Charles Sumner's appearance was curiously metamorphosed by a severe attack of typhoid fever, which he suffered, I think, in 1843 or 1844. After his recovery he gained much in flesh, and entirely lost that ungainliness of aspect which once led a friend to compare him to a geometrical line, "length without breadth or thickness." He now became a man of strikingly fine presence, his great height being offset by a corresponding fullness of figure. His countenance was strongly marked and very individual,—the features not handsome in themselves, but the whole effect very pleasingly impressive.
He had but little sense of humor, and was not at home in the small cut-and-thrust skirmishes of general society. He was made for serious issues and for great contests, which then lay unguessed before him. Of his literalness some amusing anecdotes have been told. At an official ball in Washington, he remarked to a young lady who stood beside him, "We are fortunate in having these places; for, standing here, we shall see the first entrance of the new English and French ministers into Washington society."
The young girl replied, "I am glad to hear it. I like to see lions break the ice."
Sumner was silent for a few minutes, but presently said, "Miss ——, in the country where lions live there is no ice."
During the illness of which I have spoken, he was at times delirious, and his mother one day, going into his room, found that he was endeavoring to put on a change of linen. She begged him to desist, knowing him to be very weak. He said in reply, "Mother, I am not doing it for myself, but for some one else."
Some debates on prison discipline, held in Boston in the year 1845, attracted a good deal of attention. Dr. Howe had become much dissatisfied with the management of prisons in Massachusetts, and desired to see the adoption of the Pennsylvania system of solitary confinement. Mr. Sumner entered warmly into his views. The matter was brought before the Boston public, and the arguments for and against the proposed change were very fully stated and discussed. Mr. Sumner spoke several times in favor of the solitary system, and on each occasion carried off the honors of the meeting. The secretary of the prison discipline association at that time, a noted conservative, opposed very strenuously the introduction of the Pennsylvania system. In the course of the debates, Mr. Sumner turned upon him in a sudden and unexpected manner, with these words: "In what I am about to say, I shall endeavor to imitate the secretary's candor, but not his temper." Now the secretary was one of the magnates of Boston, accustomed to be treated with great consideration. The start that he gave on being thus interpellated was so comic that it has impressed itself upon my memory. The speaker proceeded to apply to this gentleman a well-known line of Horace, descriptive of the character of Achilles:—
"Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer."
I confess that to me this direct attack appeared uncalled for, and I thought that the cause could have been as well advocated without recourse to personalities.
I once invited Mr. Sumner to meet a distinguished guest at my house. He replied, "I do not know that I wish to meet your friend. I have outlived the interest in individuals." In my diary of the day I recorded the somewhat ungracious utterance, with this comment: "God Almighty, by the latest accounts, has not got so far as this." Mr. Sumner was told of this, in my presence, though not by me. He said at once, "What a strange sort of book your diary must be! You ought to strike that out immediately."
Sumner was often robbed in the street or at a railroad station; his tall figure attracting attention, and his mind, occupied with things far away, giving little heed to what went on in his immediate presence. Members of his family were wont to say, "It is about time now for Charles to have his pocket picked again." The fact often followed the prediction.