"A poet can afford to forget. Only politicians need be careful."
"Nobody can afford to be unkind," answered the old poet.
"Names are small matters," I suggested. "If you remember faces, you are all right."
"Oh, no," said he, "you must remember names. I did not arrange this drama in which we are all acting, but I know a part of my rôle is to remember names. If I am presented to Mr. Smith, and I meet him next day in Broadway, I think it was intended I should say 'Good morning, Mr. Smith.' Otherwise, why was I presented to him? If I have forgotten his name, I have forgotten my part, and lose the only opportunity that will ever be given me in this world of being polite to Mr. Smith."
Mrs. Botta delighted in such incidents as this. I wish she could have laughed with me over an attempt my Gordon (Mrs. Henry Rice) made to introduce Mr. Bryant to a class of poor white boys she was teaching at a night-school in her home on a great tobacco plantation in Virginia. She had taught them to read and write, some arithmetic and geography, even some Latin; and was minded to awaken the æsthetic instincts which she believed must exist in the poor fellows. She read them Bryant's "Ode to a Waterfowl." "Now, boys," she said eagerly, "tell me how you would feel if you had seen this." There was dead silence. Appealing to the most hopeful of her sons of toil, she received an enlightening response, "I wouldn't think nuthin'." "What would you say?" she persisted. "Wall—I reckon I'd say, 'Thar goes a duck!'"
Nobody was kinder to us than Edmund Clarence Stedman. On Tuesdays and Fridays one might always find a welcome—no cards were issued—and a small, choice company of literary men and women in his drawing-rooms. Mr. Stedman was the soul of kindness. His "friends from the Old Dominion" were just as welcome as if he had never written "Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man" to crush out our "rebellion." No man could have been more generous to authors, himself so polished and graceful a writer. I remember in my own first timid venture—I had written something for the Cosmopolitan Magazine—that he made haste to welcome me, to say my essay was "charmingly written," and to add, "I have always observed that whatever a lady chooses to write has something, an air, that the rest of us can never attain,"—which goes to prove the chivalry, if not the perception, of dear Mr. Stedman.
In the eighties there were other houses where purely literary receptions were held weekly: notably at President Barnard's, also at Mrs. Barrow's, affectionately known by her own nom de plume, "Aunt Fanny," and thus recorded to-day in encyclopædias of literature. Mrs. Andros B. Stone also gathered the elect in her drawing-rooms. There I saw again the gentle Madame Modjeska. There I met Henry M. Stanley, thronged with admirers, and with great drops of perspiration on his heated brow,—declining to say to me "nay" when I asked if this were not worse than the jungles of Africa!
What a life he had led, to be sure! We first heard of him as a soldier in the Confederate army; then in the Union navy. He represented "the Blue and the Gray"—he had worn them both. We all know of his search for Dr. Livingstone, of his subsequent marches through the Dark Continent; of his perils by land, perils by sea, courage and fortitude. And now here he was—quite like other people—in an evening coat with a gardenia in his button-hole, and with an English bride all in white and gold, and still young enough to fill the measure of his glory with more adventures.
I was early elected a member of the Wednesday Afternoon Club, proposed by Mrs. Botta, whose first able contribution—a review of Matthew Arnold's essay, "Civilization in the United States"—enlightened me as to what might be expected of me when my turn came to provide a paper for discussion. I think I disappointed Mrs. Botta by persistently "begging off" from this duty—implied by my consent to become a member of the club, which included Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, Mrs. R. W. Gilder, Mrs. Almon Goodwin, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Miss Kate Field, Mrs. George Haven Putnam, and other literary women. Mrs. John Sherwood was one of our grande dames, altogether a very notable personage in her prime, a much-travelled lady, the friend of Lord Houghton, Daniel Webster, and other great lights. She could always gather a large and admiring audience at her literary conferences. She lived to an old age, and never ceased to be "a personage"—a very fine type of a high-born, high-bred, intellectual woman. These reunions, which led society in the eighties, afforded opportunity for the man or woman of versatile talent. Anybody can harangue or read an essay or exploit a special fad or hobby. Anybody can chatter, but how many of us can pass a thought "like a bit of flame" from one to another; or turn, like a many-faceted gem, a scintillating flash in every direction? This is possible! This made the charm of the French salon, and makes the charm to-day of more than one little drawing-room that I wot of, which has never been described in the society columns of the newspapers.
I must not dare put myself on record as enjoying only "high thinking." The great Dr. Johnson liked gossip, so did Madame de Sévigné, so did Greville, and hundreds of other delightful people. So do I! But I draw a line at some modern gossip,—whether Mrs. Claggett's domestic unhappiness will reach the climax of a divorce, whether she will better herself in her next venture; whether Mrs. Billion will really have any difficulty in getting into society, or what on earth Lord Frederick could see in that pug-nosed Peggy Rustic, who hasn't even the saving grace of a little money. I am afraid of personalities, and yet we cannot always discuss politics and religion. Men have been burnt at the stake for talking politics and religion!