Give me New York for nine months of the year—
With all its shortcomings there's no place so dear!
With its life and its rush, what it does and has done,
There's no city like it under the sun."
In which I have come to agree with her.
In her drawing-rooms, beautiful by specimens of her own work,—for she was a sculptor and exquisite needlewoman as well as poet and graceful hostess,—I met many of the literary lights of the day, as well as society women of New York. "I shall give a reception to Miss Murfree," she once told me. "Why?" I asked. "Is she one of your great people?" "Do you remember," said Mrs. Botta, with a twinkling eye, "'Dorinda Cayce'?" I remembered Dorinda Cayce in the "Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain," who had gone through storms of snow and tempest to win pardon for her lover in prison, only to discover at the end he was but an ordinary, selfish mortal. There was nothing so remarkable about that, I submitted. "Ah! but don't you remember how she explained the wonderful fact that, with all his faults, she had loved him and had been ready to die for him? 'No—no—' said Dorinda, 'I never loved you! I loved what I thunk you was.' Then and there," said Mrs. Botta, "she reached deep down into the mysteries of a woman's heart. We love what we think they are! I shall give her a reception."
I had met William Cullen Bryant five or six years before, not long before he died (I have seen so many setting suns!), and Mrs. Botta, who had known him well, was interested in my account of an interview with him. We had come over from Brooklyn to attend a reception which the publisher of Johnson's Encyclopædia gave to his contributors. One of his articles had been written by my husband. At this reception I also met Bayard Taylor, Clarence Stedman, and others, with whose talents in invective against the South I was familiar. But I bore them no malice. I was especially anxious to speak with the old poet, and sought an introduction to him. When the crowd passed on to the refreshment rooms, I observed him standing alone, leaning upon the grand piano, and I ventured to join him. Supper versus William Cullen Bryant! There could be but one conclusion. I made bold to hope he was well, as I stood almost spellbound before his fine gray head. I found myself hoping something more. I was willing he should hate treason with all his heart—but I did wish he could ever so little like the traitor!
"Oh, yes," he replied to my question, "I am perfectly well. But I find I am growing old."
"I warrant," said I, "you could struggle for your oysters with the best of them."
"True," he replied, "but that is not the trouble. I forget people's names."