The associations that bind us together go back many, many years. We were boys together in sunny months full of frolic, plans and hopes. The merriment and the seriousness, the toil and the ambition of those days all cluster round him as memory brings him to me in the flush of his youth. I have seen little of him of late years, as you know, but the roots of our friendship needed no constant care; they were too strong to die or wilt, and when we did meet it was always with the old warmth and intimacy. I feel more alone in the world now he has gone. One by one the boy's comrades pass over the river and life loses with each some of its interest.
I was hoping in coming years, as life grew less busy, to see more of my old playmate, and this is a very unexpected blow. Be sure I sympathize with you most tenderly, and could not resist the impulse to tell you so. Little as we have met, I owe to your kind and frank interest in me a sense of very warm and close relation to you—feel as if I had known you ever so many years. I hope our paths may lead us more together so that I may learn to know you better and gather some more distinct ideas of Eames' later years. All his youth I have by heart.
With most affectionate regards believe me
Very faithfully yours,
Wendell Phillips.
Mrs. Eames.
I think women never fully realize the strange tenderness with which men cling to college mates. No matter how much opinions or residence separate grown-up men, to have been classmates is a tie that like blood never loosens. Any man that has a heart feels it thrill at the sight of one of those comrades. Later friendships may be close, never so tender—this makes boys of us again at any moment. Unfamiliar tears obey its touch, and a singular sense of loneliness settles down on survivors—Good-bye.
The young Hawaiian princes to whom I have just referred and who, by the way, were mere boys, accompanied Dr. Judd to New York where my younger brother, Malcolm, thinking he might make the acquaintance of some genial playmates, called to see them. Upon his return from his visit his only criticism was, "those dusky princes certainly give themselves airs."
My sister, Mrs. Eames, lived in a house on G Street near Twenty-first Street in what was then known as the First Ward. This general section, together with a part of Indiana Avenue, some portions of Capitol Hill, Sixth and Seventh Streets, and all of that part of the city bounded on the north by K Street, on the south by Pennsylvania Avenue, and westward of Fourteenth Street to Georgetown, was at this time the fashionable section of the city. Like many other places in its formative period, Washington then presented the picture of fine dwelling houses and shanties standing side by side. I remember, for example, that as late as 1870 a fine residence on the corner of I and Fifteenth Streets was located next to a small frame house occupied by a colored undertaker. The latter's business was prosperous, but his wealthy neighbor objected to the constant reminder of death caused by seeing from his fine bay window the numerous coffins carried in and out. He asked the undertaker to name his price for his property, but he declined, and all of his subsequent offers were ignored. Finally, after several years' patient waiting, during which offer after offer had been politely but positively rejected, the last one being an almost princely sum, the owner sold his home and moved away, leaving his humble neighbor in triumphant possession. This is simply a fair example of the conditions existing in Washington when I first knew it.
Two rows of houses on Pennsylvania Avenue, known as the "Six and Seven Buildings," were fashionable dwellings. Admiral David D. Porter, then a Lieutenant in the Navy, occupied one of them. Miss Catharine L. Brooke kept a girls' school in another, while still another was the residence of William Lee of Massachusetts. I have been informed that while serving in a consular office abroad, under the appointment of President Monroe, Mr. Lee was commissioned by him to select a dinner set for the White House.