HARRIET LANE.

From all “the heady currents of a fight” of politics, from the toils of statesmanship and the objects of ambition, the reader can now turn to the sweet charities of domestic and social life; for these, notwithstanding his bachelor state, were not wanting to the public man whose life is traced in these volumes. A biography of Mr. Buchanan would be exceedingly imperfect without mention of that member of his family who, for the last twenty-five years of his life, stood in a very intimate domestic relation with him. It is a delicate matter to write of a living lady; but the name of Harriet Lane will recall to many readers one who occupied with singular grace positions in her uncle’s household that were almost public, and whose domestic connection with him formed a most important element in his private happiness. Mr. Buchanan discharged with great fidelity all his duties to the various members of his family who could be said to have any claims upon him. Of that family he was always regarded as the head; and when, in consequence of the death of one of his sisters and her husband, the care of four orphans devolved upon him, the youngest was at such an age that he could form her as he wished, and his wish was guided by the nicest sense of what belongs to the highest female excellence.

His sister, Mrs. Lane, wife of Elliott T. Lane, died at Mercersburg, in the year 1839. Her husband survived her for only two years. They left four children: James Buchanan, Elliott Eskridge, Mary Elizabeth Speer, and Harriet Rebecca.[[79]] They each inherited from their parents a moderate property. After the death of her father, Harriet, the youngest of the four orphans, was brought to Lancaster, and resided in her uncle’s house, when he was at home in that city. During his absences in Washington, she occasionally lived with two ladies in Lancaster, friends of her uncle,—the Misses Crawford. For a few years she attended a school in Lancaster, and also had private teachers. She and her sister Mary were then placed at a boarding-school in Charlestown, Virginia, in the neighborhood of some of their father’s relatives. Harriet’s education was finished at the well-known Roman Catholic convent at Georgetown, in the District of Columbia. The present superintendent of that institution was one of her school-mates.

To direct the education of this young girl, to form her religious and moral principles, to guard her against the temptations that beset an impulsive temperament, and to develop her into the character of a true woman, became one of the chief objects of Mr. Buchanan’s busy life. At first there was danger that the hoyden might become a “fast” and dashing young lady. There was an exuberance of animal spirits, the accompaniment of a fine physical organization and a healthy youth. There was an abundance of the generous, frank and joyous qualities of the female heart, along with its delicacy and purity. Such a nature required much discipline and a careful training; and it might, perhaps, be thought that an old-bachelor uncle, absorbed in public life, was not exactly the person to undertake this duty; that, after spoiling the child as a pet, he would leave her to take her chances as a woman. But Mr. Buchanan was a man in whom authority and affection could be most happily blended. He knew just how to exercise the one and to bestow the other. He knew the girl whom he had to influence, and he had a perfectly true sense of what a woman and a lady should be.

It is not my purpose, or according to my taste, to enlarge on my own estimate of the results which he produced. The methods by which they were attained will sufficiently exhibit themselves in what I am to give to the reader; and what is widely known of the lady who is unavoidably the subject of these observations, attests that a beautiful woman, whom flattery and adulation could not injure, and who became alike an ornament to society and a model of the domestic virtues, was formed by one of the busiest statesmen of our time, without a mother’s aid and a mother’s love. There is rarely to be met, in any literature of real life with which I am acquainted, a more interesting and instructive picture of a wise man’s care for a woman’s education, manners, deportment, and inner character, than is to be traced in Mr. Buchanan’s charming letters to his niece. They began when she was a school-girl, were continued when she became the companion of his age and the friend of his declining years; and they did not cease when he gave her to the husband of her choice. They are so numerous that it is difficult to make the selections to which my space confines me. After Miss Lane had grown up, whenever she was absent from her uncle, he wrote to her almost daily. But his affection for her was unselfish. He never failed to let her know how welcome would be her return, but he never exacted from her an abridgment of her pleasures, unless it was for her good that they should be interrupted. He could guide her, when she was away from him, by a dozen written words, just as infallibly as if she were under his eye and within the sound of his voice. One of her letters to him, which has come into my hands among the great mass of his papers, shall be given in its proper place, as an artless proof that he had his reward, and knew that he had it. I shall make many extracts from this correspondence, because nothing that has come within my reach can so well reveal a beautiful side of Mr. Buchanan’s character, of which the world, as yet, knows very little. One is reminded by these letters of many well-known instances of such a tender care for a young relative, evinced by a series of letters. Lord Eldon’s letters to his grandson and heir will occur to the reader; but the chancellor was always a stiff and formal writer, although his letters to his young kinsman are admirably wise. Lord Chatham’s letters to his son William afford delightful reading; but even in his expressions of affection, the “Great Commoner” could not be otherwise than stately, classical, and a little dramatic. Lord Chesterfield’s letters to his son, although written, like everything that came from his pen, with the utmost correctness of a marvellous grace, lack, of course, the religious and moral basis of all sound philosophy of life. Madame De Sévigné’s lively letters to her adored daughter, Burke’s to the son whom he strangely over-estimated, are among the treasures that the world would not willingly lose. But I should omit a very interesting part of my duty in this work, if I did not place before the reader as many of the letters of President Buchanan to his niece as I can find room for; and although they are not to be ranked in all respects side by side with the most renowned specimens of the class to which they belong, they seem to me to exhibit a happy union of the tenderest affection, deep religious principle, sound inculcation, minute direction of conduct, playfulness, vivacity, and an abounding confidence in the person to whom they were written. They are unique also in this—that they were written to a female relative, whom Providence had cast upon the care of an unmarried uncle, intensely occupied with the pursuits and interests of a statesman.

But by way of preface to such of these letters as can be quoted, it will be well to inform the reader that until the year 1848, Mr. Buchanan, when at home in Lancaster, resided in a bachelor establishment, at the head of which, as housekeeper, was a lady who was always called “Miss Hetty.” I am indebted to his nephew, Mr. James Buchanan Henry, for the following description of their domestic circle:

In consequence of the death, in 1840, of my surviving parent, the youngest sister of Mr. Buchanan, I became a member of his immediate family. He was executor of my mother’s will, and by it he was appointed my guardian. I was then seven years old. Mr. Buchanan at that time lived in a spacious brick house in the quiet inland city of Lancaster, on the principal street, called East King Street. This ancient town—one of the oldest in Pennsylvania, still retained the loyal names of colonial times, its best streets being named King, Queen, Duke, Orange, etc. At that date, Mr. Buchanan was in the Senate, and of course much of his time was passed in Washington; but during the recess of Congress he resided in Lancaster, where he was much honored and beloved by its citizens; and this personal attachment continued in a marked degree until his death. At the time of which I speak, his family consisted of a housekeeper, Miss Parker, always called “Miss Hetty,” myself and his servants. At a little later period, my cousin, Harriet Lane, after the death of her parents, also became a member of our uncle’s household. This little family circle continued unbroken, excepting during the temporary absences of my uncle in Washington, or on other public duty, or when my cousin and I were at boarding school or college, until my marriage in 1860, and until my cousin’s departure for her new home in Baltimore, after her marriage. No father could have bestowed a more faithful and judicious care upon his own children, than this somewhat stern but devoted bachelor uncle of ours bestowed upon us. While I was at school, in the little Moravian town of Litiz near by, when I was eleven years old, he required me to write to him once every month with great exactitude, and to each boyish letter he would write a prompt reply, carefully but kindly criticizing every part of it; and if I had been careless in either penmanship or spelling, he would give me sharp reproof, which, coming from the hero of my youthful worship, made an impression which I remember to this day.

Miss Hetty Parker, now a venerable lady of seventy-eight, residing in Lancaster in a comfortable house provided for her by my uncle’s will, belonged to a respectable and quite “well-to-do” family in Philadelphia. She became his housekeeper, I think, in 1834, or soon after, and was, by him and all of us, treated as a valued member of the family, and as a friend. She was always present at the table, and dispensed the hospitalities of my uncle’s house until my cousin had grown to womanhood, and assumed a part of such duties. “Miss Hetty” continued to be one of the family circle, and to perform her duties most acceptably to Mr. Buchanan through the remainder of his life. I do not hesitate to say that, it was largely owing to her vigilant care of his interests, and her wise economy, that his moderate private fortune, mainly earned by him in the practice of the law, and before he entered public life, not only proved sufficient for his wants, but slowly increased, amounting, at his death, to about $300,000.[[80]] Miss Hetty was for nearly forty years his faithful attendant in health and nurse in sickness; and he was so much attached to her, that I have often heard him say that nothing should ever part her from him while he lived. He would let her do what she pleased, and say to him what she pleased, and even scold him, without rebuke;—a privilege I never knew him to accord to any one else. No biography of Mr. Buchanan would be complete that did not mention this humble, unselfish and most faithful companion, who was so well known to the frequenters of Wheatland, and to the whole circle of Mr. Buchanan’s friends.

Although the dates of the following letters run somewhat beyond the period at which the last chapter terminated, they embrace the six years of Miss Lane’s school-girl life and her entrance into society, and I therefore do not separate them. The foot-notes explain the public positions held by Mr. Buchanan at the respective dates, and some of the allusions to persons.

[LETTERS TO MISS LANE.]