James Brooks, who was for years a pillar of strength in Congress, and who started the first newspaper correspondence ever thought of, in the Portland Advertiser, which he edited before he was twenty years old, was a native of Portland, which city he represented in the legislature, then travelled all over Europe on foot, and settled down in New York before he was twenty-six. After this he spent twelve or fifteen years in Congress—earned a place, second to no man there, as a statesman, travelled over Europe three times, visited Egypt and the Holy Land, and finished his travels by a trip round the world, taken between the sessions of Congress. Beside this, he never ceased to be the leading editor of the New York Express, and his book about Japan, China, and so on, which Mr. Appleton, of New York, has published, is one of the best books of travel extant.
Beside all these, Mr. King made his first literary start in Portland, where, as a young man, he edited a weekly paper. But he has lived most of his after-life in Washington, generally holding a high position there. During a portion of Mr. Buchanan's administration, he was Postmaster-General of these United States, and at all times he has been considered a man worth knowing.
LIII.
A LITERARY PARTY.
DEAR SISTERS:—Of course I, being a young girl of New England, felt myself at home in Mrs. King's house the minute I entered it. There is something in the air of a dwelling like that, pure and breezy, like the morning winds on the Green Mountains. I felt myself growing frank and cheerful as I got into the hall. The parlors were crowded full—three of them—with people that one liked to look at, and longed to know; for every face had an idea in it, and, beyond that, a good many were right down beautiful.
But beauty by itself isn't enough to get an invitation here, and good clothes count for just nothing, though there was plenty of them, and I didn't feel as if my pink silk was too much. Something a little more austere, in the velvet or alpaca line, might have been more appropriate to the occasion. Still, there was a rosy brightness about my silk that had a tendency to give a glow of youthful thoughtlessness to intelligence, and combine an idea of high fashion with genius.
Mr. King, and his daughter, a proper, pretty stylish lady, stood near the door when I went in, with the train of my dress streaming back into the hall, and some natural rose-geranium leaves circling my brow in a way that was calculated to remind an observing person of Miss Corinne when she was crowned in the Capitol at Rome.
Mr. King come forward to meet me with his hand held out. He is a thin, spare man, with the sweetest and kindest look in his face that you ever saw. I had intended to just touch his hand, and make a sweeping salute, half bow, half curtsey, that would take in the whole admiring crowd; but his frank, smiling welcome just took me right off from my feet, and I gave his hand a good, hearty New England shake that made him feel to home in a minute.
Mr. King led me into the parlor, and gave me a soft seat among the cushions of a sofa in the middle room, just as Solomon must have waited on the Queen of Sheba. Then, feeling that the eyes of more States than Vermont were upon me, I spread out my skirts, leaned one arm on the sofa cushion, and settled myself just as Mr. Brady had done it when I sat to him for a picture; thus adding an artistic feature to the fashionable and intellectual embodiment of my first appearance. Thus, with downcast eyes and a modest demeanor, which must have been attractive, I waited for the literary programme that lay before us.