In Washington Mr. Hawkins was met on his arrival by the Hon. John
Russell Young, librarian of Congress, who entertained and showed him
through that magnificent library and about the Capitol, introducing him
to many of the judges of the Supreme Court, and then going to the White
House, presented him to President McKinley, who entertained him about
an hour in social chat, while politicians in waiting fairly congested
the waiting-room outside. After the evening reading, Mr. Thomas Nelson
Page gave him a supper at his beautiful Washington home, where were
present Mr. Lyman Gage, Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Theodore
Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Mr. James Lane Allen, and
Mr. John Fox, Jr., the two most prominent Southern novelists, and
several other gentlemen whose names I cannot now recall. I am unable to
describe this occasion, although one of the honored guests. One can
imagine the charming intellectual atmosphere of such an event. It seemed
that there must have been some fault in the reckoning of time, for it
was four o’clock when the party reluctantly dissolved.
Everywhere we went Mr. Hawkins was the honored guest of the choicest of
our American men of letters. In Indianapolis two social events in one
day: the afternoon was a reception at the Woman’s Club, where Mrs.
Harrison, wife of the ex-President, received; and in the evening the
largest audience of the beauty and fashion of the Hoosier capital packed
the hall, being welcomed by James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet. In
Boston, among the first callers besides the press representatives were
Col. T. W. Higginson, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Edward Everett Hale, and
Judge Holmes, son of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and many of the Harvard
faculty. I copy from my diary the following notes:
“Mr. Hawkins and I visited the Academy of Fine Arts, Trinity Church
(formerly Phillips Brooks’), the Boston Public Library, where we were
shown over all parts of the library and introduced to all the modern
systems of its wonderful operations; the new court house, where Judge
Holmes personally conducted us through the different courts, and we sat
half an hour listening to a judge charge a jury. Missed our lunch.
Hurried to depot, just caught train for Hartford, and missed lunch on
buffet car, owing to the incapacity of the composite cook and porter.
Reached Hartford, the Hublein, 6:30. Reading at 8:30 finished in an
hour. Joe Jefferson against us at Perkins’ Opera House, but we had $360
in Unity Hall. Joe Jefferson had reserved a box for us, and we saw
nearly all of ‘Lend Me Five Shillings.’ Then we all had supper together,
Joe Jefferson, his three sons, and the wife of young Jefferson. Joe was
at his best, as he is a lover of Anthony Hope’s writings, and they had
never met before, and it seemed as though they never meant to part; for
it was far beyond midnight when the weary waiters were relieved, and a
tired but happy crowd went to bed.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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