to have thought highly of the Emperor, and Mrs. Agassiz records with evident pride the story of their visit to the capital of Brazil.[1] James R. Partridge, who represented the United States at the Brazilian court in the seventies, spoke of Dom Pedro in the following enthusiastic manner:
The Emperor impressed me in every way as completely entitled to the reputation and popu-
larity he has . . . with all who have ever ap-
proached or known him. To the advantages of a fine person, a dignified presence, and most affable address, without the least parade . . . he adds the solid things of admirable good sense, capacity, and knowledge... He certainly appeared to me to be the best thing I have seen in Brazil.[2]
The visit of Dom Pedro to the United States in 1876 at-
tracted considerable attention, and furnished occasion for
his election to membership in the National Geographical
Society and the issuance of a brief biographical sketch in
so dignified a publication as the annual report of the Smith-
sonian Institution.[3] His presence at the Philadelphia Ex-
position, moreover, gave Bell’s telephone an opportune pub-
licity which probably has meant much for the progress of
that modern convenience.[4]
Four years later another enthusiastic North American
minister at Rio spoke of His Majesty in most complimen-
tary terms:
The Emperor is a man of large views and fine
temper. Among the rulers of the world today, I do not know of one who combines more of the
—2—
- ↑ See Professor and Mrs. Louis Agassiz, A Journey in Brazil (Bos-
ton, 1871). - ↑ Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (1872), pp. 94-95.
- ↑ The Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report (1876), p. 173 ff.; Frank Vincent, Around and About South America (New York, 1895), p. 253. Note also Vincent's dedication.
- ↑ The Literary Digest, January 8, 1921, p. 30, quoting F. H. Sweet in Power Plant Engineering, gives an interesting account of the Emperor and the telephone.
