men — he who, for his pleasure, translated the Dies Iræ, and who, bless his heart! wrote that immortal line, better than poetry, "If any man hauls down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." We could brag of Mr. Winthrop, who, one Southerner told me, was the only Northern gentleman he ever saw! And at his house could be seen some lovely Boston girls. Among the Southern ladies I particularly remember the beautiful Mrs. Yulee, a soft Creole brunette with exquisite manners. She was, before her marriage, Miss Wickliffe, of Kentucky, but she had the air of a Louisiana woman.
Mr. Morse — Professor Morse — was there, trying to get an appropriation for a new invention, the electric telegraph. I heard the first click that went through, either to Baltimore or New York, I forget which. Just imagine it! The year 1850 was a transition era. The old was going out, the new was coming in. The looker-on little knew of its importance. It is now to me like those mosaics at Ravenna which mark the Pagan and the Christian epoch as they separated.
As I have visited the city often since to partake of its elegant festivities, to drive out to the Soldiers' Home through palaces and flowering trees, did I ever regret that old Washington?
Yes. It is impossible not to regret the plain beginnings and the sincere patriotism, the poor little homes which held such noble lives; and I can safely affirm that anything so delightful as Washington I have never seen elsewhere. There were a mingled simplicity and grandeur, a mingled state and quiet intimacy, a brilliancy of conversation — the proud prominence of intellect over material prosperity which does not exist in any other city of the Union. I believe it does not exist anywhere but at Rome, which always, geographically as well as
