I can remember the Hungarian patriot standing with many other men,
doubtless his suite, in the hall where hung Byron’s helmet. My childish
imagination was much exercised about the Kossuth hat, which I heard
talked about. This was of black felt, high and of Alpine shape. I was
greatly disappointed because the sober citizens of Boston did not adopt
the little black feather as well as the Kossuth hat!
Lowell, Longfellow, Theodore Parker, George Sumner, George S. Hillard,
and Miss Catharine Sedgwick were among the guests on this occasion.
Laura Bridgman was brought in after dinner. All were so much interested
in her, and in the Hungarian patriot’s story of his cause, that teatime
presently arrived and my mother entertained them with the remnants of
the earlier feast!
Many of the foreigners who came to “Green Peace” were political
refugees—Poles, Austrians, Hungarians. There were, of course, many
Greeks also. One of my father’s self-imposed duties was finding
employment for these people, who naturally were quite helpless in a
strange land. Thus many of our early teachers and governesses were
foreigners. We grew up in an international atmosphere less common in
those early days than now. Professor Fiester, doubtless a very learned
Austrian, gave us some rudimentary lessons in Latin and German. He was a
very stout, large man, with fair, curly hair and gold spectacles. Some
one nicknamed him “the mastodon calf.” He understood perfectly how to
amuse children, and made us the most fascinating fly-houses and other
paper objects. It is evident that I was a naughty child and quite
determined to have my own way. One morning the patience of our gentle
master came to an end.
“No, Mees!” he exclaimed. “I haf refused to opey the Emperor of Austria,
and do you think I will opey you, you little thing?”
I was about eight years old when I was thus classed with the Hapsburg
tyrant of the day!
One of our early teachers, Jules M——, had deserted from the French army.
The family of his Greek wife had aided him in some way, and he married
her, out of gratitude. Of course they found their way, like other
foreigners, to my father’s office in Boston, No. 20 Bromfield Street. As
neither of them could speak the other’s language, he interpreted between
husband and wife when they got into difficulties. She wore an
embroidered cap on the back of her head, with her hair braided outside
of it.
M—— was of the blond French type, with a military air. It was his
soldierly training, doubtless, which caused him to ring the door-bell in
a very decided way, and then, without waiting for the maid to answer it,
open the door himself and march straight into the parlor. This gave me
an injured feeling, for I was apt to be late, and counted on those few
minutes in which he should have waited, to get ready.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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