berth which he filled during the war, for the regular army was always against him. General Sherman never spoke well of the Sanitary Commission. He thought the whole business of taking care of a war belonged to the regular army. So it did, if they could have done it; but they could not. So it was well that some outside aid brought a cup of cold water to the dying soldier.
Dr. Bellows was fortunate in having for parishioners Mr. Bryant, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft, Mr. and Mrs. G. L. Schuyler, Mr. Henry T. Tuckerman, and many such people.
Mr. Bryant, unlike most poets, was a rich man, and gave excellent dinners. I remember many a distinguished company in his house in Sixteenth Street, charmingly conducted by his daughter. Miss Julia Bryant, who knew how to mingle the elements which make up a dinner.
I often thought that his dinners might be compared to Rogers's breakfasts in London, so many bright minds conspired to make them eloquent. Mr. Bryant and his son-in-law, Parke Godwin, were kind to actors, then not so often invited into society as they are now; and at their houses I met Edwin Booth and his first lovely wife. Badeau and Booth were very intimate, and the former brought the great tragic actor often to my house. I never saw a more perfect union than that of the Booths.
I remember Booth was then playing Othello and Iago on alternate nights. A select few of us preferred his Othello. It was so intensely Venice in all its belongings that it fitted his romantic Eastern beauty. I remember no picture more vividly than his as he sat on a couch reading over his military orders, the great captain Othello, in an Oriental robe and sash. And then, as
