It was through Carlotta that I came to know Burbank well.
He was in the House, representing the easternmost district of our state. I had disliked him when we were boys in the state assembly together, and, when I met him again in Washington, he seemed to me to have all his faults of fifteen years before aggravated by persistence in them. Finally, I needed his place in Congress for a useful lieutenant of Woodruff's and ordered him beaten for the renomination. He made a bitter fight against decapitation, and, as he was popular with the people of his district, we had some difficulty in defeating him. But when he was beaten, he was of course helpless and hopelessly discredited,—the people soon forget a fallen politician. He "took off his coat" and worked hard and well for the election of the man who had euchred him out of the nomination. When he returned to Washington to finish his term, he began a double, desperate assault upon my friendship. The direct assault was unsuccessful,—I understood it, and I was in no need of lieutenants. More than I could easily take care of were already striving to serve me, scores of the brightest, most ambitious young men of the state eager to do my bidding, whatever it might be, in the hope that in return I would "take care of" them, would admit them to the coveted inclosure round the plum tree. The plum tree! Is there any kind of fruit which gladdens the eyes of ambitious man, that does not glisten upon some one of its many boughs, heavy-laden with corporate and public honors and wealth?
Burbank's indirect attack, through his wife and Carlotta, fared better.
The first of it I distinctly recall was after a children's party at our house. Carlotta singled out Mrs. Burbank for enthusiastic commendation. "The other women sent nurses with their children," said she, "but Mrs. Burbank came herself. She was so sweet in apologizing for coming. She said she hadn't any nurse, and that she was so timid about her children that she never could bring herself to trust them to nurses. And really, Harvey, you don't know how nice she was all the afternoon. She's the kind of mother I approve of, the kind I try to be. Don't you admire her?"
"I don't know her," said I. "The only time I met her she struck me as being—well, rather silent."
"That's it," she exclaimed triumphantly. "She doesn't care a rap for men. She's absorbed in her children and her husband." Then, after a pause, she added: "Well, she's welcome to him. I can't see what she finds to care for."
"Why?" said I.
"Oh, he's distinguished-looking, and polite, offensively polite to women—he doesn't understand them at all—thinks they like deference and flattery, the low-grade molasses kind of flattery. He has a very nice smile. But he's so stilted and tiresome, always serious,—and such a pose! It's what I call the presidential pose. No doubt he'll be President some day."
"Why?" said I. It is amusing to watch a woman fumble about for reasons for her intuitions.
Carlotta did uncommonly well. "Oh, I don't know. He's the sort of high-average American that the people go crazy about. He—he—looks like a President, that sort of—solemn—no-sense-of-humor, Sunday look,—you know what I mean. Anyhow, he's going to be President."