The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper CorrespondentBriggs, Emily Edson
History
The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper Correspondent
Briggs, Emily Edson
United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1933; Washington (D.C.) -- History
“There is nothing I would not do to help the soldier,” said the
President’s wife, “if it lay within my power, if my word or my
efforts would effect it, but I made a resolution that no circumstance
should arise which would induce me to ask Mr. Grant for an office.
Isn’t Mr. Wilson one of the pillars of the Senate? Mr. Grant is
worried all day. There must be one place where he can have quiet.”
This last incident the writer relates as written down from the lips
of the late Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson said at the time: “Mrs. Grant is
right, and I mean to let Henry alone after this.”
When the only daughter (Miss Nellie) attended school like other young
girls of a dozen years of age, the afternoon came and her lesson was
unlearned. The carriage came to the door for the incipient young
lady, but the teacher dismissed it with the request that it should
return at the end of a half hour. The half hour came and glided
away with the lesson still unlearned. The carriage came again and
was dismissed. At the end of the second half hour the lesson was
committed, and Miss Nellie was permitted to go. The next day at the
usual hour the young lady arrived, accompanied by her mother. The
teacher began to fear she had lost her most cherished pupil, but Mrs.
Grant came to thank her for performing her duty.
“Teach her,” said Mrs. Grant, “that she is only plain, simple Nellie
Grant, subject to the same rules which govern all the scholars. This
course will have my sincere approbation.”
Through the wife of Rev. J. P. Newman, the pastor of the church which
the General and Mrs. Grant loved so well, the writer learned of the
unostentatious charity, the benevolent deeds which this pure-minded
woman has kept from the world. Mrs. Newman said: “This material
should be used after Mrs. Grant has gone, when loving friends can
speak of these truths without wounding her delicacy.” But how can a
paper be made up for publication of Mrs. Grant’s life in the White
House and leave out the key to one of the most perfect and lovely of
womanly characters. From the historic days of Martha Washington no
woman called to this highest social position has wielded the sceptre
with more dignity, good sense and grace. Amidst the clashings of
the female cabinet, which in every sense of the word has as much
significance as its counterpart, as the result is often the loss
of an official head, Mrs. Grant was as serene as Victoria on her
throne--not sustained by birth and traditionary precedent, but upheld
by the noble qualities which makes the American woman in her highest
perfection the peer and often the superior of every reigning queen on
the earth’s surface.
OLIVIA.
THE GREAT REAPER.
GATHERS A NUMBER OF THE BEAUX AND BELLES.
WASHINGTON, _December 31, 1876_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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