The Sickles tragedy
I have alluded to an early visit to New York, when I was a lad of seventeen. During my stay what was known as "The Sickles Tragedy" occurred in Washington; the details of which have lingered in my mind ever since. Many years afterwards my wife and I were at an evening party given by the Dion Boucicaults to a handsome and distinguished-looking American, with one leg and a crutch; the other leg he had lost, valiantly, on the field of Gettysburg. His name was Daniel Sickles. My interest was at once aroused. He was, or had been, United States Minister to Spain, being no less eminent in diplomacy and the civil service than as a volunteer soldier and general. At one time the tragedy of his life might have robbed his country of his great abilities. He had married, some six years before, a beautiful girl of sixteen, Italian by origin, and they were living in Washington, where Sickles held a Government appointment, when he learned from an anonymous letter that his young wife was false to him, clandestinely meeting at a certain house hired from an old negro woman by her lover, named Philip Barton Key, a widower nearly twice her age, a Government lawyer, and the son of the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Sickles had the house watched, and found that the news was true. Charged with the offence, his wife confessed all, and explained the system of signals by which, from an upper window, she and Key, watching through an opera-glass from his club, arranged their meetings. Sickles demanded her wedding-ring, told her to leave his house and return to her parents. Soon afterwards, looking out of his window, he saw the seducer walking towards the house and make a signal with his handkerchief. He went out, and coming up with Key at the street-corner, accused him to his face and shot him. Key attempted to defend himself, but Sickles fired twice more, and then, while Key was on the ground and still breathing, put his revolver to his own head. Twice it missed fire. Sickles then walked away and gave himself up to the police. The case aroused intense excitement, not only in America but in England. The trial lasted some weeks, and so strong was public opinion in the prisoner's favour that he was acquitted, and set free to do his country services in the future. I have been told that, in years after, husband and wife came together again. It is certain that all through the affair, Sickles treated her with the greatest consideration, even allowing her to keep their eldest child, who, grown into a beautiful girl, was present with her father when we met at the Boucicaults' and who soon afterwards was our guest.
Of the distinguished Americans who have been sent to our country as Ambassadors from their own land I have met Mr. Lowell, Mr. Phelps, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Choate, Mr. Page, and Mr. Davis. It is a privilege to have known such men; a greater privilege, in the case of Mr. Choate, to have been his host. I don't know whether a charming little story has been in print before—very likely it has—but I can answer for its exactitude as I now tell it, and where the incident occurred.
On one of his visits to us the subject was started—I think by Bishop Boyd-Carpenter—of changing one's identity. My wife turned to her chief guest and said: "Tell us, Your Excellency, who you would rather be if you were not Mr. Choate." The Ambassador, slightly rising from his chair, bowed across the table to his wife, who was at my side, and at once replied: "Mrs. Choate's second husband."
VIII
THE STAGE
"Of all amusements the theatre is the most profitable, for there we see important actions when we cannot act importantly ourselves."—MARTIN LUTHER.
I
When I was nineteen I ran away from home to become an actor, and have been stage-struck ever since.