same year.

THE CEREMONY OF BLESSING THE WATERS.

In some notes made in February, 1879, and printed in the Boston _Advertiser_ under the title “_Outre Mer_,” I referred to the occasion of the annual benediction of the Neva, a rite of the Orthodox Church commemorative of the baptism of the Saviour, when the Tsar takes his position in an open chapel built out on the quay, and the ice below having been broken the Metropolitan blesses the waters and the cross is dipped therein three times:—

“It takes place just opposite the Winter Palace, and all the guests witness it comfortably from the windows of one of the large rooms of the palace, while the Tsar and the priests and those who actually participate in it have to go out with bare heads in the cold and take some of the water from the frozen Neva, which they can only get through a hole made in the ice. It is principally a religious service, with rites performed upon a handsome platform, with a canopy above, erected for it between the palace and the water. It does not last long, and in this instance the Emperor and his suite might well have been glad to get out of the intense cold when it was over.

We had some difficulty that day, my companion and myself, in getting up to the door of the Winter Palace. We had our cards of invitation all correct, indicating where we should go, and we supposed that our _invostchik_, or the driver of the sleigh we used every day, understood it perfectly. But it seems he did not, and we were stopped by a mounted soldier to whom we could not talk a word, while we brandished the card before him. But this did not work, and we had to turn back. We were at our wits’ ends, determined if possible not to miss the sight, and I suggested that we should drive at once to the United States Minister’s residence, General Clay, to see if we could not find his servant, or some one who would act as pilot. On the road we met our commissionaire whom we had dismissed at the hotel, thinking we should not need him, and took him in front with the driver.

“A FRIEND AT COURT.”

As it was then rather late we drove up to the nearest door of the palace, but not the one designated for us to enter on the card. There we met one of the young officers of the imperial household whose acquaintance we had made at our regular presentation to the Tsar some weeks before, and, explaining to him our dilemma he said it was all right, and put us in charge of a _chasseur_, who was to conduct us to our proper places. He was a gorgeously dressed fellow, with a very tall plume in his hat, and slowly took us along through the endless _salons_ of the building, which were filled with people,—ladies in the galleries,—and at length reached the room set apart for the Diplomatic Corps and distinguished strangers who happened to be in St. Petersburg, where we had a view of the ceremonies.”

A COUSINLY VIEW.
FROM MY COUSIN AT MOSCOW TO MY MOTHER.

Moscow, January 22, 1867.

My dear Cousin.

About a month ago, as I was standing at the window, I saw two gentlemen stop at our door, with very English faces as I thought. I was surprised, for I expected no visitors from abroad, but how much greater was my surprise when the two gentlemen were introduced as Mr. Appleton and Mr. Longfellow.

You may well imagine my joy at seeing some of my American relations at last. Their stay in Moscow was for me a perfect enjoyment. I had such pleasure in seeing them, and saw them as often as was possible, for they had so many invitations from all sides that they could hardly find time to answer them all: they went very much among the nobility.

Nathan admired the Russian ladies much and teased me all the time by saying he would marry a Russian Princess or a Polish countess. I said I would not acknowledge him after that, he must remain constant to the American beauties. He left Moscow, however, with the firm intention of falling desperately in love with the first fairy princess he met in St. Petersburg. I trust, however, that the 30 degrees of frost we have at the present moment will freeze his heart so as not to admit any warmer feeling into it, and prevent melting away those he brought with him from America.

You may well think, dear cousin, how much Nathan and Charles had to tell us about you all, and it seems as if since I know them the ocean has disappeared between us, and we are brought nearer to each other. How much I should like to see you and know you all, and always will regret not to have gone over to Boston during the three months I stayed in Ostend, some twelve years ago. I should have then seen our dear Grandmamma, let me call her thus, dear cousin, for she was to me more than ever an aunt could be.

How much I value the beautiful pin you sent me is needless to say. Receive my warmest and sincerest thanks for this kind attention, and believe me, dear cousin, that I shall always wear the pin, so dear to me, in remembrance of our dear Grandmamma and of yourself.

How do you like Nathan’s and Charles’s photograph in their furs? (See frontispiece.) We admire it much, and I claimed one for my album.

Kiss the dear baby for me. I sent him a pair of little red Russian boots, which I hope he will be able to wear by the time they reach him.

Good bye, dear cousin, write to me sometimes, and tell me something about our travellers that interest me much. My husband begs to be kindly remembered to you and your dear family.

Most affectionately,
Eliza Carnatz.

NOVGOROD.
TO MY MOTHER.

Saint Petersburg,
January 28, 1867.

_Ma chère Maman._

Our little trip to Novgorod was most successful. We went down the railroad about 70 miles, to Tchudova, and there took the _troikas_ and the funniest vehicle imaginable, in which you lie down on the hay and are covered up with felt and skins. We made our forty-five miles in a few hours, arriving at the town in time for supper and bed.

The next morning we set about seeing the sights of the place, which are very few, the old church of St. Sophia and the modern monument celebrating the 1000th anniversary of Russia.

What a quaint old place, with its Kremlin, and its white yellow churches, and everything so Russian!

THE MIDNIGHT DRIVE.
]

I found a fascinating antiquary, who would have driven Billy crazy, in his gown and skull cap. He had a book store in his house, with curiosities and minerals, and I bought a Russian missal of the 14th century (I afterwards gave it to the Boston Public Library.) and a few coins and odds and ends.

SKATING IN THE YOUSOUPOFF GARDEN.
]

THE MIDNIGHT DRIVE.

We made the journey home by night, with the mercury near zero, and cold enough it was. I had two pairs of gloves on, and mittens over them, and was just comfortable. We rattled along over the snow, with a bright moon, and clear, cold stars, stopping now and then at wayside inns to drink tea and warm up.

Nothing have we done more Russ than our midnight drive from Novgorod.

Yesterday we dined with the Count Besborodko, the one who owns the “swell” palace I mentioned in a previous letter. The dinner was good, the company gay, the Countess charming, and never in my life was I so _en train_ to speak French easily. I surprised myself. We came home early, changed our dress, and went for a little while to the fête of the Yacht Club Skating ground, which was brilliantly illuminated with lanterns, grottoes of ice with Bengal lights thrown upon them, stuffed bears, pretty toilettes, etc. etc.—music.

ISLA.

But even this was not enough for the evening, so off we go to Isla, a café, theatre, skating ground combined, a few miles into the country, where there are life size statues made of ice in the garden.

Shall we go to the _bal masqué_ at the Opera House? No, it will hardly pay to put on our funereals twice the same evening, so go to bed quietly, and good night!

Since my last return here I have been making many purchases preparatory to leaving the place.

Your beautiful sables have been selected, paid for and packed up, and I hope they will come home in safety.

MY CIRCASSIAN UNIFORM.

“‘Brave in battle,’ ‘eloquent in assembly,’ are great titles in
Circassia. But he who is the ‘most hospitable’ wears the brightest
crown of all.... A Circassian is always a Circassian.”

—_Colonel Richard Henry Savage._

“A land of the sword and spear, of the chase and mighty
woodcraft—Circassia.”

—_R. H. S._ 1876.

LETTER TO MY MOTHER CONTINUED.

I have got Master Will a Circassian overcoat for winter, and myself a Circassian uniform, for fancy balls at home, very handsome and effective it is too. Charlie has had a Russian dress made for the same object. I have picked up in the Bazaar some nice things in the way of arms,—pistols, daggers and swords, and am looking for some chain armor. Today I bought all the malachite I want, a few pretty pieces only. My Russian harness has come, and very nice it is, so light and graceful. Look out for me on the avenue next summer crying “_berages_,” Russian for “Look out!” “Take care!”

I have bought you a lovely Persian table cloth and myself a cover for an easy chair for smoking.

CIRCASSIAN UNIFORM.
]

We went the other evening to see the Davenport Brothers, who are here now, and as luck would have it I was drawn by lot to tie one of them in the box. Funny that way out in Russia they should be tied up by a fellow countryman. There was quite a party of us Americans there, and we chatted with them after the performance. It was very good and just what I have often seen.

29th. Morning:—I have just received a big packet of letters; among them one from Georgie Shattuck. He gives me a very good idea of just what is going on in Boston.

Last eve we were again at the Opera, in the Pierces’ box. The Barber of Seville—I have often heard it—with an ugly prima-donna. Tonight we go first to a ballet, “Meteora,” and after to a ball at Lady Buchanan’s the English ambassadress, and, perhaps, at two o’clock, to a costume ball at one of the Clubs. Saturday next is my birthday, and I am to give a gentlemen’s dinner to Russians and Americans.

I have many things here which are not completed, and I want all my purchases well packed up and directed, before I leave the place, and, try as hard as you please, it is difficult to accomplish much each day.

We made the acquaintance a few days past of the Souworoff family, the descendants of the great old fighter whose sabre rang all over Europe. The young princess was very nice and jolly, and did not like it that her mother would not let her skate and flirt. The old party was eminently proper and conservative in all her ideas, and reminded me of several ladies in Boston I might perhaps mention.

We passed one evening last week quietly with Mr. Prince, as he was very desirous we should. What are you going to do this summer? Will quiet Lynn content you, or is it Niagara, Saratoga, or Newport? Go in for a house there, and I will come home by the first of August, in time for the season. I hear the Americans are cutting great rigs in Paris. Thank Mr. Burgess for me for the arrival of the package. Breakfast being ready, 12 m., I will say in the last words of many French comedies, “à table”.

Nate.

THE COSTUME BALL AT DELMONICO’S.

“Send me a dream tonight,
A dream of the boy-time days,
Stop for me the shuttle of Time
That ever so swiftly plays—
A dream of the other days,
When the sky was ever bright—
Unravel the warp and woof of years—
Send me a dream tonight.”
—_Baltimore American_, April, 1900.

From a journal of a visit to New York and Philadelphia, made in March and April, 1875, I extract the following written in my den, 788 Broadway, Room 16, New York, April 11th:—

“Since I left Boston, nearly three weeks ago, I have been through some such interesting experiences that I must certainly record them in my diary. But it is no easy thing to catch them as they go by, so rapid a life do we lead in the great cities and so full of movement is the time, still, I will try.”

The event of the season among the few hundred persons who make up the fashionables of New York society, was the _Bal Costumé_ given at Delmonico’s by thirty gentlemen on Easter Monday, March 29, 1875.

I was invited to take part in the Oriental Quadrille gotten up by Miss Minnie Stevens (Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Paran Stevens, and afterwards wife of Arthur Henry Fitzroy Paget.) as I had a fine Circassian officer’s dress, which I had had made years ago in Saint Petersburg, just for occasions of the kind.

The Sunday before the ball I dined at Mr. S. L. M. Barlow’s, No. 1 Madison Avenue, as my partner in the quadrille was to be Miss Barlow, and it was a kind attention on their part to invite me to dinner.

The other guests were Mr. Manton Marble and Mr. Hurlburt of the New York _World_, one of the organs of the Democratic party. These gentlemen, with Messrs. Barlow, Belmont and others, were very intimate, and all leading spirits of the Manhattan Club.

After dessert, I took occasion to say, in a conversation in which some of the leaders were being discussed, that the Democratic party to succeed must get rid of many of its old planks, which would not support any one today; that there were plenty of young fellows like myself and others, who had been in the war, and were now growing up to take part in public matters, who could not, and would not, place confidence in the men whose record had been such as that of the leaders of the Northern Democrats, the last fifteen years.

But how I have departed from the ball!

Instead of describing it particularly I insert here a drawing and notice of it from Frank Leslie’s paper, also the card of invitation, etc. (The illustration represented the ball room with the ball in progress, showing many of the finest costumes.)

The invitation was for a _Bal Costumé—costume de rigueur_,—signed by H. S. Fearing, secretary, and the time was nine o’clock. The reverse of the card bore the names of twenty-eight gentlemen; among them August Belmont, W. W. Astor, and A. Thorndike Rice.

The representative of _Frank Leslie’s_ said in his report:—

“All that bright flowers, perfumed air, sweet music, flashing
diamonds, manly beauty, female loveliness, elegant costumes, and grace
and refinement could contribute to such a scene, were found there....
One of the features of the evening was an Eastern quadrille of which
Miss Stevens of Fifth Avenue was queen. The costumes of the eight
forming the set were superb!”

The note from Miss Minnie Stevens to me with regard to the ball, was as follows:—

“I write you some time ahead to know if it is possible for you to be
in New York a week from Monday, that is to say, the Monday before the
ball. We have arranged to dance the quadrille at our place on that
evening, for you have no idea how little any one knows about dancing
it, and, as the audience will be large, it would be very mortifying to
make several mistakes. As there is to be a procession formed, we have
also to know our partners and our places. I hope you will be able to
get here for the rehearsal on Monday the 22d as I would like all the
sixteen to come together. I am in despair about my dress, it is so
difficult to get up. Hoping soon to have the pleasure of seeing you,

I am sincerely yours,
Minnie Stevens.”

This was the handsomest ball of the kind I ever saw, as nearly all the costumes were remarkable for richness, and few or none of them had a cheap or tawdry look. The march in of all of us who took part in the opening quadrille, was a brilliant sight.

Before going to it I went to show myself off in costume at the Appletons’, 3 Madison Avenue, and also at the Beckwiths’ on Fifth Avenue and 18th Street, whence I escorted Miss Helen Beckwith (Now Mrs. Dudley Leigh.) in the dress of a Circassian slave across the street to the Belmonts’, where there was a large reception, for those in costume particularly, for the benefit of the invalid daughter who could not go to the ball, but naturally wanted to see the people and the dresses. I was glad to have the chance of paying a call at the house. Mrs. Belmont looked remarkably well, and her other daughter (Now Mrs. Samuel S. Howland.) too, as pretty as possible in Pompadour costume.

At the ball I sat at a supper table with Mrs. Strong,—née Ruggles,—chatting and looking at the different persons as they passed by; also, with Mrs. General Barlow née Shaw. This was a quiet and comfortable way of enjoying the fête. Then I danced the “_cotillon_” with Mrs. Kemys—the cotillon which was led by Jimmy Otis with all the animation of twenty years before.

Strolling to my den through 14th street and Broadway, just as the day was dawning, I got into bed, well tired, a little before six o’clock.

FROM MISS STEVENS ON RECEIPT OF THE PHOTOGRAPH, 1877.

“So many thanks for the charming photograph just received. It was very
kind of you to have remembered me, and so justly divined my wish.

The ‘Circassian’ shall join its companions in the album of the
oriental quadrille. We are going to England some time this spring, but
I hope only to return for the summer at dear old Newport, which we all
must acknowledge has no rivals.”

THE LOOM OF THE EAST.

I wore my Circassian costume again at my brother’s house, 10 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, at the meeting of the Bric-a-Brac Club, January 17th, 1877, when I read his paper on “The Loom of the East” (Fifth chapter of “Windfalls” by Thomas Gold Appleton, author of “A Sheaf of Papers,” “A Nile Journal,” “Syrian Sunshine” etc.) my brother suffering from a fall at the time.

MY TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY.
FROM MY MOTHER IN BOSTON, SUNDAY, FEB. 3, 1867.

“Your birthday (February 2d) was not forgotten, and as I sat at my lonely meal, I could only wish you, my boy, many years of happiness,—not the giddy enjoyment of the present hour, but solid days of reality, when the heart shall be satisfied, and all this fascination of travel and society shall have lost some of its freshness, and you will not care for a ‘spike’ team, or a ‘four-in-hand’.”

THE LAST LETTER FROM RUSSIA IN ’67.

St. Petersburg, February 3, 1867.

Yes, Mamma, it is here. We are off tomorrow for Warsaw. We leave this delightful place, with its cold climate and its warm hearts. Willingly would I linger here a week or two more, but Charles is resolute, and has been saying for the last few days that he _will_ go tomorrow, and can’t be stopped.

Our boxes are packed, our bills paid, and as it would be quite impossible to find a time when we would not like to stay longer, perhaps it is as well to go now as ever.

“20 AND 30 BELOW.”

It is mild today, but the four days before have been such cold as I never experienced; the mercury being all the time between twenty and thirty below the zero of Fahrenheit. In fact the people here say they have not had such a snap for years. We were fortunate not to get frozen, for our _isvoschik_ was in a continued state of freeze,—which he did not seem to mind,—notwithstanding the neckkerchief and mittens we gave him.

The intense cold interferes little with your life, and wrapped up in our _shubes_ we spend the day calling or shopping, or by night go from ballet to ball till late in the morning. They have huge fires built in front of the Opera House, and the Winter Palace, for the coachmen to keep warm.

RUSSIAN FOOTMEN.

The life of a footman here is odd enough. Their principal duty is to look after the cloaks and overshoes of their masters and mistresses, and they follow them about all day and night, sitting and sleeping in the entries of private houses during a visit and the duration of a ball, and in the foyer of the theatre for the entire performance of the opera or play.

The carriages, too, are always drawn up in line at the theatre or ball, and stay there all night instead of going home and returning at a certain hour. What would the tender coachmen and hackmen of Boston say to that, who do not like to wait half an hour?

This is strange, when it is so cold, especially for the horses, but they are never clipped, and the men are very thickly dressed.

At all the “swell” houses they have an impressive flunkey in the entry, with a huge knobbed stick like a drum major or beadle, dressed in gorgeous livery, a red sash a foot wide and covered with embroidered black, double-headed eagles. All he does is to open and shut the front door. In fact, at all houses, shops, and hotels, they have a porter, generally an old soldier covered with medals, to take off and put on overcoats and boots and goloshes.

Every house in Russia is double windowed and treble doored, and between the two panes of the windows there are artificial flowers.

The houses are too hot, and the air bad, so that they use incense everywhere in the country.

LADY BUCHANAN’S BALL.

The ball at the British embassy was very good, and we were introduced to the prettiest girl in the city, the little Countess Apraxine. We met, also, a charming young lady, the Princess Ourousoff, a cousin of my friend at Newport last summer.

Today we have been lunching at the Prince Galitzine’s, with a crowd of jolly young dogs; among them the son of the celebrated Gortschakoff.

TSARSKOË SELO.

We passed one day last week at Tsarskoë Selo, visiting the palace, a summer residence of the Emperor; also, the arsenal with splendid armor, and the imperial dairy, where we ate cheese and drank imperial milk. We afterwards dined with Gen. Gogol, the commander of the department, who was very strong on the _entente cordiale_ between us, with a most healthy detestation of England. He was another good specimen of that well-known type of humanity, the Russian general.

SLEDGE DRAWN BY REINDEER.
]

The Palace was the best I ever saw, they being generally cold, cheerless, all alike, and a bore, but this looked like a habitable place, with a blue and silver boudoir, a room entirely made of Japan wood, with panels, pictures, furniture, all Japanese; one room papered with amber, and at last a Persian smoking room, small and cozy, filled with bits of armor and pipes, divans, and a tiny fountain sunk in the middle of the room.

I have been doing up sights rapidly, preparatory to leaving; for instance, the Admiralty, where an officer showed us all the models, interesting to Charles, especially the Yankee cutters; the Academy of Fine Arts from which, however, the best paintings have already been sent to Paris. (For the Exposition.) I wanted to get a fair idea of the Russian school, as it is now very little known out of the country, but headed by Zitchy, a genius. I have photographs which will give you an idea of his talent.

The Imperial Library one day I slaughtered, well repaying a visit, but finally, today, we gave a hurried half-hour to a last, lingering gaze at the treasures in the Hermitage.

A DRIVE WITH REINDEER.

Yesterday, in all the cold, we took a five minute drive in a sledge drawn by three reindeer on the Neva, just to say we had done it.

Midnight and after:—I take up my festive quill for the last time in Petersburg, to finish a family epistle.

We have been to see our last ballet tonight, and then out to Tivoli, a restaurant in the suburbs of the city, with a “swell” skating pond under glass. We have been meaning to see the place for a long while, but have not accomplished it before our last eve.

We have our government permission to leave the country, and nothing now remains for us to do but gracefully take off our hats and give a parting kiss to Russia.

Nate.

Please see that all my military traps are safely returned from the studio of Staigg,—sword, bridle, jacket, belt, etc. Ask T. G. A. to write me his opinion of the picture.

GAS-LIGHTING IN MOSCOW.
FROM MY MOTHER IN BOSTON, FEB. 10, 1867.

“Did you witness the lighting of Moscow with gas? It must have been a great occasion from the newspaper accounts. It seems strange it should not have been done before this.

GIFTS TO THE SOUTH.

Mr. George Peabody has made a munificent gift to the country of $1,500,000 for educational purposes in the South, so that I am sure the North may feel relieved of all responsibility.

I read in this evening’s _Transcript_, that the largest room in the world is in St. Petersburg, did you see it? Twenty thousand wax tapers are required to light it properly.

DROSKY.
]

It is simply ridiculous the way people are to be off, there will be eight or nine vacant houses at Nahant.”

Later, in a letter dated March 31, 1867, my mother mentioned the gift of 100,000 volumes of school books, which the New York Appleton firm had added to the educational gift of Mr. Peabody.

“POOR POLAND.”

“Good Kosciusko! thy great name alone
Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling;
It comes upon us like the glorious pealing
Of the wide spheres—an everlasting tone.”
—_John Keats._ _To Kosciusko._

LETTER TO MY MOTHER.

Vienna, Feb. 12, 1867.

From Saint Petersburg to here, a long pull, is it not? and what a change in temperature from the icy zero of the Neva to that which seems almost like summer! We saw the snow disappear on our way, and wheels gradually take the place of runners, and now that I am far away, and in a city, which like most European ones, is an attempted copy of Paris, how brilliantly indeed do the peculiarities of Russia stand forth.

We left St. P. one morning and the evening of the next day were in Warsaw. Returning to our hotel late from a ball, we were accosted and stopped by a policeman of whom I asked the way, and he very politely took us all (Mr. W. F. Nisbet, an American gentleman who came with us from Russia, C. A. L. and myself.) to the station house. It seems no one in Warsaw is allowed to be out after midnight without a “pass,” and we had neglected to get them.

We coolly entered and sat down and burst out laughing, and at length I explained in my bad German, to an official who talked an equally bad lingo, our situation, impressing him with the fact of the greatness of the Amerikanski alliance, and we were soon escorted home.

The next day we rambled about the town, saw the palaces and the pretty ladies, and were attended to by some young Russian swells to whom we had letters from St. Petersburg. In the theatre we saw the Mazourka most gorgeously danced in true Polish national costume, which was not allowed here a few years ago.

Poor old Poland! What is left of her former greatness? Alas, nothing but the mazourka. As can be aptly said, how like to Byron’s Greece:—

We have the Polish dance as yet,
Where is the Polish phalanx gone?

Better this than nothing, as it helps keep up still the nationality of the people.

The next morning Charles and I were off to Cracow, the old capital of Poland, and one of the most interesting and quaint old towns I had ever seen, with its Square and Schloss, and the church where all the kings of Poland have been crowned and buried, and we mysteriously descended the vault, and saw the tombs of Jagellon, Paniatowski, and our good friend Kosciusko.

This is an Austrian territory, where the rule is much less rigid, and we saw many old Poles in faded frogged coats and square caps, and the antique equipages and livery of families once the greatest in Europe.