Judge Nelson was a semi-rebel—a sort of Tennessee neutral—during the rebellion, and it has not been ascertained whether it was for this reason that Andrew Johnson chose him for the defence; but it is now known beyond a doubt that minister and lawyer are so ingeniously mixed in the judge’s composition that a third compound is the result, bearing no more resemblance to the first ingredients than soap bears to oil and alkali.
Mr. Groesbeck had the floor next—apparently a good, strong man, bearing the same relation to the human family that a fair, rosy-cheeked apple does to the remainder of the fruit in the orchard. Like Mr. Stanbery, he pleads illness. His voice seemed in the last stages of collapse. It is very difficult to catch the hoarse sentences in the galleries. There is nothing flashing, brilliant, or electrical in his speech, and if there were, it would be entirely lost, unless it rose, cloud-like, into the galleries. Hard, cold, flinty argument must be hurled upon the impassive Senate. Mr. Groesbeck seems to be aware of this fact, as he contends against the odds.
The gallery wears its usual high-toned, fashionable elegance. A real hothouse of rare human exotics is gathered together, partaking of the same weaknesses and desires that animate creation in the humbler spheres of life. Some of these exquisite butterflies have a way of spreading their voluminous crinoline to the exclusion of some unfortunate in want of a seat; but as soon as an acquaintance makes an appearance, in the twinkling of an eye space is evolved from a minus quantity and immediately occupied, and the real honest possessor has no redress except in repeating an ave, or declaiming mentally the touching poem of “sour grapes.”
Allowing it to be exceedingly gratifying, it is not good taste to be eating in public. History tells us that a great monarch used to take his emetics and vomit gracefully in the presence of the court, but even royalty could not add dignity to, nor throw a rosy glamor over, one of Nature’s disgraceful freaks. And in the high court of impeachment no pink-lipped, amber-haired beauty can afford to distort her features and wantonly assail the ears of her neighbors by cracking nuts with her pearly teeth. If a woman has neither youth nor beauty, and commits the same fatal error, “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”
Olivia.
[A FAITHFUL SERVANT.]
A Comprehensive Review of the Life Work Of Hon. Thaddeus Stevens.
Washington, April 28, 1868.