In the exclusive crowd which filled the galleries, it may be said there were two grand divisions—the aristocracy and the press. The first named were elevated to their seats by their social relations; the latter by the divine right of being anointed sovereigns in the world of mind, born to their inheritance, like the Bourbons and Hapsburgs. Conspicuous amongst the limited but strictly exclusive set might be seen the delicate, spiritual face of Mary Clemmer Ames, of the New York Independent. She writes poetry; the newspapers tell us all that. She also writes stately, solemn prose. Sometimes it is bitter and pungent, as many of our public men know. How easy and smooth the machinery of her mind must work! There are no sudden jars in the cogwheels of her brain, for her face is almost as smooth as a dimpled babe’s. She is pure womanly, from the low, handsome brow to the taper fingers, and when the time comes that woman shall stand upon the true platform of equality and justice Mary Clemmer Ames, with all the rest of the same sisterhood, will be remembered as the noble pioneers whose united efforts alone achieved the great work.
Speaking of women in the world of mind, Anna E. Dickinson addressed a fashionable audience here last night, and as we have taken a solemn oath to say nothing but honest words we must say that we don’t like to hear her talk. That she is brilliant and gifted, that Philadelphia has reason to be proud of this talented child, it were useless to deny. But God help the woman when honey no longer drops from her lips, when nothing but gall issues from the coral crevice! She gives the Republican party no credit for what it has done, but only heaps abuse and scurrility upon it because it has not done more. She hurls arguments at the heads with sledge-hammer blows, but she forgets to use woman’s strongest, surest, most fatal weapon—that jeweled, nameless, enchanted dagger, that, if found in the hand of the weakest among us, never fails of reaching the heart.
Olivia.
[AT THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL.]
“Ad Interim” Thomas Flayed by General Butler—Kindness of the Wife of Senator Wilson.
Washington, April 14, 1868.
The interest surrounding the impeachment trial deepens. The blows of the aggressive Butler are met and sometimes parried by the sharp rapier of Evarts or the stout claymore of Stanbery. The President has wisely chosen some of the subtlest minds in the country to defend him, and it is almost worth the fruit of a lifetime to sit in the presence of such a court, the jury composed of the choicest men of each sister State, the lawyers upon both sides the picked men of the country, whilst some of the witnesses have a world-wide reputation, and the spectators, with but few exceptions, are rare exotics, gathered from the best hothouses in the land.
The sparring on both sides during Friday and Saturday was a perfect feast to those who like to see mind meet mind—who enjoy the din and crash of ideas; but what is the use of stirring up the cesspool into which Andrew Johnson has plunged, and for whom there is no earthly resurrection? Is not the country sick unto death of these poisonous exhalations? Andrew Johnson has broken the laws of the land. In the name of the humblest citizen, what can be offered in his defence?