Twenty Years in Europe

Forever speaking to the heart of man.

And we thought of the Paestum roses, too, of indescribable fragrance, that bloom twice a year, and that have flourished there on the sickly desert a thousand years. No story like this in all the floral world.

*****

One time lately my wife admired very much a little water color of Mr. Tilton’s. This morning he carried it up to her as a present from the artist. It will long be treasured as a remembrance of one of the most genial men in Rome, and of a delightful artist.

April 19.-Young Mr. Pierpont died two days ago, and that before his father and mother could reach him. They are still at sea. Yesterday afternoon he was buried from St. Paul’s church in the Via Nazionale. The sorrow for his premature death was very sincere. Dr. Nevin read the service, assisted by the Master of Rugby School, and the pall bearers were the ambassadors of Austria, Germany and Belgium, with myself representing the United States. King Humbert was represented by the Duke of Fiano. The Italian Foreign Minister was also a pall bearer. There were many beautiful flowers by the casket. It was a sad burial, this putting into the grave a youth to whom the future had beckoned with such golden hand.

*****

Mr. Pierpont’s death, and the resignation of Mr. Astor, put the affairs of the Legation into my care. The archives have been moved to the Consulate General, on Via Venti Settembre.

*****

April 25.-Governor and Mrs. Pierpont came yesterday, and I took them out to the Protestant Cemetery to look at the casket containing their son. It stood in a receiving vault covered with roses. It was a sad day!

This afternoon Governor Pierpont talked with me about supernatural things. He doubted them himself, and yet, he said that when he was Minister to London he rarely was at a dinner in England when some one at the table did not relate of something supernatural that had occurred to himself or else to some trustworthy friend. This fact must put people to thinking. Possibly there was something in it after all. Get it out of the hands of charlatans, and possibly we could lift the veil a little more than we imagine. If there is another world, spiritual, it need not be very far away.

*****

April 20.-The parties and the receptions and the balls go on this winter, just as if all Rome had nothing to do but have a good time.

The Journalists’ ball the other night was most striking for its elegance, its diamonds, gowns, and its beautiful bejeweled women.

The German artists’ masquerade ball was also beautiful. We went to both the same night.

The Roman theater is good, and spectacular opera is given this winter with great effect. “Excelsior” is the most gorgeously gotten up spectacle of dance and scenery I ever beheld. Its ballet possibly has never been approached.

A funny story is told here of Joaquin Miller. One afternoon he attended a reception at Miss B.’s. Two old maids, Italians, asked to be seated next the lion of the Sierras. They listened in utter astonishment, but with perfect gullibility, while he wickedly regaled them with immense stories of how he had galloped over the plains of his native country on the backs of wild buffaloes, how he had fought prairie fires, slain Indians and rescued maidens from captivity. The women were amazed, and with grateful hearts thanked their hostess for introducing them to so great a hero. The party over, all are gone, and Miss B. looks about the house. To her astonishment, the wild-eyed poet is there yet, standing alone by the dining-room table. She gently draws the portiere aside to look. He holds a glass of wine in his hand, and, as he balances it, and looks upon its color, he smiles and exclaims to himself, but in tones heard behind the curtain, “Holy Moses, how I did lie to those women.

*****

April 22.-Went to a party at Shakespeare Wood’s the other night. He is correspondent of the London Times, and is an important man among foreigners in Rome. They say his salary is as good as a Minister’s. I fear that is a mistake. Saw many noted people at his house-Lord Houghton, the poet and critic, the Trollopes and others.

Heard much talk against Gladstone. One English gentleman said, with apparent approval of a little group of English listeners, “The man ought to be shot for the good of England.” It seemed inexplicable, impossible-so much hatred of the world’s best Christian statesman.

Lord Houghton is a good, gray, old man, full of vivacity and with opinions of his own. He has renown in Italy, for he has been a great friend in the country’s struggle for liberty, and his life of literature has had great reward.

Shakespeare Wood knows more about Rome and Italy than half the Italians themselves, and is besides an artist and an antiquarian.

Last evening I was invited to dine at the home of the celebrated Professor Moleschott. He is a distinguished author and a Roman Senator, though a born German. My invitation came as a result of a letter to him from my friend Johannes Scherr, the German author. Moleschott had once lived in Zurich.

This was an “evening” for certain delegates to a World’s Congress of scientific and medical men. Dr. Sternberg, of Washington, was there. Few of the guests understood Italian. Moleschott seemed able to speak with each in his own tongue. Scherr’s letter caused him to pay me no little attention, and he chatted with me considerably. He is the most remarkable looking man I ever saw. Has a head like a lion. He is short, stout, broad faced, and has big eyes, and low side whiskers. I asked him how on earth he could learn so many languages in addition to his enormous duties as a scientific writer, a constant lecturer, and an Italian Senator. “I don’t learn them,” he said; “I must absorb them. I have no time to learn them.” “But you must have studied English,” I replied. “You are too much of a master there, to be merely an absorber.” “Well, yes, a little bit,” he answered. “That is, I laid your English grammar on my dressing case mornings for a few weeks, and while I walked up and down the room putting on my clothes I got hold of your language.”

He was one of the rare men we meet who seem to know everything. Observation great, memory powerful. What would the world be, if all men had Moleschott’s intellect. Like Goethe, he has universal knowledge.

He passes our door daily in an open cab, and is always sitting with an open volume in his lap, and yet he sees and greets people and goes on with his reading.

May 1, 1885.-I have this entry in my diary: “This day I resigned my post as Consul General of Italy and will soon leave the service, after many years of constant and faithful duty. These last weeks I have also had charge of the diplomatic affairs of our country here, and it is gratifying to receive, by the same mail that brings a letter asking my resignation, another letter expressing appreciation of some of my recent services.”

On my arrival home in America, I found the following letter waiting me from General Sherman:

    “St. Louis, Mo., June 29, 1885.

“Dear Byers: – I have your letter written at sea, in which you give me the first information I had received that you had been displaced at Rome. I knew, of course, it was bound to come, for party allegiance with us is stronger than patriotism, and the pendulum of time was bound to swing against us, and we will be lucky if we are not indicted for horse stealing and for the murder of men who resorted to arms to destroy the very Government of which now they are the main supporters. Of course, in due time the pendulum will swing back, but meantime, we must lie low, else history will record Jeff Davis the patriot, and Mr. Lincoln the usurper.

“I am glad to know that you propose to settle at Des Moines. It is a beautiful and seemingly prosperous place, and if you can engage in any business there, you will soon have reason to feel a sense of security in not being the slave of the State Department.

“We are all here now, but in a short time Mrs. Sherman and all the family will go to Lake Minnetonka for the summer. I have some business which will detain me here a while, when I will follow, but I have a positive engagement at Mansfield, Ohio, August 15; New York, August 20, and Chicago, September 9 and 10. So you see I am kept busy. I have long experience and declare that it is harder for me to maintain a modern family with fifty dependents and a thousand old soldiers claiming of right all I possess, than to command a hundred thousand men in battle. Still I expect to worry along a few years, till summoned to a final rest. I now merely write to welcome you back to your native land, and to express the hope that Mrs. Byers will soon regain her wonted health, and that you, too, will settle down with as much contentment as you can command, after your long sojourn abroad. Hoping you will notify me of your arrival at Oskaloosa and Des Moines, I venture to send you this to New Wilmington, Pa.

    “Sincerely your friend,
    W. T. Sherman.”

Another letter of interest came from him:

    “St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 30, 1885.

“Dear Byers: – Now I shall know where to find you. You are fully competent to manage your own interests, and I shall not commit the foolish mistake of proffering advice where it is not asked. I remember when money was worth 3 per cent a month (in California). It broke both lender and borrower, for the borrower simply gave up the houses and land mortgaged, and the lenders themselves became borrowers for the taxes. To-day money in the United States is worth 3 per cent per annum, and all over that rate is ‘risk,’ not interest. If I had money to lend, which I have not, I would not lend it on an Iowa farm at 8 per cent, but on a Government bond at 3 per cent, because I would conclude sooner or later I would have to take the Iowa farm, which would be an elephant. A farm is a good thing for a farmer, but a bad thing for an owner. Still I have good faith in the ultimate value of good farm land, because it yields annual crops, whereas mines and manufactories play out. My heavy expenses still go on. In St. Louis, we pay as taxes, full rent, and have to pay the objects of taxation direct. Thus our taxes are $2.50 on a full valuation, and we must in addition pay for watering the streets, for street-paving and improvements, for special police, for the militia and for schools. I can manage to make ends meet, but I wonder how a man can, in business, make profit enough to cover his family expenses. These economic questions will become the questions of the future.

“Mrs. Sherman is absent at the East, to visit Elly and Minnie. The rest of us are here. Love to all.

    “Your friend,
    W. T. Sherman.”

In October he writes again:

    “St. Louis, Mo., Oct 23, 1885.

“Dear Byers: – I feel easier on your account, since you tell me that you find the business in which you were about to embark, overdone. Nearly all the calamities which have overtaken families in America, can be traced to the credit system, which necessarily prevails. I had enough experience in it to put me on my guard, and I am firm in my faith in Shakespeare’s ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’ And the consequence is that to-day I owe no man a cent, and have no incidental obligations as indorser or bondsman. All my children know this, and while I give them liberally of what I have, they never dream of asking me to borrow or indorse.

“There is a great deal of wisdom in Dickens’ character of Micawber. ‘Income, £100; expenses, £99.19.6-result, happiness. Income, £100; expenses, £101.4.3-result, misery.’ I quote from memory.

“If you and Mrs. Byers will be content with what you have, and live within your income, whether $1,800 or $6,000, your days will be long in the land of the living. Now, surely, even in Des Moines, you can supplement your income by the sale of occasional articles from your pen, which will add to your frugal fund most of the luxuries of life.

“In any and every event, I beg you will keep me advised of your progress, so long as I travel in this world of woe and mystery.

“Mrs. Sherman is now back from her visit to our married children at the East and I think we shall remain unchanged all winter. I have numerous calls, but generally answer that I am entitled to rest and mean to claim it.

“My best compliments to your good wife and son.

    “Your friend,
    W. T. Sherman.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

1886

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW ENGAGES ME TO EDIT SEVERAL CHAPTERS OF THE SHERMAN CORRESPONDENCE-SHERMAN WRITES AS TO MAGAZINES AND HIS BOOK-THE GENERAL INVITES ME TO COME AND STAY AT HIS HOME IN ST. LOUIS-HE OFFERS ME THE USE OF ALL HIS PAPERS-I PUBLISH ALSO IN THE REVIEW A PROSE NARRATIVE OF THE MARCH TO THE SEA-MRS. SHERMAN READS IT TO THE GENERAL-BUFFALO BILL-GENERAL GIVES ME HIS ARMY BADGE-NIGHTS IN SHERMAN’S OFFICE-CONVERSATIONS WITH HIM-LIFE IN THE SHERMAN HOME-THE GENERAL’S COMPLETE RECONCILIATION WITH HIS SON “TOM”-INTERESTING LETTERS FROM SHERMAN AS TO MAGAZINES-HIS FORTHCOMING BOOK-FARMS AND TAXES-WAR HISTORIES-GRANT’S BOOK-NEWSPAPERS-CHRISTMAS LETTER.