St RUSSIAN LI FE^ --S. ' AND SOCIeI 1^0 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY AS SEEN IN 1866-'67 BY APPLETON AND LONGFELLOW, TWO YOUNG TRAVELLERS FROM THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, WHO HAD BEEN OFFICERS IN THE UNION ARMY, AND A JOURNEY TO RUSSIA WITH GENERAL BANKS IN 1869. WITH SKETCHES OF ALEXANDER II. AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN, AND EMANCIPATION IN THE EMPIRE OF RUSSIA AND THE REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Prepared by BREVET CAPTAIN NATHAN APPLETON Author of "HARVARD COLLEGE DURING THE WAR." BOSTON. 1904. Copyright. 1904 By Nathan Appleton. (All Rights Reserved.) Press of Murray and Emery Company Boston, Massachusetts TO PRINCESS J G IN PLEASANT RECOLLECTION OF SKATING AT MOSCOW. JANUARY, 1867, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR Boston, 1904. 531061 tIBRARTt CONTENTS Chapter First page Arrival in Paris and Adieu. The Yacht AHce 9 Chapter Second Lincoln and Emancipation 43 Chapter Third Brussels, Berlin, Konigsburg, Wilna 68 Chapter Fourth St. Petersburg. Tsar Alexander II., Gortschakoflf, Cronstadt 81 Chapter Fifth Moscow. The City and Environs. Trotting in Rus- sia 100 Chapter Sixth St. Petersburg. The Neva. Novgorod. Poland . . 133 Chapter Seventh Charles Appleton Longfellow 156 Chapter Eighth France. Last Days of the Empire. To Russia with Gen. Banks 160 Chapter Ninth Alexander II. and Emancipation 184 Chapter Tenth Europe and America in 1870. Demetrius Goubareff. Russia and the United States 207 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Longfellow and Appleton Frontispiece. OP. PAGE Yacht Alice, Cowes, I. W., 1866 18 Captain, Passengers and Crew of the Alice 19 Rue de la PaLx, a Paris 24 Gentlemen Riders of the Newport Race 31 Troika 38 Abraham Lincoln 43 Wilna 68 Statue of Kant, Konigsburg, 1866 73 Single Sleigh 74 Nevski Prospect, St. Petersburg 81 Hon. Cassius M. Clay, Minister to Russia 82 Bolshaja Morskaja (Great Sea Street) 86 Christmas Shopping in St. Petersburg 87 The Kremlin, Moscow 100 Drinking Tea 105 A Coursier 110 The Staigg Portrait 117 Rosalie 125 The Blessing of the Neva 133 The Midnight Drive 140 Skating in the YousoupofE Garden 141 Circassian Uniform 142 Sledge Drawn by Reindeer 151 Drosky 153 Charles Appleton Longfellow 156 Hon. Nathaniel P. Banks, Representative from Massachusetts 160 Ferdinand de Lesseps 179 Alexander IL, 1866 184 Odessa, 1899 207 Port Said. Opening of the Suez Canal 225 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY CHAPTER FIRST. ARRIVAL IN PARIS AND ADIEU. THE YACHT ALICE, "Our trusty friend, our true ally Through varied change and chance: So fill your flashing goblets high, I give you, vive la France." — Oliver Wendell Holmes. I sailed from New York early in October, 1866, in the French line steamer Ville de Paris, Captain Surmont. Time about eleven days to Brest. Cloudy weather, and the last four or five days no observation, so one morning we found ourselves near the Scilly Islands, and from there steamed over to Brest, arriving in the afternoon. I had a room with Frank Burgess of Boston, whom I then knew but slightly, and, as we found that we liked each other and had the same objects in view at Paris, we went there and took rooms together at the Hotel de la Paix, since torn down for the Place du Nouvel Opera, corner Rue de la Paix and the Boulevard. The month I passed there until going to Russia was one of my liveliest and pleasantest in Paris. The voyage across the ocean was the same old story so often and often described. There was the same queer medley of passengers as always, and they told the same stories they always do, and passed their time in the same old way. There 9 10 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY was the knowing Yankee buyer, going on his hur- ried autumn business tour through Europe, who gave every one to understand that this was his forty-seventh voyage across the Atlantic, and that he knew pretty well how to take care of himself. He had been in nearly every steamship of every line between Europe and America, and gave advice freely as to their relative merits. He always could tell the exact position of the ship, in fog or shine, better than the Captain himself, and was most active in getting up, every day after lunch, pools on the ship's run, after which he would rush about making his "book," buying and selling tickets to increase his chances of winning. Then there was the jolly paterfamilias , who had been passing the last four months at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, looking after his investments, and was now returning, to join his family who were living in Paris, and who would gladly welcome him and his full purse. He was always around, and very attentive to and a great favorite with the ladies, young and old. There was the same group of Cubans smoking cigarettes and talking Spanish together with wild gesticulations, but keeping aloof from the other passengers. And, oh! the pretty French actress, returning for the winter season in Paris at the Folies Dramatiques or the Palais Royal, fresh from the applause and bouquets in New York, Chicago and San "Francisco. She was dark, she was petite, she had arched e^'^ebrows and the slightest touch of paint under her sparkling orbs. She never appeared on deck until near dinner time and then in a lovely toilette, as if she were just going to take a drive at the Bois. And how at the concert, organized a few nights before sight- RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 11 ing the coast of la belle France, she charmed all as she sang some of her opera bouffe songs. Of course the precocious youth was aboard, going out for the fourth time to see the Coliseum, and what wonderful information he imparted to such listeners as he could get. When the wind was aft he assured you that the boat was making at least fifteen knots, and that we should arrive at Brest in time to take the eight o'clock train for Paris; then, again, when the wind was dead ahead he consoled you with the thought that it made the fires draw well, which was a good thing; but if it struck the boat on either beam he could conclusively prove that the sails being well filled the steamer was steady in her movements, which, after all, was better than rolling about too fast. If it chanced to rain he cheered the disconsolate passengers by stating that it would help beat down the waves and make the sea less rough! Every day, too he seemed to think, — nor did he keep this saga- cious thought to himself, — lightened the ship of so much coal, and then as for the advantages of fogs or icebergs, no possible question on the sub- ject could puzzle him. Pretty girls flitted here and there, or were spread out in their chairs and looked uncomfortable. "Swells" gloomily lounged around: enthusiastic young travellers were always on hand at every- thing which turned up in the ship's management, especially the throwing the log and taking the observations, as if determined at the outset to lose none of their money's worth of sight-seeing. A clever lady from Wa^^hington was always posed in a corner of the saloon, a half read novel in hand, her flacon and fan on either side, and she herself happy at any time, morning, afternoon 12 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY or evening, to enter with you into a long conver- sation on any subject. A French priest and a Western parson kept theology well argued as an appetizer for your meals, while in the smoking room the poker party was going on all through the voyage with scarcely an intermission. The bliiif old Captain was ever about with a pleasant smile and word for all, inspiring those of whom he was the ten-day autocrat, with a feeling of security by his own solid and comfort- able appearance. A system for passing the time on shipboard I found worked very well, and I am only too glad to recommend it to any who choose to try it for themselves. Take your coffee about nine in bed in your state room propped up with numerous pillows, then go through the operation of being shaved if the offices of a Figaro are required, who may be one of the ship's stewards. After this a couple of hours or so may be passed in reading, and for this a selection of a dozen books or so you may have had placed on the shelf over your couch, so that you can choose any one which happens to suit your mood, or, scratch off your thoughts on a block of paper, always to be carried on your travels thus taking down rambling notes where- ever you go. RisiAg about half an hour before lunch time, you get up an appetite by sniffing the sea air and chatting with those who are about. Next comes lunch itself, an important item in the day, which with its subsequent cigar or pipe can be made to dispose of nearly two hours. Then approaches the toughest part of the twenty-four portions into which day and night are sub- RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 13 divided, the time between lunch and dinner. A hand at poker or vingt-et-un helps it along, a con- versation with some fair one in that favorite spot behind the wheelhouse is a powerful auxiliary, and, if nothing else turns up, a lazy novel or a siesta would annihilate the moments until the first bell ringing gives the welcome intimation that the time for toilette is at hand. Dinner, with or without appetite it makes no difference for go through the form of remaining at table you must, would next take its regular place in the programme, and that and a cigar well over and digested, you are ready to sit down to your evening party of whist. Than this there is no better recreation for passing the hours after dark, and the selection of a good set of players at an early stage of the voyage is an important and not to be neglected duty. Is it not probable that the great Talleyrand, when he advised the young man to learn thoroughly this king of games at cards out of regard for his declining years, remembered with pleasure the hours he had thus passed in his journeys by water? So the evening goes along, the ladies retire, the lights are put out in the saloon, and the male portion of the commu- nity is free to take possession of the smoking room, there to sit well into the night and to recount story after story. It was thus we existed the ten days of our pas- sage, making pleasant acquaintances in that free off-hand way which gives no binding claim for future continuance. You meet, you take each other for what you are worth, you separate, it may *be to see each other again some time, it may be never, and intimacies under such circumstances are quickly formed, and as quickly forgotten. 14 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY Before we were well aware of it, so speedily the last days on the ocean flew by, all the passengers being well and overflowing with good spirits, the bright coast of France loomed up before our eyes in the distance, the green fields could almost be scented afar off, and there was bustle and activity in the Ville de Paris. Trunks were being brought up, and people who did not in the least care for each other were saying good by a dozen times. Down goes the anchor with a plunge, the quai at Brest is swarming with officials and idlers, all chattering like mad, the tug boat sweeps up before the douane, we step ashore, and find ourselves in France. Gay, Gay Paris. How the heart of the American beats with joy whenever he enters Paris, that queen city of cities, which he regards as almost a second home, feeling a genuine pride of possession in its beautiful mon- uments, its long avenues, its brilliant fetes, and all its institutions of instruction and amusement. And cannot a probable reason why the American takes to it so much more than to any other foreign city, — why the asphalt of the boulevard is to him almost as dear as the flag-stones of Broadway, — be found in the fact of the real democracy of the social life in Paris and France? The government may be a despotism or a revolution : the annoyances of bureaucracy and red tape are nowhere greater than there ; the petty details of business life amuse and vex you, but in spite of all, the social life of the people, whether natives or strangers, is as free as free can be, provided none of the laws of the land are broken. You come, you go, you do this or you do that, you can dine at one o'clock RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 15 on beef and cabbage, or at seven on woodcock with truffles; you can live in a palace or a cin- quieme; you can go to the opera in evening dress or blouse; you can study medicine or you can study pleasure; you can drive in a four-in-hand or in a fiacre; you can do everything or nothing: whoever you are, or whatever your fortune may be, no one will interfere; your eccentricities will cause little remark, you will be unmolested, for all are too much occupied with themselves to pay much attention to others, and you may be certain that, do your best to astonish those about you, it will not be easy to offer them a new sensation. I had been there before, — this was my third voyage across the Atlantic, — and had seen the guide-book sights of the city, and congratulated myself heartily upon the accomplishment, for it was off my mind and I would be spared from doing it now. One is not likely to forget the sensations ex- perienced during the long drive from the railroad station to the hotel when first arriving at Paris, especially if it be after dark, through the brilliantly lighted streets, across the great squares, full as they always are of the gayest hearted people in the world, with apparently nothing to do except treat life as a continual holiday, and I went through it again with the freshness of a first visit, as we were taken the distance which separates the Gare de VOnest from the Grand Hotel, at which place we had decided to camp for the night, and leave hunting up some snug apartment until the morrow. The clock was just striking nine as the little omnibus came with a clatter and cracking of whip into the spacious court-yard, and after supper and a short stroll on the boulevard, I 16 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY "turned in," my imagination picturing in rose- colored dreams all we would do and see. A Letter To My Mother. Paris, October 22, 1866. Dear Mamma: My last note must, I think, have been rather unsatisfactory, and I hasten to do amends with a longer one. The fact was that I arrived in Paris at the Hotel just about half an hour before the French mail for the Cunard steamer closed, and I had either to drop just one line to announce my safe arrival or nothing at all. The voyage over was, like all, very tedious, and we had pretty bad weather on the whole. Not knowing where we were at length we ran into a light on the Eng- lish coast, and from there made our way down south to Brest, where I landed and ran right up to Paris. I like the steamer better than the Cunard, she is very fast, and is much more adapted to the comfort of a gentleman, especially as there is a cozy little smoking room where you could play whist in the evenings; also a barber's shop, and the state rooms are better arranged. I came up to Paris with Frank Burgess and Maurice Le Ray (one of the Newport jockeys of the past summer, attache to the French legation at Wash- ington, who was a passenger on the steamer), and Burgess and I have taken some very nice rooms. Yesterday morning Charlie Longfellow (Charles Appleton Longfellow, late lieutenant in the 1st Mass. Cavalr}% wounded at Mt. Hope Church, Va., Nov. 27, 1863. He was the son of the poet Henr}'' W. Longfellow, who married my half- sister Frances, so was my half- nephew, a year RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 17 and some months younger than I), and Harry Stanfield tumbled in upon us, as they had that very night come over from London, and they gave us jolly accounts of the doings of the Alice during the past summer. Brother Tom (Thomas Gold Appleton) and Arthur Clark (Captain of the Alice) sail for home the last of the month. Charlie likes the idea of going off to Saint Petersburg by and by, so as to get there in the height of the winter, which time they say is really the best to see the place, but he wants to stay here a while to brush up his French. So I think I shall be quartered in Paris for some little time, perhaps a month, and pitch right into the study of French, and then start off with him for the cold regions of Europe. Tuesday: After writing thus much yesterday I went round to the bank (Bowles, Drevet & Cie at that time 24 Rue de la Paix) where I found your letter awaiting me, and I must say that con- sidering you had only two or three days you have managed to pick up a vast amount of interesting items. The first Bostonian I met was Mollis Hunnewell. I have seen my classmates (at Har- vard) (Charles C.) Jackson and (Frank L.) Hig- ginson, and yesterday I called on the Harry Sar- gents. The weather is charming now, just right for driving about, and I hope it will continue so for a month, when we ought to expect the drizzly rains which will drive me off. There are so many from the "Hub" here now that Brother Tom's last bon mot is said to be "All Parisians are Bos- tonians." Au revoir. Nate. 18 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY The Yacht Alice. The sloop yacht Alice was owned by Thomas Gold Appleton. She was about fifty feet in length and was built by Townsend at Portsmouth, R. I., in 1866. When last heard from she was a trader off the coast of Maine. The Alice left Nahant July 12, 1866, arrived at the Needles July 30th, and Cowes Roads July 31st. It was a remarkable trip and faster than that of any kind of vessel made across the Atlantic ocean with the then time allowance. Captain Arthur H.Clark was in command, and she carried Charles A. Longfellow, the owner's nephew, Harry Stanfield, a crew of three men and a Chinese steward. The owner, then fifty -four years old, crossed in the Cunarder China, and, joining the Alice at Cowes, cruised off the French coast and the Chan- nel islands, see A Cruise of the Alice in A Sheaf of Papers, by T. G. Appleton, 1875. One of the first business despatches sent by the cable across the Atlantic, the Great Eastern having successfully landed the cable at Newfoundland on July 27, 1866, was the safe arrival of the Alice, by C. A. Longfellow. The owner thus addresses the beautiful yacht in his collection of poems called Faded Leaves: "Away! the cloven waves unite Behind in murmuring braids of snow, And seething whispers of delight, As through the glassy fields we go ; And curtseying with a grace her own Her bows of beauty in reply, The white- winged creature moves alone; Swan-like between the wave and sky. YACHT ALICE. CAPTAIN, PASSENGERS AND CREW OF THE ALICE. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 19 Farewell, dear friend, my floating home; A menacing linger in the sky Bids us through summer seas to roam No more, and from harsh winters fiy. Sleep! dreaming of the violet deep, And think of us and happy hours. While we through icy nights shall keep Thoughts of the sails that once were ours. " The yacht wintered at Cowes and was brought back the next spring. From Brother Tom in London. Many thanks, my dear Naty, for your letter and the one enclosed. I would have been sorry to have missed it, as it is from an old friend, and in peculiar circumstances, and it would not have been well to have the letter go astray. And thanks for yours, too, though only announcing your arrival, and a sketch of your plans. You will do well to take Charlie and Harry if they will go, and in the winter Saint Petersburg must be fine, though after all not much beyond in cold splendor dear old Boston. I am reading a new book on Russia, by Henry Morley, and find much in it interesting. Today is so dark no one is up, and I am writing alone. . . . Who should be here but Townsend, my boat builder. He could not be quiet, hearing so much of the Alice. Tell Charlie he has gone to Cowes. Don't you wish you loved yachting, and could have had the nice time we have had? It beats fancy wagons and top boots, I assure you. Remember me to Charlie and Harry and bid them take care and be prudent and get into no scrapes. 20 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY Farewell and prosper, and do not leave your whiskers in the snows of Russia. Yr. aff. brother, T. G. Appleton. Charing X Hotel, 25th October. To my mother I wrote again from Paris, October 26, 1866, Friday:— I give you a short letter now which will make two for this week, enough certainly to satisfy the most rapacious of mothers! I have got pretty well settled into my life here now, of which one very important object is the study of French. I take a lesson every morning from a very good teacher, and go to a theatre most every evening, and I think I shall make rapid progress, in fact, as we ought to know a good deal before starting for Russia, it is advantageous to stay here a month and pitch into it. I have got quite a nice little French phaeton, with which I can rattle about the town, and drive up to the Bois in the after- noon, and the great difficulty is to find a decent horse to hire; my own at home being so very superior my taste has been quite ruined. I saw all the Imperial cortege out yesterday driving, but I think they all go to Compiegne soon, so that the season won't begin here for some time. General De Trobriand is here, and I handed him his commission, whereat he was in great doubt whether to go home or no. He wants to accept the commission of colonel of the 31st Infantry U. S. A. Let me know anything you would like to have me get you in Paris. I can easily find time to get it. Exchange is so different from when I was here before (On leave of absence on account of wound during the war.) that one can well be extravagant. Nathan. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 21 General De Trobriand. General de Trobriand, author of quatre ans de cam- pagnes d I'armce du Potomac {Four Y'ears in the Army of the Potomac) 1867, Paris, Bruxelles, (translated) whose full name is Philippe Regis Denis de Kerodem, Baron de Trobriand, was bom near Tours, France, June 4, 1816. In the United States he was known as Philippe Regis de Trobriand. From 1849 to 1861, in New York, he was editorially connected wdth first the Revue de Nouveau Monde, of which he was publisher, and then the Courrier des Etats Unis, as associate editor. In August, 1861, he was placed in command of the 55th New York Regiment, U. S. V. of the Third Corps, promoted to Brigadier General in January, 1864, and from May to June of that year had charge of the defenses of New York City. He was brev- etted Major General U. S. V. April 9, 1865, and was in command of a Division at Lee's surrender. In 1867, he was made colonel in the Regular army and placed in com- mand of the 31st Regt. U. S. Infantry, brevetted Brigadier General in the same year, commanding the district of Dakota, and in 1869, Vas transferred to the district of Montana and the colonelcy of the 13th U. S. Infantry. Later he was ordered to Green River. I visited him at Camp Douglas, near Salt Lake City, in October, 1870, and had a good opportunity of observing western army life and the institution of Mormonism. The camp was prettily placed on the slope of a hill, with quarters comfortably arranged. Several of the officers had their wives with them which made quite a little society. I stayed in the General's house and had a horse at my disposal whenever I wanted to take a ride, and so I explored some of the picturesque and grand scenery of the neighborhood with the snow capped mountains quite near. To go into the city we generally took the headquarters wagon and did the thing in style. General de Trobriand was the father-in-law of my friend and classmate Albert Kintzing Post, so naturally our relations were most friendly, and I have often met him on both sides of the ocean. He was in New Orleans in 1875, during the reconstruction period, after he retired from service on account of age, having been stationed there for some years. In 1885, during the Cotton Exposition I lunched with him at his house in New Orleans, and met him and some 22 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY friends one day at the grounds, where we strolled about, and had a picnic repast under the trees. In 1887, at Paris I saw him again. It was in the summer, and at my suggestion he joined the " Franco- American, " known first as the "Washington," Club, and he enjoyed dining there at the table d'hote with agreeable companions. The General came on to Class Day at Har\-ard, to hear the poem delivered by his grandson Waldron Kintzing Post, the son of my old classmate, when he graduated in June, 1890, to attend the "spread" and other festivities, and then one evening we had a little family dinner at the Somerset Club. After passing a few days at the "Mas- conomo," Manchester-by-the-Sea, with his daughter and her family, he went to the Reunion of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, at Portland, Maine, July 3d and 4th, where he was enthusiastically received by the com- rades of his old Corps the Third, and elected vice president of the Society to represent the Third Corps, Army of the Potomac. At that meeting I was elected a vice president in behalf of the Fifth Corps, it being the custom to elect every year, in addition to the president, vice presidents and other officers of the society, a vice president from each army corps that was in the Army of the Potomac. My last meeting with General de Trobriand was at the wedding of his grand daughter Lina Beatrice Post to Hamilton Fish Webster, at the Long Island summer home of the Posts. This was the autumn of 1891, and a pretty wedding it was in the little church, and a breakfast later under a large marquee. Of the grandparents of the young couple present at the wedding, besides General de Trobriand, there were Mrs. Armand de Macarty, grand- mother of the bride, and the Hon. Hamilton Fish, grand- father of the groom. General de Trobriand died at the home of his daughter in Bayport, Long Island, July 15, 1897. To My Mother. Hotel de la Paix, Paris, October 31, 1866. My dear Mamma: I have been calling on several of our good old Boston citizens, but have not found many of them RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 23 at home. I went to the Louvre the other day, and found that lots of new galleries had been added, with all my friends of the French school put together, and I reveled in Watteau, Boucher, and Fragonard. I do not do much sight-seeing, and don't care to, but tomorrow I am going out to Versailles with a party of ladies to finish up the chateau. This afternoon Charlie Longfellow goes with me driving in the Bois. Yesterday evening Charlie, Stanfield and Burgess and I went to the "Lyrique" and saw Faust very well put upon the stage. It was the first time I had ever seen or heard the opera, and I thought it very fine. Charlie and I shall start off for Russia prob- ably in the course of a month, as we are not in any hurry and we are to find out about what will be the best season to be there and then hit it. Charlie is studying his French very industriously, and oddly enough he has tumbled into the very same rooms that Erny (His brother Ernest Long- fellow.) had a year ago. I got a letter from brother Tom at London, a few days before he sailed. He seemed in good spirits over the triumphs of the Alice. Friday Morn: Yesterday I had a very good though somewhat fatiguing day at Versailles, and 1 should have enjoyed the pictures very much if I could see them by degrees ; but there are so many millions that one glance at them was all you could get. Some of those illustrating the wars of the present emperor in the Crimea, Italy and Algeria, are very fine. We had a young French "swell" to chaperon us, and of course saw all the best things, such as the private apartments of the Louis' and Marie Antoinette. I visited with Charlie, on Wednesday, Jerome Napoleon's Pom- 24 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY peiian villa, which is now a concert room and well repays a visit. I don't think the Pompeiian magnates themselves had anything quite up to it. Charlie and H. Stanfield still keep up their yacht- ing fever and go to Asnieres on the Seine quite near Paris, and sail in a small yacht which some French count whom they met at Dieppe, has placed at their disposition. The de Trobriands leave for Brest in a few days, to pass the winter there as the General wishes quiet to finish his book before rejoining the army. Later: Resolve in Favor of St. Petersburg. Here I am at my desk, having finished my French lessons, and having written a long busi- ness letter, to find something to put upon paper in reply to "No. 3." The Boulevard and the Rue de la Paix with the Grand Opera and the Grand Hotel are just opposite, and below in the streets there is a continual excitement of passing objects; vehicles and pedes- trians, soldiers and beggars, but principally Amer- icans. There is always so much going on all around, that our apartment is not, perhaps, the best adapted for the quiet pursuit of literature. You see I am still in Paris, and perhaps you wonder whether I mean to leave at all. Know then that Charlie and I have made a vigorous resolution to pack up and be off the 25th of this month, stop- ping at Brussels, Berlin, Kbnigsberg on the Baltic, and Wilna, to Saint Petersburg, and then Moscow, thus seeing the real winter life of the Russians. I think it will be a splendid trip. From Moscow we may go to Odessa, etc., but this is very doubt- ful, and we shall probably return via Warsaw to RUE DE LA PAIX A PARIS RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 25 Dresden, where we separate — I for Vienna, and he back to Paris. A Review by Napoleon III. Thursday Eve: A few days ago, Charlie Jack- son drove out with me to Longchamps, where the Emperor had quite a large review of the troops around Paris. There were, perhaps, fifteen thou- sand troops there, and as it was the first thing of the kind I had seen in Europe, it was very inter- esting and imposing, and brought back something of the old mihtary ardor. The Emperor and Prince were there, but Napoleon looked rather shakey. He is no longer young. I saw Mr. T. B. Curtis for a few minutes yester- day and thought he was seeming quite well after his sickness. He told me particularly to "go it, while" I was "young," adding that he "had had his time." His advice is certainly good. At the American chapel last Sunday were crowds and crowds of people, but very, very few whom I recognized. The same day Robert H. Stevenson and I went to the last races of the season, and saw a very fair steeple chase, but as it was some ways out of Paris there were not many there. A Letter from My Mother. Mv mother in Boston wrote me in Paris, Nov. 11, 1866, — . . . "And Charlie Longfellow is in Paris! AH that is left in Boston will soon find its way there. I had a very pleasant visit from your brother Tom last evening, telling me of the Alice, and of all his doings. Ristori (tragedienne) has reigned supreme here for two weeks, and 26 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY everybody has cried to their satisfaction. I did not dare to see her for I felt that I should not sleep for a month after it." Adelaide Ristori. I first saw Adelaide Ristori, mentioned in my mother's letter, at the theatre at Havana, in Medea, when I was there in February, 1868, and I met her and her daughter Bianca at a reception given at the hotel. Later, in the summer of 1884, at Paris, I was taken to her apartment by Mr. Henry F. Gillig, president of the American Exchange in Europe, and saw her and her husband the Marquis Giuliano Capranica del Grillo, just as they were preparing to leave the city for their trip to America. I remember that the rooms were encumbered with their baggage, which was in every stage of packing for their departure. The following winter 1884-5, when I was living at the Vendome Hotel, Boston, I called upon them at the Tre- mont House, and introduced to them Mr. C. C. Perkins, one of our citizens most prominent in music, art, literature, etc., who was very desirous of meeting the great tra- gedienne. He chatted with her in her native language, as he had long resided in Italy, and had written several books when there. La Diva, Cafe Napolitaine. To My Mother from Paris, Nov. 15, 1866. Charlie dropped in yesterday just before din- ner, and we decided to start on the 24th, 25th, or 26th, for Brussels, and then have a look at Water- loo; thence to Berlin to buy fur coats, and so to Russia. Went to the Italian opera last night and heard "Crispino e la Camare" ("The Cobbler and the Fairy.") sung by dear little Patti. She has improved much since I saw her two or three years ago in America, and quite captivated me. I should make her acquaintance if I was to remain RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 27 long, as she prides herself on being American, and goes to Mrs. John Bigelow's soirees. At the Cafe Napolitaine later a crowd of Boston men tumbled in. It is our favorite resort for smoking our nocturnal cigar, — George Weld, Ned John- son, Bob Stevenson, and others. The great talk is the winter ocean race between three of the New York Club yachts, the Henrietta (owned by James Gordon Bennett, Jr.), Fleetwing, and Vesta. (The Henrietta with her owner on board won the race.) In that case the Alice will have to be put afloat again. Well, adieu for a week, and then my last from Paris. Nathan. Adelina Patti, now (1904) Baroness Cederstrom, was in Boston in 1885, and I happened to be introduced to her early in that year when I was living at the Vendome. She was with her second husband, Nicolini. The New York Yacht Club. May 17, 1866, I was notified that at a meeting held that day I was admitted a member of the New York Yacht Club. The yacht Henrietta, owned by James Gordon Bennett Jr., belonged to the squadron. Bennett's colors were a blue diamond and a red crescent on white ribbons. I once had the pleasure of calling upon Mr. James Gor- don Bennett Senior. It was one Sunday morning, in the spring of 1872, when I was on a visit to America. I was strolling up Fifth Avenue with Mr. Leonard W. Jerome. As we came to Mr. Bennett's house on the comer of 38th street, he proposed that we should go in and pay a visit to the old gentleman, who was then very infirm and evidently destined not long to live. I was delighted at the opportun- ity of seeing him, for although I had stayed with his son at their fine place at Washington Heights, and often dined at the city mansion, I had never been able to be introduced to the father, as he was quite unwell, and generally con- fined to his room. 28 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY We were shown up stairs to a small study, where Mr. Bennett was seated in a comfortable easy chair, in a loose dressing gown, with a quantity of the daily newspapers lying around him. We sat there conversing with him some time, and I remember his speaking of the proposed plan of rapid transit for New York, and how he had, years before, advocated the idea in his paper, the New York Herald. He spoke very strongly of the future growth of the city. It was only a few months after I saw him that he died. The Four-in-Hand Club. Near Mr. Bennett's place at Washington Heights and the Hudson River the Four-in Hand Club had a house for several years. I remember driving there for a ball the autumn of 1870, with Colonel WilHam Jay and a party of ladies, and then returning through some of the unfinished roads, nearly upsetting on the way. The Club was started, as far as I can remember in 1866. I was elected a member January 20th of that year; the idea of membership being any one who had a "four-in-hand, " "spike, " or "unicorn," — three horses, two in the pole and one on the lead, — "tandem," i. e. something different from the ordinary single horse or pair hitch. I had a tandem at the time. The president was George Griswold Gray, whom I had known at Newport. The Club came to an end, but I can- not say what year. The Coaching or Four-in-Hand Club of New York lias taken its place. James Gordon Bennett Jr. My first recollection of meeting Mr. James Gordon Ben- nett Jr., was on the deck of his yacht Henrietta, at the spring meeting of the New York Yacht Club, June 19, 1866. I had been the guest, on his yacht, of Commodore Mc- Vickar (W. H. McVickar, one of the incorporators of the New York Yacht Club and its commodore in 1866. He died in New York, Nov. 25, 1896. aged 78.) when Mr. William C. Otis was fleet captain, and some time during the afternoon we paid a call upon the young captain of the Henrietta. This was in the harbor of New York, and RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 29 a very pretty scene it was. Later on, i. e during the summer of 1870, on my n;turn from Europe, where I had often seen Mr. Bennett in Paris at the Washington Club, he invited me to join a party on his new yacht the Daunt- less at New London, and make the cruise from there to Newport, which I did. We were a jolly party, — Lawrence Jerome, Harry Stanfield, A. W. Knapp and others. With reference to James Gordon Bennett Jr., in a letter from Newport to the Boston Globe in August IS76, I remarked: — "Newport certainly owes a great deal this year to the enterprise of Mr. James Gordon Bennett, in introducing the games of polo and la crosse, for the afternoon reunions at the polo grounds have become one of the most delightful features of the life here this summer, and Mr. Bennett has proved himself to be as much at home astride of his pony, as he was not many years ago on the deck of his yacht, when he gallantly offered his services to the government during the civil war, (He was with the blockading fleet in his yacht from 1861 to 1865.) or when he pluckily scudded across the Atlantic in mid-winter for the great ocean race. In 1881 and 1882, I remember dining at his house, the old Brooks greystone mansion on Bellevue Avenue, New- port, where he entertained with generous hospitality, as also, at his New York home. Fifth Avenue corner of 3Sth street. He had a fine, old fashioned family butler, who seemed to take delight in looking after the comfort of his friends and guests. The last time I was in the New York house was at lunch -vxnth the Austin Corbins, who had then rented and afterwards purchased it. This was in 1886. Austin Corbin, financier and philanthropist was killed by being thrown from his carriage at his country place at Newport, N. H., in June, 1896, aged 69. In Paris too, I would occasionally meet Mr. Bennett, and he generally made some enquiry about the Panama Canal. Polo and Horse-Racing. What I have seen both of polo and horse-racing has made me consider them both, if not actually cruel sports for horses, at least those in which a great deal of unnecessary hard treatment is inflicted upon the poor animals who try to do 30 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY their best. In polo they seem to be jerked about indiscriminately, and whacked over the head and body by the polo mallets. In running races the use of the whip and spur is often an abomination. I have seen a horse straining his utmost and at the same time receiving the cruel blows of the whip in a way which might naturally discourage him from making his best efforts, but which in addition to this, by cramping his nerves and muscles, must actually keep him back instead of leading him on. Often, too, this is done to some horse so far behind that he can have no chance of winning the race. I believe horses are frequently demoralized and even made vicious from the senseless and inhuman treatment they receive. To get the best out of a horse you have only to encourage, not discourage him. He understands more than we give him credit for. My only experience as the owner of a race horse was "during the spring of 1866, when I had bought a very pretty and graceful little animal, which had the name of "Carolina Filly." She had been secured after the war by General Joseph J. Bart- lett, who sold her to Mr. George W. Weld, from whom I bought her. She ran under my colors, blue and silver, once at Clyde Park, now the Coun- try Club, but was not victorious. Races on the Newport Beach. At 4.30 p. m. on the 30th of August, 1866, there was a flat race and steeple chase at Newport, at which 13 horses were entered, and an account of which appeared in the local press, as follows: — Newport has really had another sensation, in fact has been convulsed to its" "head" centre. (Allusion to Fenian- RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 31 ism then very rampant.) Yes, the old town has been startled by the spectacle of no less a modern invention than a hurdle race! "Is Saratoga to do all the racing?" muttered the New- port Jockey Club, "Are there not greener laurels to be gathered in other fields? We have no track it is true, yet we can make tracks. Our horses have not received a university education, but what of that? We have. We will show them how to surmount difficulties. We will be our own jockeys, and risk our own gentlemanly lives. It shall be neck or nothing. So it was settled there should be a race, and for the past week Fashion has talked itself eloquent over the matter of hurdles. On Thursday the excitement culminated when Easton's Beach, where Channing once drew inspira- tion, and where since, the lesser mortals have "drawn their slow length along" in the moist costume of the sea, found itself transformed into a race course, and its classic sands desecrated by the presence of hurdles ! One great charrn of the affair was to be its selectness. Only you and I and our dear five hundred friends were to know "anything about it. It was to be a bonne bouche for our private eating. Yet, strange to say, five hundred people never can keep a secret, and the little family party turned out to be the largest concourse of bipeds and quadrupeds that Newport has seen for many a day. Fashion glittered and shone, respectable elderly parties fairly thrilled with excitement. Newport rich and New- port poor, stood side by side in every species of vehicle, from barouche to butcher's wagon. (There were about 7000 spectators and 500 carriages.) The way in which most of the horses shied around the hurdles, bolted and did everything but go over them, was delectable Yet, let not the Jockey Club be disparaged. Considering the circumstances its gallant members covered themselves with glory, — a few of them were additionally covered with something of a more clinging nature. One daring rider (Nathan Appleton) landed on his head, another (Prince OurousofT) mingled himself with the sands of the sea, but all lived to tell the short but moving tale, and the winner (Baron de Mesnil of Belgium) lived to receive a silver cup from the hands of the lady (Mrs. Paran Stevens) who had been most actively interested in the day's sport. Thus does beauty reward the brave. In honor of the fait accompli the Jockey Club will give a fete the beginning of 32 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY next week. (Captain Harry Russell of Narragansett Avenue was declared winner of the second race, which was a steeple chase, the first one having been over a flat course of beach). Pursuant to this announcement cards were issued by the Gentlemen Riders of the Newport Race, inviting their friends to the Jockeys' Ball on Monday, September 3d, 1866, at the Academy of Music. " Ten Years Later. A Retrospect Speaking of horse races in a letter from New- port to the Boston Globe, under date of August 26, 1876, I called to mind the events of ten years previous : — "We have only to look up the records of ten years ago, and we will find that then at least, perhaps even long before, they had taken place. Ah! It was a brilliant sea- son, that of 1866. We were a jolly crowd, representing the' jeunesse dore'e of many nations. There was a young Russian Prince, several Frenchmen, — one representative of the old noblesse and another of the Napoleonic regime, — a sturdy Belgian, and plenty of Americans, some fresh from the excitement of the war a year before^ And we had races on the beach when many were the mishaps that befell the riders. One of them, needless to say who, had a hard-mouthed horse which he could not control, and so, near the finish, rushing up among the assembled crowd of carriages he distinguished himself by leaping clear over a pony-phaeton, in which were two young ladies, and then depositing himself half-stunned in the sand. The account of this may be found in the old files of the Newport A^ews but a better souvenir of it still remains for those who took part, in the shape of a colored print now in the Country Club in Brookline. which was pubHshed by one of the riders, an Irish nobleman. Viscount Southwell, from his own sketch, in which he gives a fanciful representation of the great race for a cup presented by Mrs. Paran Stevens, the ladv who then, as now (1876) presided so graciously over many of Newport's hospitalities and festivities, and whose charming villa could tell many a tale of 'vanished summer glory. ' " RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 33 The Race at Newport. The colored print of the race in the Country Club, by Viscount Southwell, represents the race as if it was on the turf instead of the sands of the beach, as was actually the case, but this was to make it more natural, as it was the only kind of race to which he was accustomed. In fact racing on the beach was a new departure, and I have heard it stated that this was the first one with "gentlemen riders" which had ever occurred, in the Northern States at least. He brought in on the slope of the hill leading down to the beach, the coach and four-in-hand of Hon. August Bel- mont, who had at that time the most correct equipages to be found in our country. Mr. Bel- mont in those days drove occasionally "en dau- mont," i.e. four horses attached to an open barouche with postilions dressed for summer in jackets, top boots and tall white hats, as you see them in Europe. Mr. G. G. Gray would at times bring out his open break with five horses, three at the wheel, then two, and one on the lead, a very fanciful and effective rig. I must not forget that at the Coun- try Club there is also a satin programme of the race, with the names of the horses, their owners and riders, contributed by some other person. It makes the affair complete, and it is a valuable relic of those old davs of gavety. In the summer of" 1882, Mr. Ely Goddard had some marvellous turnouts. He had a fancy for horses of bay and white, like those you see in the circus, and often call "wishing horses," and managed to drive them four-in-hand, unicorn, three abreast, tandem, a pair, or even one alone. 34 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY It was really remarkable how he could find so many of these variegated animals to serve his purpose. The Washington Club. As far as I can remember, the Washington Club in Paris, to which I refer in my recollections of James Gordon Bennett Jr., was started in the winter of 1868 and '69, the idea being to have it a purely American club, on the same principles as those in the United States. I was not one of the incorporators, but joined it shortly after it was organized, and May 8, 1869, was elected one of the board of direction. I hardly know what to say of the Washington Club, so many souvenirs does it now recall. Mr. Willett, always known as "Bronnie" Willett, was the first secretary, and I succeeded him in the first year, 1869, and continued until 1872. Mr. W. Pembroke Fetridge and I were the two most active persons in bringing Americans there, and having them join as temporary or permanent members. While I held the position of secretary I kept the records very carefully, and one of the notes regarding membership I have now in my scrap- book from the pen of Mr. A. J. Drexel, of the banking house of Drexel, Harjes & Co.: — 3 Rue Scribe, Paris. January 4, 1869 My dear Sir. I am in receipt of the notification of my election to the "Washington Club. " After authorizing Mr. Bowles to propose my name, upon reflecting that my stay here would be so short that it would be of no use to me to join, I concluded to ask him when I RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 35 saw him again, not to do so, and therefore prefer declining to become a member, altho' the Club has my hearty- sympathy. Wishing, however, that one of our firm should become a member, I beg of you to propose the name of our Mr. Eugene Winthrop in my place. Hoping this substitution will be satisfactory to you I remain very truly yours, A. J. Drexel. N. Appleton, Esq. The first apartment the Washington Club occu- pied was a good suite of rooms, well adapted to its uses at that time, belonging to Dr. Thomas W. Evans in the Rue Auber, which he offered to the Club free of rent. They were, however, too high up, on the third floor, and not quite large enough, and during the summer of 1869, it was decided to take an apartment at the corner of the old Rue de la Paix, by the opening, or rather the beginning of the Avenue de I'Opera, diag- onally across from the Grand Hotel, the first floor over the entresol. When I returned from Egypt and the opening of the Suez Canal, I wrote my sister in Boston, December 19th, 1869, "We Americans have just got into our new club rooms on the corner of the Boulevard, what was formerly the Rue de la Paix (Now Place de I'Opera), and a new street cut through to the Bourse. It is the finest situation in Paris, and we are in a most prosperous state, and begin to wonder how we ever got on without a club before. " It soon became popular in the American colony, and a rendezvous for the transient travellers. Mr. Lorillard Spencer was the president, and Mr. J. F. Loubat the treasurer. I have preserved the receipt of my payment of 500 francs for mem- 36 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY bership. It is number 7, dated May 28, 1869, and signed by J. F. Loubat, who at the present time (1904) is le Due de Loubat, a title he received from the Pope. In New York, on September 28, 1873. he pre- sented to me his book entitled "Narrative of the Mission to Russia in 1866, of the Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. From the Journal and Notes of J. F. Loubat." Mr. Wm. Pembroke Fetridge, Mr. Alfred Lock- wood, Mr. de la Chaise, Dr. "Tom" Pratt, Mr. Sheppard, Armand Voisin, the Lorillards, George and Louis, Elisha Riggs, John Garcia and Augus- tus Samanos, both Cubans, Lloyd Phoenix, James Gordon Bennett, and others, were active mem- bers of the Club. Indeed the membership included many noted and rich Americans, with the Min- ister, Consul General, and other officials of the U. S. Government, as honorary members. At that time there was no restaurant, but read- ing and card rooms, a billiard table and bar, and plenty of American newspapers. The rooms extended around the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens. When I returned to Paris about a week or ten days after the collapse of the Commune, in May, 1871, I was one of the first to look in upon the old club, and it was in many respects a scene of desolation. The Versailles troops who came down the Rue Auber, found it right in their line of shooting, as they attacked the Communists, and many were the broken windows and glasses in the different rooms. I picked up a lot of bullets, or found them in the walls, and, knowing how soon they would be lost or disappear, had them neatly arranged in RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 37 a case under glass, to preserve them, an interest- ing relic of the Commune. Several of us members of the club met there one afternoon, and were endeavoring in various ways to be reasonably gay under the circumstances, when one who was by his family partly related to France appeared, and thought it was all wrong for us to be so light-hearted in the day of France's trouble. We said, on the contrary, that we thought we ought all to make the best of the situ- ation, and so help retrieve the sadness of the past, and so we did. The club still exists, and we old members have been given the privilege of life membership, so that we can avail ourselves of its rooms whenever we may happen to be in Paris. This adds much to the comfort of a sojourn there, as the table d'hote breakfast at twelve, and dinner at seven, were as good as any to be had in Paris, while the view from the balcony is a perpetual delight. I have often been there since, but the club name has been changed to that of "Le Cercle Franco- Americain," so as to admit persons of various nationalities. An interesting album of portraits of the promi- nent members, painted by Mr. Armand Dumaresq, was one of its attractions when I was there in 1887. Mine was very good, and under my name I had written "le Champion de Panama." The autumn of 1894, part of September, all of October, and part of November, I passed in Paris, to find out what the new Panama Canal Company proposed to do, and also to place the bronze marker of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution by the grave of Lafayette in Picpus Cemetery, Paris. While there I noticed the apart- 38 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY ment of the Franco- American Club was closed, and was told how it happened to be so, but that the members could go to the ' ' Cercle des Capu- cines" nearly opposite, on the other side of the boulevard of that name. I went there one after- noon, and sent up my card, and was cordially received by my old friend, William Pembroke Fetridge, Lynch, Davis, and others, and Fetridge invited me to dine with some of them which I did. From My Mother in Boston, Sunday, November 18, 1866. "I have received this last week your nice letter of October 30. I read it to Longfellow, and he was pleased to hear so much of Charlie. He says, 'Do caution the boys to guard their ears and noses in going to Russia. They are frozen before one is aware of it, and once thoroughly chilled you never recover from the effects.' Monday evening: I have been to Cambridge again today. Your 'Brother Henry' (Longfellow) has seen a Russian gentleman who tells him November is too early in the season to go there." To My Mother from Paris, November 21, 1866. This is my last from Paris for some time. I tear myself from the distractions and gayeties, from the Bois and the dance, to meet the frantic embrace of the Russian bear. I am quite crazy about the St. Petersburg trip, my anticipations are so high, and we long so to be ofE, and every night I fall asleep dreaming of driving troikas with three horses about the streets of St. Petersburg and Moscow, skating the American touch on the RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 39 Neva, endless flirtations with Russian Princesses and Polish Countesses in the salons and boudoirs of St. Petersburg. All this, too, is a terra incog- nita, and our life is not all cut and dried for us, as in Rome or Paris. My plan is this, — to pass the winter just where it will be agreeable, St. P., Moscow, or Vienna, or perhaps a trip to Greece and Constantinople, with the Carnival in Venice, but certainly return to Paris in April for the Expo- sition, and London for the season, and then to America early in the summer. However, if you want me to come, if you feel nervous or unwell, don't hesitate a moment to write me, and I can easily and without regret turn about. On Sat- urday, at five, I leave Burgess alone, much to his regret, and Charlie and self go to Brussels, where we arrive just exactly in time for the "revelry by night," a peep at Waterloo, if not too cold, and then on to Berlin to congratulate Bismarck on the state of Europe, through Poland to Rus- sia, a journey of a few days only. You will be pleased to know that I have not yet lost your little package for Eliza Carnatz, and I doubt not that it will reach her in safety. On Friday I dine at the T. B. Curtis's, and on Wednesday with Weld and a lot of men at "Philippe's." Have you ever heard about my horses, if they are well? I trust they will do the winter comfortably. Don't you want me to bring you home a nice little French "Victoria" this summer, instead of the old family ark? (The old family carriage imported by my uncle Samuel Appleton and after his death, in 1853, taken by my father.) As to the Bois, I can safely say that if I had my Boston turnout here complete there would not be a prettier one in Paris. 40 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY Thursday: I am reading now with my French teacher, Theophile Gautier's Voyage en Russie, and find it most entertaining and instructive, particularly as he gives a couleur de rose account of the winter amusements ... I take up my pen for the third time to finish this, but you know there is never the least opportunity of doing any- thing in Paris, or even of finishing what is begun, and except my weekly letters to you I have scarcely written at all. My groom has just been amusing himself with packing up some of my traps, as I have one good sized trunk to leave in Paris full of summer clothes, which I don't think I shall want, and odds and ends I have picked up here. Received an invitation yesterday from the Bishop of Pennsylvania, to confer with him on matters of importance for the church in Paris. Adieu to Paris. Today is dull and dreary out, but except for the Bois it makes little difference in P. I leave my phaeton, etc., at the Bank. I am going to try to find William Hunt, the artist, today. Well, I close and take this to the mail. Adieu to Paris and mes beaux jours — en route! — Russia and the North! Love to all. Nate. William Morris Hunt. While he lived I regarded William M. Hunt as the first American artist, certainly in the line of portrait painting. I wanted for a long time to possess one of his pictures, and I would have RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 41 liked to have had him paint my own portrait, but I never had the opportunity of doing so. One day in 1866, just before he was to sail for Europe, I went to his studio, and after some talk with him, he said he would let me have the head of Lincoln, which he had painted as a study for the full length portrait now in Faneuil Hall, for eight hundred dollars, currency. I agreed to pur- chase it and the bargain was made. He told me that he wanted to take it with him to Paris, that he might exhibit it at the great Exhibition of 1867, and I was pleased at this, and readily acceded to it, as I thought the portrait would have an additional interest and value from having been there. It was understood that I should not pay for the picture until it was delivered to me, and a bill of sale was made out to this effect. I afterwards saw the portrait both at Mr. Hunt's studio at Paris, and also in the American depart- ment of the Exhibition, where it attracted con- siderable attention, and I gave myself no concern as to when I should own it. It so happened that the painting never came into my possession before my financial troubles in 1872, and after that, of course, I no longer thought of having it. After his death by drowning (He was found dead in the water.) at Appledore, Isles of Shoals, N. H., Sept. 8, 1879, his widow, the late Mrs. Louisa D. Hunt, was very disinclined to part with it, and so I never pressed my claim. Accord- ing to a provision in her will a large number of his paintings and charcoal drawings were sold at public auction and the Lincoln portrait was reserved at the sale in February, 1898, at the request of the Government. Mr. Hunt was a curious man, bril- 42 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY liant, full of eccentricities, and very fascinating in certain moods. His age was only fifty-five when he died. Regarding the portrait I received the follow- ing note, dated May 5, 1866: — My dear Appleton, If you would like my portrait of President Lincoln you will please let me know or Mr. Jere. Abbott. My price for it is $800. I should like the privilege of taking it to Eng- land with me, and will return it to you in a few months in case you desire it. Yours truly, Wm. M. Hunt, 16 Summer St. In care of Abbott & Howard, Kilby St., Boston. There was at the time I refer to, 1865-1866 (It was on the list at the sale.), a beautiful land- scape of the Forest of Fontainebleau I ought to have bought, but did not. I once had in my collection of paintings one which had belonged to my brother, T. G. A., a small picture, with a church in the background, and in the foreground several sheaves of wheat, and peasants returning to their houses from the field, with the light of a setting sun. It had the touch and the glow of the master, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 43 CHAPTER S?:COND Lincoln and Emancipation abraham lincoln "AU merit comes From braving the unequal : All glory comes from daring to begin : Fame loves the state That, reckless of the sequel. Fights long and well, whether it lose or win." — Eugene F. Ware I have always regretted that I never had the privilege of making the acquaintance of President Lincoln. I remember having met him one summer at Washington during the war, as he was driving to the Soldiers' Home, — a few miles out of the city where he passed the hot season, — in an open carriage with an escort of cavalry, which was a rare sight for a President of the United States, until the requirements of war and the treasonable elements which pervaded society m Washington seemed to make such a precaution advisable. This was civil war with its unseen dangers in the nation's capital. I can just remember his sad face, which appeared full of the responsibilities of the situation, as he drove along. Lincoln and Emancipation, The antislavery movement in the United States, began in the mountains of the South by Benjamin Lundy, of Wheeling, West Virginia. He pub- Ushed a paper called "The Genius of Universal 44 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY Emancipation," first at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, afterwards at Jonesville, East Tennessee, and m 1824, he removed it to Baltimore, Md. In 1825, Miss Frances Wright, a youthful and enthusiastic philanthropist, established ten miles east of Memphis, Tenn., a manual training school, in which each negro was to be freed as soon as he proved himself capable of self support. She was a friend of Lafayette, who was keenly interested in the plan, but it failed, and she took her slaves to Hayti, where she settled them on land granted by the Haitian government, freed them, and left them there. All this was before the organization of the New England Antislavery Society, which was formed in 1832, by WilUam Lloyd Garrison, returning from Baltimore where he had been associated with Lundy. On December 6, 1847, Abraham Lincoln took his seat in the Tnirtieth Congress as a member from the state of Illinois. He was thirty -eight years of age, and six feet four inches in height. His character and principles are thus briefly and truthfully described by J. G. Holland, in reviewing his public career: — "He introduced them to a new national Hfe. He has given them a statesman without a statesman's craftiness, a politician without a politician's mean- nesses, a great man without a great man's vices, a philanthropist without a philanthropist's imprac- ticable dreams, a Christian without pretensions, a ruler without the pride of place and power, an ambitious man without selfishness, and a suc- cessful man without vanity. " His position in the Thirtieth Congress on all the principal points at issue were of the Whig party, RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 45 and in the second session he began his work for the aboUshment of slavery in the District of Columbia in which the national capital is situated, by intro- ducing on the 16th of January, 1849, a measure which he intended as a substitute for a resolution introduced by Mr. Gott of New York, instructing the Committee of the District of Columbia to report a bill prohibiting the slave trade in the District. Mr. Lincoln's substitute provided that no person not within the District, and no person thereafter born within the District should be held to slavery within the District, or held to slavery without its limits, while it provided that those holding slaves in the slave states might bring them in and take them out again when visiting the District on public business. It also provided for the emancipation of all the slaves legally held within the District, at the will of their masters, who could claim their full value at the hands of the Government, and that the act itself should be subject to the approval of the voters of the District. It had also a proviso to restore to their owners all fugitive slaves escaping into the District. Mr. Lincoln regarded slavery as property under the Constitution. Legally he believed slavery to be right, morally he believed it to be wrong. On the presentation of this bill Mr. Lincoln had a considerable number of influential supporters in the District, but they subsequently withdrew, and the subject was given up, to be revived again, under circumstances impossible to be foretold, thirteen years after. Speaking in 1859, on the slave power, he said: — "Broken by it, I, too, may be, bow to it I never will. The probability that we may fail in the struggle, ought not to deter us from the support of 46 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY a cause which I deem to be just, and it shall not deter me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world besides, and I, standing up boldly and alone, and hurling defiance at her victorious oppres- sors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before high Heaven, and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love. " On March 4th, 1861, Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States, and several of the slaveholding states rebelled against the authority of the National Government, passed ordinances of secession, and with other states joined to them attempted to gain possession of the national capital, thereby bringing on the great war of 1861, which lasted four years, and ended in the preservation of the Union and the re-establishment of the national authority over every state and territory. In the effort to reclaim the recalcitrant states and restore peace to the country, every expedient was used, and when, by proclamation of President Lincoln, Congress assembled in extra session on the Fourth of July, 1861, Mr. Trumbull of Ilhnois introduced a bill in the Senate to emancipate all the slaves in the rebel states. At that time one-eighth of the whole population of the United States were colored slaves, located in the southern portion. They had been held in slavery two hundred and fifty years, having origin- ally, and as required thereafter, been brought to this country in slave ships principally from the coast of Africa and the brisk and remunerative traffic still continued. The extra session closed on RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 47 August 6, 1861, having lasted but little more than a month. In the meantime Major General John C. Fremont having been placed in command of the Department of the West, with headquarters at St. Louis, on the 25th of July, 1861, contemplating the restoration of order in Missouri, and the reclaiming of the control of the Mississippi River, proclaimed martial law, declared the property of all those who should take up arms against the United States confiscated to the public use, and their slaves, if they had any, were declared free men. In other words, he proclaimed freedom to the slaves of rebels, but, fearing that this would alarm Unionists in the South, Mr. Lincoln desired General Fremont, as of his own motion, so to modify his proclamation as to make this freedom apply only to such slaves as were engaged in the rebel service. General Fremont had taken this step without consultation or notice. The President wished him to conform to a confiscation act passed by Congress, but Fremont wished the President to order the change desired, as, if he should do it of his own motion, it would imply that he thought himself wrong, stating the difficulties under which he labored, with the communication with the govern- ment so difficult and the development of perplexing events so rapid in the department under his com- mand. This the President did in a despatch under date of September 11, 1861, in these words: — " It is therefore ordered, that the said clause of said proc- lamation be so modified, held and construed, as to con- form to, and not to transcend the provisions on the same subject contained in the Act of Congress entitled 'An Act to Confiscate Property' approved August 6, 1861, and that such act be published at length with this order. " 48 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY Before this order had been received, or on the day following its date, General Fremont, though acquainted with the President's wishes, manu- mitted two slaves of Thomas L. Snead of St. Louis, in accordance with the terms of his proclamation. Lincoln believed that the time had not come for the Hberating the slaves of rebels by proclamation, if he had, the Act of Congress would not have stood in the way. The Act was the embodiment of his own policy at that time. He had undertaken to preserve the Union and the rights of all the states. A record was to be kept of the slaves of loyal masters, and for their repayment for them Congress would provide. Slavery could only be interfered with as a military necessity, an essential means of saving the Union. He was assailed on the one side for being too slow, and on the other for being too precipitate. In March, 1862, the following resolution recom- mended by President Lincoln passed both houses of Congress, only a few members of the border states voting for it: — "Resolved, That the United States ought to cooperate with any state which may gradually adopt abolishment of slavery, giving to such state pecuniar}' aid, to be used by such state in its discretion, to compensate for incon- veniences, public and private, produced by such change of system. " Before the close of the session the President invited the senators and representatives of the slaveholding states not in rebellion, to a conference at the White House, at which he admonished them that if they had all voted for the resolution the war would then have been substantially ended. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 49 "If the war, " said he, "continues long, as it must if the object be not sooner attained (i. e. the restora- tion of the Union without disturbance of the institution of slavery) the institution in your states will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion — by the mere incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have nothing in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already. How much better for you and for your people to take the step which at once shortens the war, and secures sub- stantial compensation for that which is sure to be wholly lost in any other event I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a decision at once, to emancipate gradualh'. Room in South America for colonization can be obtained cheaply, and in abundance, and when numbers shall be large enough to be company and encouragement for one another, the freed people will not be so reluctant to go." The time for the voluntary abolishment of the slave system was at any date previous to 1900. In this session slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia, completing the work begun in 1849, and recognizing the two principles of colonization and compensation. This session also passed the confiscation act by which the traitor to the general government forfeited his slaves, as well as any other property, and Congress decided in advance, that the slaves thus confiscated and held by the government should be declared free. Then the public at the north, these measures having been enacted, demanded a sweeping proc- lamation of emancipation. The anti-slaver\' ele- ment clamored for swifter and more radical recogni- tion, aroused and sustained by the eloquence of the spoken and written word. 50 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY These were the clarion notes of Whittier's ' ' Voices of Freedom " : — "If we have whispered truth Whisper no longer: Speak as the tempest does, Sterner and stronger. Still be the tones of truth Louder and firmer: Startling the haughty South With the deep murmur. " To which the President made reply: — "What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it could help to save the Union .... I intend no modification of my oft-expressed per- sonal wish that all men everywhere could be free. " He understood that his oath of office stood in the way of the present accomplishment of that wish, but that for the preservation of the Constitution and the Union measures otherwise unconstitu- tional might become lawful. That to preserve slavery he could not permit the wreck of govern- ment, country and constitution all together. He objected to General Fremont's order of emancipa- tion because he did not then consider it a necessity- He objected to the arming of the blacks, as sug- gested by the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, for the same reason ; also to an attempt by General David A. Hunter for a military emancipation, believing as he did in compensated emancipation. But the border states, toward whom he had ful- filled his whole duty, turned a deaf ear to his expostulations, and by this attitude relieved him of further responsibility toward them. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY />1 Colonization. Congress placed at the President's disposal a sum of money to be used for experiments with the colonization of the blacks, his choice of location being the Spanish American republics of Central and South America. In August, 1862, he invited a representative company of negroes to visit the White House and address him on the subject; the President asserting his conviction that both the whites and negroes would suffer by living in associa- tion with each other. He offered them the benefit of the fund intrusted to him for the purposes of colonization. But the Spanish American republics protested against black colonies in their midst. Liberia and Hayti only would receive them, and the blacks were not disposed to emigrate to those countries, and so that project faded as all such projects have failed in relation to sending the colored population out of the country. The Pres- ident's plan was one of benevolent solicitude for a race which he hoped to make self-reliant and independent. And it came to pass, that in the midsummer of 1862, President Lincoln called a meeting of his Cabinet and laid before them a draft of a proclama- tion of emancipation, which involved the freedom of all human beings held in slavery in the United States, amounting to four millions then living, and affecting untold millions then unborn, and revolu- tionizing the social status of more than a third part of the nation, but the Secretary of State, William H. Seward, while approving of the proclamation, opposed its issue at that time, immediately after so many reverses, and advised its postponement until it should have some military success to support it, 52 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY that it should not have the appearance of an appeal for help. So the proclamation waited until the invasion of Maryland brought on the battle of Antietam resulting in the victory won by McClel- lan, when Mr. Lincoln brought forward his second draft of the instrument, — even then a preliminary proclamation, — - which was issued on the 22d of September, 1862, the battle having been fought on the 17th; Mr. Lincoln being reported as saying that he made a resolve that when McClellan should drive Lee over the river he would send the proclamation after him. This proclamation declared free the slaves of those states, and those sections of states, which should be in rebellion on the 1st of January, 1863, thus affording an opportunity for all rebel states which wished to preserve their ownership of slaves, to do so by returning to their allegiance to the Federal Government. September 24, 1862, the President issued a proc- lamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus, as the ordinary processes of law were not sufhcient to restrain disloyal persons from hindering the execu- tion of a draft of militia, which had been ordered, and from giving aid and comfort to the insurrection. This suspension lasted for two months, or until the 22d of November, 1862, and persons held in military custody were released on parole. On the 1st of January, 1863, the final proclama- tion of emancipation was issued. It was as follows : — Proclamation of Emancipation. Whereas, on the twenty-second of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty- two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the RUSSIAiY LIFE AND SOCIETY 53 United States, containing, among other things, the follow- ing, to wit: "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward and forever free, and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the states and" parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state or the people thereof sliall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such state shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such state, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States. " Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the author- ity and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first dav of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period "of one hundred days fro"m the day first above mentioned, order and designate, as the states and parts of states wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne. Lafourche, St. Marie, St. Martin and Orieans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the fortv-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also 54 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY the counties of Berkely, Accomac, Northampton, Ehza- beth City, York. Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclama- tion were not issued). And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose afore- said, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states, are, and henceforward shall be free, and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, \\all recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self- defence, and I recommend to them that in all cases, when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed ser- vice of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this first day of Janu- ary, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three and of the [l. s.] Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh, Abraham Lincoln. By the President. William H. Seward, Secretary of State. In the cabinet meeting to which the prehminary proclamation was submitted, by request of Mr. Seward the words "and maintain" were inserted after "recognize" in the third paragraph of that document in the second paragraph of the final proclamation, the President in his wisdom, having omitted the words, as it was not his way to promise more than he was sure he could perform, and he was RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 55 not prepared to say that he thought he was able to maintain this. Thus the story is told on the best authority. Another paragraph is said to have been written by the Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, who had prepared a proclamation from which the President only selected the sentence beginning "And upon this Act," and ending with "Almighty God," with the exception of the word "sincerely" and the phrase "upon military necessity" which are the President's own. It is said that Mr. Lin- coln voluntarily revealed the authorship of the words attributed to Seward and Chase. Slaves Still Held in Loyal States. By this proclamation of emancipation the loyal slave states were allowed to retain the institution of slavery, which was secured to them by the Con- stitution, and in order to reach them certain articles of amendment to the Constitution of the United States must be acted upon by the legislatures of the several states, three-fourths of the number of which would make the articles valid. No servile insurrection or tendency to violence marked the execution of the provisions of the proclamation relative to the arming of the negroes. At the session of Congress beginning in Decem- ber, 1863, the Fugitive Slave Law was repealed. At the national Republican convention which met at Baltimore, June 8, 1864, and nominated Lincoln for re-election, one of the resolutions advocated a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. Another declared that the government owed protection to all its soldiers, without distinc- tion of color, and at the session of congress which 56 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY opened the following December, an amendment to the Constitution was passed abolishing slavery in all the states. It needed now to be adopted by the vote of the states, and the necessity was pressing, for in order to place in their hands a weapon of self- defence against re-enslavement the negroes must be given the right to vote. The Constitution of the United States. Fourteenth Amendment. Article XIV. Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal pro- tection of the laws. Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for president and vice-president of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any wav abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. Section 3. No person shall be a senator, or representa- tive in congress, or elector of president, or vice-president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the /?t/S5/A:V LIFE AND SOCIETY 57 constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability. Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in sup- pressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States, nor any state, shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. Section 5. The congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. The Fourteenth Amendment was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the thirty- ninth congress on June IG, 1866, and after delay caused by withdrawals of ratifications and of rejec- tions of ratifications by many of the states, on July 28, 1868, it was announced by the Secretary of State that it had become vahd to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States. Fifteenth Amendment. Article XV. Sect. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any state, on account of race, color, or pre- vious condition of servitude. Section 2. The congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The fifteenth amendment was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the fortieth Congress on February 27, 1869, and was declared, 58 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY in a proclamation of the Secretary of State, dated March 30, 1870, to have been ratified by the con- stitutional number of states, and to have "become valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution of the United States." After Emancipation. The history of the war shows that one hundred and seventy-eight thousand nine hundred and seventy-five negroes, took part either in the army or the navy of the United States, and the losses these troops sustained from sickness, wounds, killed in battle and other casualties incident to war, were sixty-eight thousand one hundred and seventy- eight. The war was over in the spring of 1865. Then came the reconstruction period, and in 1876, the Democratic party, most influential in the Southern States, unqualifiedly accepted in its national plat- form all the results of the war, including the war amendments to the Constitution. Yet, while the race progressed with marvellous rapidity through educational facilities eagerly sought for, and secured to them from private and public sources, the condition of the freed slaves and their descendants has not improved so materially as was anticipated. President Lincoln's solicitude has not been proven false or exaggerated, "both the whites and negroes'' have suffered "by living in association with each other. ' ' The tendency is to divide the whites from the blacks, the whites avoiding those sections where the races are placed on an equality in labor. The large plantations are being let out to colored tenants RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 59 while the landlord seeks a more congenial environ- ment in the cities, the poor whites seeking occupa- tion in the manufacturing industries which have arisen and are being developed. It is asserted that the number of counties in the South in which the negroes outnumber the whites, counties containing the best cotton, tobacco, rice and sugar lands, has risen from 237 in 1860, to 279 in 1900, and that within these counties there are, on the average, 130 negroes to every 100 whites, and that in 1860, there were 71 counties in which the negroes were more than twice as numerous as the whites, which number in 1900, had increased to 108, and 92 per cent of the colored race is found in the states which were in rebellion in 1861. Notwithstanding the investment with citizenship which was supposed to remove from the slave the disqualification of having no standing in court, from the time of emancipation to the present, negro lynchings in the southern and western portions of the United States have shocked the civilized world by their frequency and cruelty; victims of both sexes having been burnt at the stake without any pretense of a form of trial, while local juries were unwilling to indict or condemn those who thus trans- gressed constitutional law. The Fourteenth Amendment has been virtually annulled, and the white vote is apportioned on a fictitious representation, and based upon a black m.ajority. Measures, more or less disguised as to their pur- pose, have been passed by several southern states, tending to disfranchise the negroes, showing an inclination to gradually return to former conditions, until they have once more assumed their original bold attitude, and in the Fiftv-eighth Congress, 60 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY which assembled December 7, 1903, notice was given that the United States Senator from Tennes- see would introduce a bill for the repeal of the Fif- teenth Amendment, "with a view to a permanent solution of the vexing negro question, by eliminat- ing the enfranchised negro as a political factor." It was said that the Senator would be supported by every Southern member in Congress, and not a few members of other sections of the Union. An ex- governor of Virginia was quoted as saying in New York, that there is only one solution, and that is that the Nation must recede from its position on negro suffrage, and plans to that effect have been announced in several southern states. An Appeal to the Country. On their own behalf, in a mass meeting held in Boston, November 7, 1903, forty years after Eman- cipation, and three years after the outside limit of time, 1900, set in the resolution recommending the co-operation of the Federal Government in the gradual abolishment of slavery, with compensation, passed in March, 1862, the following appeal, involv- ing the rights of 10,000,000 colored people of the United States, was addressed to the country by the Boston Negro Suffrage League: — "We appeal to the conscience of the country to rally to our help, to restore to us rights bought by us with a great price, the price of nearly three centuries of faithful service and of blood shed by us in four wars. We appeal to the American people in their strength, to have regard for us in our weakness, and to grant us fair play and equal opportunities with others, to make the most and the best of ourselves in their midst. We call upon a Christian nation to treat us as fellow Christians, as human beings. We implore a boastfully free republic to save us from RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 61 re-enslavement, to mete out to us even-handed justice, and to throw over us everywhere the impartial protection of her laws and Constitution. " Death of Lincoln. "So he grew up, a destined work to do. And lived to do it; four long-suffering years, Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through. And then he heard the hisses changed to cheers, The taunts to tribvite, the abuse to praise, And took both with the same unwavering mood : Till, as he came on light, from darkling days, And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood, A felon hand, between the goal and him, Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest — And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim, Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest. The Old World and the New, from sea to sea, Utter one voice of sympathy and shame! Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high, Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came. " — London Punchy May 6, 1865. Re-elected President of the United States for another term of four years, and having seen the termination of the war, Abraham Lincoln died in Washington by the hand of an assassin. He was shot by J. Wilkes Booth, a member of a family of actors, in a private box of Ford's Theatre, a few minutes past ten o 'clock on the evening of April 14, 1865, and was carried across the street to a private house, 516 Tenth Street, where he died at 7.22 the next morning without recovering consciousness. Reverent and devout by nature, his utterances had often impressed the people with a sense of his own 62 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY firm reliance on the Divine arm. "I have been driven many times to my knees,' ' he once remarked, "by the overwhelming conviction that I had no- where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day." So when the bewildering news of his death burst upon the world, that was the characteristic most forcibly brought to mind, and "God lives'' was the chosen message flashed over the wires from a high state official to quell the tumult of indignation which thrilled every corner of the great Republic. At his obsequies the funeral procession was so long that the head of it had begun to disperse at the Capitol, be- fore the rear had passed the Treasurv Department on its way from the Executive Mansion. At the cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, where he was buried May 4, 1865, the procession being under the immediate charge of Major General Joseph Hooker, Bishop Simpson quoted his words spoken in relation to the slave power, in 1859, beginning "Broken by it, I, too, may be, bow to it I never will.' ' Personal Recollections. On the evening of April 16th, just before sunset, when the news of the assassination came to our camp, during an exhausting march from Appomat- tox Court House after Lee's surrender, to guard the railroad at Nottaway C. H., a courier rode up with a despatch for General Charles S. Wainwright of whose staff I was a member, announcing the event in a few words. The effect upon us was tremendous, we could not believe that it was true, and I thought at the time that it must lead to some uprising or revolution. It was a shock to both soldiers and citizens that thev RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY (33 could hardly realize. But his work was done, his life was complete, and he was allowed to die in all the glory and dignity of an unselfish triumph. In a building corner of Broadway and 10th Street, New York, between what was then Stewart's great dry goods establishment and Grace Church, I had from 1874 to 1879, a little den. It looked, like all my rooms, very cozy, with a medley of boyish, college, and army trophies hanging about, and end- less souvenirs of travel and previous years expe- rience on the walls, and in graceful confusion. Many of my old half discarded things had fallen into place, and I wrote under the light of a Russian double candlestick with a soft green shade, while my gas was being put in order. My old army toggery I had arranged in a trophy — sword, belt, sash, cap, pistol, spurs, blouse of Second Lieu- tenant of Artillery (Fifth Massachusetts Battery, Light Artillery) with the holes through the right sleeve and the blood on the lining, corps and other military badges, etc., and as a background the American fiag, in silk, given me by some dear friends with whom I often stayed at Weston, Mass., and which I carried with me in the army, and had suspended in my winter quarters on the Rappahannock River, Va., 1863-'4. As I now look at them I can see on my sword knot the very same crape which was twisted round it by my servant "Joe," when all the army went into mourn- ing for the death of Abraham Lincoln. It is to me a precious relic, and one such as I imagine there are few preserved. In April, 1879, I wrote what follows in a letter to the Boston Transcript: — "The writer paid a visit yesterday to that remarkable picture now on exhibition at Doll and 64 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY Richards', 2 Park Street, (Boston) by Albion H. Bicknell, representing President Lincoln at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg. Oh, that word! What a story does it tell! It was the central turning point of the war, just as Bull Run was the beginning, and Appomattox the end. As you look at that wonderful painting, and gaze at the different men there — men who were towers of strength for the Union, — you find, as you count them off one by one, that more than two-thirds of those who were there that bright autumn afternoon, November 19, 1863, have ere this passed on, — Seward, Andrew, Everett, Meade, Chase, Wilson, Stanton, Morton, Greeley, Sumner, Welles, Johnson, Hamlin, Fessenden, — are with us no more. The landscape, with the trees and the sky and the flavor of autumn in the air, is admirable. The grouping is simple, natural and effective, and the likenesses of the different persons are remark- able. There they are, honest and earnest Amer- ican citizens, in the prosaic dress of the day, — real, not ideal, — some few of them in uniform, but a majority in the habiliments of civil life. You can almost catch the serious words of President Lincoln, just as he delivered them in that terse speech which will go down to posterity as his mas- terpiece of oratory.' ' Statue at Springfield, III. — Grant's Longest Speech. Early in the year 1874, a bronze statue of Abra- ham Lincoln was placed over his grave at Spring- field, Illinois. It was unveiled with appropriate RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 65 ceremonies and in the presence of over 25,000 people. Prayer was offered by Bishop Wayman of the (colored) Methodist Church, and an oration was deUvered by Senator Oglesby of Illinois. President Ulysses S. Grant, Vice President Henry Wilson, ex-Vice President Schuyler Colfax and General William T. Sherman were present, and all made brief addresses, that of General Grant said to be the longest speech he ever delivered. It was as fol- lows : — "Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: On an occasion like the present, it is a duty on my part to bear testimony to the great and good qualities of the patriotic man whose earthly remains now rest beneath the dedicated monument. It was not my fortune to make the personal acquaintance of Mr. Lincoln till the beginning of the last year of the great struggle for national existence. During those years of trouble and despondency, amongst the many patriotic men of the country, Abraham Lincoln never for a moment doubted that the final result would be in favor of peace, union, and freedom to every race in this broad land. His faith in an all-wise Providence directing our arms to this final result, was the faith of the Christian that his Re- deemer liveth. Amid obloquy, personal abuse and hate undisguised, which were given vent to without restraint through the press, upon the stump, and in private circles, he remained the same staunch, unyielding servant of the people, never exhibiting revengeful feelings towards his traducers, he, rather, pitied them, and hoped for their own sakes, and the good name of their posterity, they might desist. It did not occur to him for a single moment that the man Lincoln was being assailed, but that a treasonable spirit, one waiting to destroy the fairest government the sun ever shone upon, was giving vent to itself on him, as the chief executive of the nation, only because he was stich executive. As a lawyer in yovir midst, he would have avoided all that slander, for his life was a pure and simple one, and no doubt he would have been a much happier man; but who can tell what might have been the fate of the nation but for the pure, unselfish, and wise administra- tion of Lincoln ? 66 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY From March, 1864, to the day when the hand of an assassin opened the grave for Mr. Lincohi when President of the United States, my personal relations with him were as close as the nature of our respective duties would per- mit. To know him personally was to love and respect him for his great qualities of head and heart, and for his patience and patriotism. With all his disappointments from failures on the part of those to whom he intrusted command, and treachery on the part of those who had gained his confidence but to betray it, I never heard him utter a complaint, nor cast censure for bad conduct or bad faith. It was his nature to find excuses for his adversaries. In his death the nation lost its greatest head. In his death the South lost its most just friend. " Lincoln said to Grant, when as Lieutenant Gen- eral he placed him in charge of all the Armies: — "The particulars of your plans I neither know, nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any restraints nor con- straints upon you. " Boston is fortunate in having in Park Square the emancipation group by Thomas Ball, of Lincoln breaking the fetters of a negro slave, the gift of Hon. Moses Kimball to the city. In Chicago, October 1, 1893, during the World's Columbian Exposition, I went to see the statue of Abraham Lincoln by Saint Gaudens in Lincoln Park. It is splendid in every way, one of the finest certainly in the country and perhaps in the world, and in 1903, a bronze statue of Lincoln, cast in heroic mould with uplifted arm, was erected on a hill in a town in Illinois from which point it may be seen for twenty miles in every direction. The theatre building where he was shot was never afterwards used for entertainments, but for many RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 07 years contained a collection of curios from the bat- tle fields, which was subsequently removed to the National Museum, and it has since been attached to the War Department as an office building for a bureau. August 5, 1901, I visited the house where he died, now containing the Oldroyd Lincoln Memorial Collection, consisting of over 3000 articles pertain- ing to the martyred President. 68 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY CHAPTER THIRD. BRUSSELS. THANKSGIVING IN BERLIN. WILNA. "This is the place. Stand still, my steed, Let me review the scene. And summon from the shadowy Past The forms that once have been." — Henry W. Longfellow. "A Gleam of Sunshine," edition of 1864. Letter to My Mother. Berlin, Nov. 29, 1866, Or, in other words, Thanksgiving Day. I happen to be aware of this fact, Mama, because yesterday, strolling about the Berlin gallery we met first Mr.'^Urbino (Dealer in choice foreign books in Boston) and afterwards Mr. Kellogg, (My brother Willie's travelling friend) the latter of whom told us that all the Americans were to have a big Thanks- giving dinner at some hotel here, and so we also put our names down, and mean to do "the eminent American. " Almost twelve and not breakfasted as yet! How lazy one does get, and we have tickets to see the Schloss at twelve, precisely. Well then, to begin, — We really left Paris on Saturday, arriving at Brussels in time to take a cup of tea, a chicken cold, and retire, and you have no idea how nice it is again to be on the move ! Sunday, a drizzly day, we drove all the way out to Waterloo amidst the' hoots of the "rag, tag and bobtail" of the villages taking us for British RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 69 tourists. We scanned the scene of conflict with miUtary gaze, bought a cane and a lunch, chaffed the natives, and returned in time to see Dejazet the celebrated old actress perform in a charming little piece. Monday we strolled about the town, looked at a few pictures, flattened our noses on the shop windows, very pretty they are, too, that is, the things within, and would find ourselves sud- denly bringing up at some grand old cathedral, or a fascinating marketplace, with statues to old"swells'' whose heads had been discontinued there; gilt- edged houses in which the ancient guilds and clubs held forth, crooked streets, high hills, etc. etc. That evening after dinner we billeted ourselves for Berlin via Cologne, and I soon had an excellent opportunity of airing my execrable German, and thanking myself for the little I possess. Well, here we are in Berlin, the city of music and philosophy, and here is Charlie, — by the way, the best travelling companion imaginable, — ready to descend for breakfast. P. M. I am now in my evening harness with just time to finish this before going to dine. Yes- terday we went to the Gallery, which I liked exceedingly, although there are only a few real masterpieces, many of which I knew well from your book "The Berlin Gallery, " at home. The Murillo is perhaps the finest. The building itself is charm- ingly arranged, all the different schools in order, and the temperature just right, which you won't find in the Italian galleries. We then sauntered along to Unter den Linden, and caused a great sensation. Whether our reefing jackets and little hats and blue scarfs, or our truly distingue and chic, — tell Willie the word is still a favorite in Paris, — appearance were the cause, I know not. 70 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY I can here say that the Berhners are not exactly "swells," though big on metaphysics, and now on diplomacy and war; certain it is, however, that many were the smiles bestowed upon us as we gaily marched along. In the evening we saw a very good ballet at the Victoria Theatre. Today we have not accom- plished much except the King's old palace, and got fur lined boots, very necessary for travelling, and filled our pockets with roubles. Tomorrow we go to see the paintings in company with Mr. Thies and probably in the evening start for Konigsberg, where I will get you an amber bracelet. The weather is quite mild now, but I think after leaving Wilna it will be fresh enough. It is rather an odd city, this Berlin, with a feeble little stream called the Spree, just under our window. Charlie sends love to all. Good night, for I go to the feast of Bacchus, — roast turkey and plumb pudding. N. A. Professor Thies, whom I met in Berlin, had been curator of the Gray Collection of Engravings at Harvard College, and showed to a party of us in the second term of my Junior year the famous prints, collected by Francis Colley Gray principally abroad, which he bequeathed to the College, and which were then in one of the alcoves of Gore Hall, or the Library, up stairs. Our party consisted of Professor Longfellow and his son Charlie, George B. Shattuck and his sister, my sister and myself. It was a great treat and gave me my first real knowledge of art. We examined all the engrav- ings, taking several weeks, and the remarks of Professor Thies were full of knowledge and charm. It was an education not only in the art of different RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 71 kinds of engraving, but of painting and sculpture, as many of them were copies of the master-pieces of these two branches of art. The Collection was transferred to the Boston Museum of Fine A.rts when it was opened, and now forms a part of the Fogg Museum at Harvard. Berlin in 1866. In Berlin, the palaces, houses and stores on the principal thoroughfares, stand before you as dull and unsentimental looking as the Prussian sentinels. The people whom you meet, while appearing as respectable and worthy as church deacons, have no elegance nor grace about them, they come and go on every side as gravely and soberly as is per- mitted to human beings, with nothing disorderly or gay in their manner. They impress you all as being in what is called "comfortable circum- stances," wearing a look of contented common- placeness, and with the most unbounded respect for things as they are in Prussia, from the Kaiser down, and a corresponding ignorance of and pity for the situation in other less favored countries. There is an egotistical patriotism in this which is delicious, and which must have its merits, but it certainly makes its supporters more objects of curi- osity than of interest to any outsiders, with whom they may come in contact. But, on the other hand, there is a compactness in the forward march of the North Germans as a nation, which is irresisti- ble, and which is certain to accomplish great results, and for it the philosophical student of history cannot but feel an admiration which he does not accord to the more attractive and mer- curial inhabitants of other countries. He respects 72 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY intensely the Prussians, but he does not care to Hve among them. The next morning after our arrival in Berlin we sauntered forth to see all there was in the city, and to provide ourselves with a complete outfit of furs : caps, coats and boots. The weather was cold and we would need these protections for the rest of our jo rney, and we knew there was no better market in Europe for obtaining them of good quality and at reasonable prices than in the city of Frederick the Great. Thanksgiving Dinner. Wilna, Dec. 3, 1866. My dear Mamma: I begin you a letter here as we have some time before the train starts for St. Petersburg which I will finish there, and will take up my story at Berlin, where I left myself just going to dinner. The dinner was quite successful and amusing: about one hundred Americans of all styles collected together, one pretty girl. Miss R. of Springfield, my classmate Green (The distinguished oculist Dr. J. Orne Green.), lots of old professional buffers, and a good deal of ruff skuff in long coats and red scarfs, and several military men. Charlie and I got an old Russian gentleman between us and talked phi- losophy and la vie Russe. The minister, Mr. Wright, presided, and went through very gracefully the rather difficult per- formance of drinking the health of the President ! The Opera House at Berlin is quite stunning, and they have the best female singer in the world, Lucca. We did not have the good fortune to hear her, Berlin is ahead of all the world in music. In STATUE OF KANT. K O N'IGSBU RG, 186(). RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 73 other respects I think it rather a dull city, but then, we have not as yet shaken off the glitter of Paris from our garments. The next day we went to Konigsberg on the Baltic, where we passed twenty-four hours, and visited the Schloss where the Teutonic Knights in ye ancient time held their revels, and where later the King and Queen of Prussia lived when Napo- leon captured Berlin and made the peace of Tilsit. There is an old modern church in which the number- less columns almost prevent your seeing across, and a very old cathedral, with lots of interesting monuments. Yesterday we came here, a flourishing Polish town before Russia "gobbled it up," and go through the experience of having our trunks and passports examined every few hours, although, when they find we are Americans, they are very civil. They can't quite make us out, and look upon us as curiosities, especially stopping at Wilna. America seems to them so far off. The Russian surveillance is very strict in the Polish cities, more so than in Russia proper, and it was here that lots of Poles were hung only a few years ago. Napoleon slept in the palace here the night after Alexander left it. It is so awfully funny, this first taste of Russia, little sleighs just holding one man all covered with furs, and a big hoop over the horse like the pictures in our geography, — narrow streets with crowds of Jews, great bulb like steeples to the churches, and everything different. They keep the houses so warm that you almost suffer. Well, I must close for tonight. N. A. 74 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY My Fairy Sleigh. The spring previous to this Russian journey I received the following note from Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, on receiving a photograph of myself in my fancy sleigh : — "Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis presents her regards to Mr. Appleton, and very much thanks him for the interesting photograph which she had already admired. She hopes he will have more snow the next winter to enjoy his fairy like equipage, and wishes him health and happiness as a reward for his wounds in the service of his country. Mt. Vernon Street, 14th March, 1866. My pretty sleigh had the appearance of a Russian one as I had arranged what looked like a ' ' duga over the saddle of the horse, with a waving plume. I once drove down State street in it with my colored groom, the same old "Joe" who was with me in the army, sitting behind in the rumble, and from its striking appearance, with the white fox robes, made a mild sensation. Stop Over at Wilna. We broke the journey from Berlin to St. Peters- burg, which is long and uninteresting, by stopping over twenty-four hours at Wilna, once the capital of Lithuania, afterwards an important Polish and at present an unimportant Russian town. We thought we ought not to jump into the middle of Russia at once ; we ought to look a little at the edges, and study the ways and customs of the provincials, which we were sure would be curious and worth seeing, so it was decided that we pass a day at Wilna. .<• ^1 1 * «^l BV'' ^k MT A^^^^l^l R^ tl SINGLE SLEiCiH. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 75 There is probably no part of the civilized world where the annoyances about passports and baggage are greater than in conquered Poland. Everyone who enters the land is looked upon with suspicion, and the difficulty is not by any means over when you get in, for there is the same trouble to get out again, sometimes even worse. But few tourists stop there, and so any well-dressed stranger seen is an object of curiosity, and is most carefully watched by the pohce. Particularly is this system of espionage strong in the small cities, and one's life there by it becomes a burden. It was late at night when we arrived at the depot. Our passports were carefully scrutinized, our names recorded, the name of the hotel where we intended to stop was taken down, and we were told that owing to the lateness of the hour our trunks would not be examined that night, but that we must come for the ceremony at ten o'clock the next morning. We were also informed that we could not leave the city without again having our passports examined and the proper visa put on. The Russian Beggar. When we looked out of our hotel window the next morning the street in front was filled with beggars of every description, who on seeing us at the win- dow began going through every imaginable kind of pantomime which might appeal to the pity or the pride of those to whom they were addressed. Perhaps of all the types of beggars in the world, the Polish Jew is the most striking. His long greasy hair, his longer and greasier coat, his trowsers tucked in his boots and his peculiar cap, are dis- tinguishing traits. And then how he can pile on 76 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY the agony in facial expression and gesture! No imagined grief of Dante's Inferno can excel what the Polish Jew would make you believe are his sufferings as he stands thus piteously addressing you. For a handful of copper coins flung among the crowd, they fought hard and long. A Tour of the Town. After, with some difficulty, getting possession of our trunks, and showing that they contained no infernal machines, nor suspicious looking insur- rectionary pamphlets, we jumped into a sleigh, as the ground here was well covered with snow, and wrapping ourselves up in our shubes started off on a tour of inspection through the town. There is something very fascinating in the first suspicion of the Orient as seen in the outlying frontier towns of the Sclavonic race. The bright colored churches with their bulbous steeples albeit dull and in miniature, give a suggestive hint of what the glories of Moscow and Constantinople will be. The queer costumes of the people, neither Asiatic or European, and their manners in which the patriarchal reverence for authority of the East is tinged with the curiosity and thirst for knowledge of the West, make you regard them as a sort of stepping stone or connecting link between Eastern and Western customs and civilization. And then it is all so different from life in the other European capitals, where each one is more or less a stilted copy of the others. Here you have the mixture of the European and Asiatic elements in such a peculiar way, that something astonishing strikes you continually, and the social relations are so vague that real adventures are likely to befall you in all the classes of society. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 77 The rough wooden sleigh in which we were whisked through the place, with its brightly painted duga over the horse's head, the light ornamented harness, with the strange dress of the driver, made visions of winter pleasures in St. Petersburg fill our imaginations, and we thought what a sensation we would make could we only be transferred just as we were into the Harlem Lane! The Russian Horse, Sleigh and Coachman. Your sleigh follows you round by day and night, always within call, and so, enveloped in the dark furs of Astrachan or Siberia, you sally forth on your round of conquest. The horses are superb, very fast trotters, with high knee action, and hold- ing their heads gracefully ; the favorite colors are black or dappled gray. The ordinary sleigh, that of the grand seigneur, such, indeed, as the Emperor almost always uses, as well as those you pick up anywhere in the streets, are not unlike our well- known Portland cutters. Between the regular seat and the dash-board is a little narrow seat on which the driver perches, with one foot inside, and the other in a sort of stirrup outside, from which he braces himself to hold the horse. A fur robe, or rather a thick cloth robe trimmed with a deep border of fur, comes over you and is fastened around you, and hooked at the corners of the sleigh in such a way that you cannot tumble out. The sleighs are very plain, generally of varnished wood, not even painted. The coachman is a type quite diflferent from what you will see in any other country. The most stylish are stout, impressive looking men of middle age, with a long beard like a French sapcur. They wear a dark, thick gar- ment, which in shape I can only compare to a 78 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY dressing-gown, fastened around the waist with a brilliant sash, and then falling nearly to the feet in great plaits. The fashionable owners of these turnouts are seated behind their drivers as comfortable as pos- sible, and take as much interest in racing on the road and passing those about them, as we do when handling the ribbons ourselves. By far the most elegant turnout is the single sleigh with a trotter in the shafts and a horse on each side, making three abreast, galloping along. They are trained spec- ially for this when young, and they do it well ; bend- ing their heads down to the right or left, as it may be, and rushing along madly. The Prefect of Police of St. Petersburg had a stunning team of that kind. Besides all I have mentioned there are many Handsome double-seated sleighs, with a flunkey standing up behind on a board near the ground in some gorgeous livery, and cocked hat with turkey feathers of different colors, like a major general's. I must not forget to mention the net that goes from the horse's back to the dash-board of the sleigh, to prevent the snow from being kicked in your face, a most sensible idea, and one we could well copy in America. These nets are of brilliant colors, red, blue, or green, to match the livery and the sleigh, and the effect is fine as they float in the wind. The winter of 1870-'l, after my return from Russia, I used the net to keep the snow from being kicked in my face, a blue one, which I bought in St, Petersburg. A young fellow who saw me pass- ing and did not understand what it was for, cried out: — "Look at that man, he's afraid the flies will bite his horse!" — Not a bad remark for mid- winter, and I came to the conclusion that Russian RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 79 ideas of sleighing were not altogether appreciated in America. At Wilna. The Chief of Police. The most amusing scene of our stop over at Wilna, was at the office of the Chief of Police. To arrange our passports for departing we went to the office during the afternoon, but as it was jour de fete, as it generally is, in honor of some saint, the bureau was closed and the head official was absent. In consideration of the great regard Russia felt for the United States, the second in command agreed to attend to our case, as we were in a hurry to leave the city, with the understanding that it must be submitted to his chief for approval. The interview was characteristic and ludicrous. The official spoke a little bad German, nothing else except Russian. We had both neglected our German studies and only knew a few phrases, sufficient to demand the necessities of life in travelling. The gaps were filled up with gestures, and the inter- rogatory of name, age, residence, occupation, went on slowly and unintelligibly enough until the hotel keeper, having heard of the dilemma in which all parties found themselves, came to the rescue with the little French he knew and assurances of the good character of the persons on trial, affirming that he had conversed with us long at his hotel and he was certain there was nothing suspicious about us. This only confused things more, and the poor official hardly knew what to do. He was unwilling to take so great a responsibility upon himself and began to think he had got some important political offenders. It is difficult to say how the interview would have ended ; it began to look as if he intended 80 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY locking us up until he should have time to reflect, but fortunately the Chief of Police at this moment came in. He was a gentleman of education and delicacy of feeling, one of those polished Russian officers so often met, and what was more to the point spoke both English and French fluently. He sat down quietly at his table, and in a dignified manner saying a few words in Russian to his now abashed assistant, examined carefully the pass- ports, and finding everything en regie, asked us a few simple questions, which being satisfactorily answered, he said: — "I must apologize, gentlemen, for the annoyance to which you have been unavoidably subjected, but we poor officials have very strict orders in Polish Russia, and mistakes will sometimes arise." When it was time to leave we were consigned to the best attention of all the conductors and railroad officials of the line, with orders to be treated as became American princes. The train was well filled with passengers, and we took our places in carriage 722, C, premiere classe, St. Petersburgh and Warsaw Railroad. NEVSKI PROSPECT ST. PETERSBURG. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 81 CHAPTER FOURTH. ST. PETERSBURG. TSAR ALEXANDER II. " I shall not be particular in stating His journey, we've so many tours of late, Suppose him then at Petcrsburgh; suppose That pleasant capital of painted snows : — Damsels and dances, revels, ready money, Made ice seem paradise, and winter sunny. " — Lord Byron. Letter to My Mother. St. Petersburg, December 5, 1860. (Continua- tion of letter written at Wilna.) Here we are at last, having arrived yesterday evening, and I must say that our first impressions are in the midst of difticulties, for on awakening this morning we found it actually thawing, and the streets are all filled with slosh, but the funny little sleighs rush about inces- santly, and perfectly silently as there are no bells on the horses. We have been occupied today going to the banker's where I found yotir letter, and to the American legation where we saw the minister, who told us that my classmate, Jeremiah Curtin, had gone only yesterday to Moscow for two or three weeks, and in looking up some kind of good apartment. I think we shall stay here some time over Christ- mas, which I believe comes later in the Russian calendar than with us, and devote some time to learning Russian and continuing our French. In fact for the latter there can be no better place than 82 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY here. There are only about six or seven hours of dayHght now, and these we must give up to sight seeing, which I mean to do thoroughly, and to skating and sleighing. In my next I will give you a good account of Saint Petersburg and its sights. Till then adieu. Nathan. To My Sister. Saint Petersburg, December 14, 1866. Well, isn't it droll, here is your young brother established as a gay flaneur in St. P., who means to delve into all the gayeties of the Russian life. Our Minister, General Cassius M. Clay, (Of Kentucky, then 56 years of age.), presented Charlie and myself the other day to a most lovely Russian Princess, who lives in a gorgeous palace worth about one million roubles, — a rouble in gold is just our paper dollar. (This was true at that time when our currency was depreciated.) After going through suites of apartments, billiard room and salons, we found her in the boudoir, and she received us with such a graceful cordiality that she won both our hearts immediately, and we are now at her feet. Tomorrow General Clay is to take us to the reception of the Spanish Ambassador, as they are to give a ball soon to which he wants us to be invited. The Minister seems very inclined to be attentive and kind. We shall presently be presented in due form to the Imperial family. Charlie and I are very comfortably established in a nice apartment with our books, and I want to stay here indefinitely. One must pass the winter somewhere, and why not here, where so few Amer- icans have tried it ? HON. CASSIUS M. CLAY, MINISTER TO RUSSIA. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 83 We have a jolly sleigh at our disposition, with a horse who rushes off like mad. Vehicles are a necessity here, where the distances are so tremen- doxis, and no one ever walks, and you can hire excellent traps by the day, week, or month, much cheaper than taking them by the course. The sleighing has been splendid for the last week, and the Nevsky Prospect any afternoon is a sight worth seeing, filled with all kinds of sleighs. I have even seen one or two of our American cutters. All the strange equipages you read about are actually true, and the troika with one horse trotting and the other two galloping is no uncommon sight. The sleigh- ing, when it once begins, lasts right along, as there is no sun at all to melt it, the days being very short, and what little sky there is overcast. You don't feel the cold much either as there is very little wind, — how I shiver when I think of the Mill Dam, - — (The "Mill Dam Road" a favorite Boston drive.), and we are learning many a wrinkle in the art of keeping warm, which we shall bring out in America. The shops, too, are fascinating, and I expect to invest heavily during my stay in all kinds of Russian articles, Persian silks and Circassian silver, Russian amulets, and the thousand and one things which you don't see even in the cosmopolitan shops of Paris; among others a complete Russian harness, with a cap for the driver. There is a huge bazaar, where everything can be found, built in a parallelogram, with shops on the four sides. The most fascinating things are the hoods all the ladies wear, covering just half their little fur caps. These are made of different colored cloths with embroidery of gold or silver. The fur lined slip- pers, too. are not bad, but I won't tantalize you with descriptions. As I do not anticipate coming 84 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY here again soon I mean to do the thing up this time. I skated today for the first time on a pond belonging to the Russian Yacht Club, to which we have received tickets, but there were only a few there, in fact the skating does not fairly begin until the Neva Skating Club is open, which is the swell place, where all the nobility go. It is gotten up by the English, and is a large square, fenced in with pine trees planted in the ice, situated on the Neva in the city, with nice houses to put on your skates and warm yourself, very necessary here, and several times during the season they give fetes by night. We have subscription tickets for the season, and I think it will be open in a few days. But with all this we m.ust not forget our art, and here we have the magnificent gallery of the Her- mitage, one of the finest though not the best known in Europe, and we can wander a whole winter through its endless galleries without exhausting the treasures. Sunday morning: I hope the little jacket and hat will be pleasing to Master Billy, which Mr. Burgess is to bring from Paris. I will get him a few of the Oriental and Cossack children's dresses, which are stunning and very plentiful here, and then I think he will make a sensation on Beacon street. Well, my dear, I must close and dispatch this. Today we are to skate on the Yacht Club Pond, as thev have a fete there every Sunday, and tonight at midnight is the first bal masque at the Grand Opera. "On with the dance, " and vive la jeimesse! Last evening we passed at the English consul's and met some very pretty young Cossacks, quite civil- ized, however. Charlie sends lots of love to you both. He is now in front of the fire with his feet in the air. Well, goodbye, and pinch Billy's cheeks for me. Nate. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 85 There is a pretty arrangement in Russian houses, which is not to be found elsewhere that I know of. Part of the large drawing-room, generally a corner by windows, is often fenced off by itself, raised on a platform, about a foot above the rest of the floor. Here is formed a sort of garden in the house. The light iron fence is covered with some green, flower- ing vine, and inside are some exotics, palms and other tropical plants, and the effect is enchanting. The ladies select this as their especial haunt, trans- forming it into a boudoir where they read their favorite novels, write their notes, or work at embroidery. I made my purchases of Circassian trinkets and toys, to send home to my nephews and nieces, in the Passage, a much frequented place for the idlers of the town, in imitation of the Burlington Arcade in London, and the Passage des Panoramas of Paris. Those were pleasant skating parties we had on the Neva, in the open rink of the Club, where all the nobility and swells of the place came out to show their agility. Thanks to much practice and many a tumble upon the Frog Pond of Boston, I was a skillful skater, and my partners were also proficient in that difficult accomplishment. How we dashed along over the place where Peter the Great had often been paddled in his rough-hewn boat, now forward together arm-in-arm, now one backward and the other forward, each bending in time to the graceful curves of the outside edge ! 86 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY To My Mother. St. Petersburg, 27th Nov. Russian Calendar. 9th Dec. American Calendar. My dear Mamma. Your letter containing the tribute to Charlie Smith I found at the bank yesterday. How true and good the account of him is. You expected it would reach me in Paris, but you see we have got ofif before. We are getting somewhat settled here now, though we are not as yet fairly lances into the gay life. This is partly on account of the horrid weather, for ever since we have been here it has been gradually melting into slosh and the sleighing rapidly disappearing. Sudden changes are com- mon, and today is cold again with snow falling. Great Sea Street. We have got a very nice little apartment on the great Moscow street, just in the centre of the city, and the house opposite being very low we get as much light as is possible anywhere. We are in a French maison meubUe with a very pleasant Arthur O'Leary style of table d'hote, where we meet half a dozen different gentlemen from all kinds of countries, and we talk in French of the relative merits of our respective nationalities. In fact, we do more French talking here than in Paris. In the afternoon before dinner we take a lesson in Russian, our teacher using French as the basis of instruction, and I presume by the time I leave Russia, I shall be unable to speak any other lan- guage. It is considerable difficult though, but I go on the principle of learning everything. The Church of Sault Isaac, which is about the BOLSIIAJA MORSKAJA (GREAT SEA STREET). RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 87 only sight we have seen, is perfectly gorgeous, with its huge pillars of malachite and lapis lazuli from the mines of Demidoff. You enter, and a myster- ious feeling, half oriental and half European, carries you away. The perpetual incense, the prostrate worshipers, the delicious temperature and the ornaments which combine the luxe of Europe with the savage gorgeousness of Asia, form a whole which the churches of Italy do not have. Perhaps this combination of East and West is the great charm to the life in Russia. The toilettes of the ladies have come from the brain and fingers of Parisian couturier^ adapted to climate here. The Oriental element you see strong in the livery of servants and the uniforms of officers. The feeling of caste is very marked, and while the London flunkey beats the world in servility, and the Italian beggar in woe-begone dejection, the Russian ser- vant seems to be afraid of you, recognizing the superior man in everything. Pretty Russian Maidens. I have not yet had a good chance to see all the different sleighs in their glory, but from what I have seen I think they will be stunning. We saw two pretty little Russian maidens, with their white furs, driving along in a jolly sleigh, the horse in the shafts trotting gaily, and one on his left cantering beside him. The omnibuses have three horses, but I have not seen a swell in his troika. The horses certainly trot faster than any except ours, and some I see on the Nevsky Prospect would make a very creditable show on the Brighton road. P. M. We have been out today to visit Mr. 88 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY Pierce, (A relative of the Longfellows, who had been secretary of legation during President Pierce's administration, and at the time we were in Russia connected with the Winans in the railroad building business.) who lives about four miles outside the city, and after passing the place by mistake and returning, we succeeded in finding him, and received a most hospitable reception. He seemed much inclined to help us in any way to have a jolly time. The sleighing was fine and the air deliciously cold and clear. The Russian youths at the theatres are a most enthusiastic crowd, and I have seen singers at the Opera, ballet dancers, or even a circus star called out five or six times. The Grand Opera House is very fine, and the ballet troupe gorgeous, quite as good, if not better, than the one in Paris. There is a theatre (Saint Michel) where they give French and German plays, so that one can have most everything. Well, I have lots of letters to write and no time to write any of them, so that this must suffice you for the week. Nathan. The theatre is large and finely decorated. The Imperial box is always ready to be occupied by the Tsar or some member of his family, the sentries standing on each side of it in their gorgeous uni- forms as motionless as statues. The pit is filled with the viveurs of the city, young and old, who are in their stalls, lorgnettes in hand, watching every movement on the stage. Between the acts all file out into the smoking room, when a papyrus is inhaled, and some cooling beverage partaken of in the interlude of the play. The ballet itself is a master- piece of skill in its RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 89 peculiar style. The dancers are trained carefully for years in a school under the Imperial patronage, and only appear upon the stage after having gone through a long apprenticeship. The story of the piece, of which the scene takes place in Russia or some of the Oriental countries, is most carefully worked up by the author, and entirely acted in pantomime and dance. All the passions of love, hatred, jealousy and revenge will be exhibited by motions aided by the changing strains of an excel- lent orchestra. When a favorite daiiseiise comes bounding across the stage, attired in Russian costume, delineating in her movements sentiments which appeal to the pride or patriotism of the audience, the enthusiasm of the house knows no limit, and words and shouts of applause rend the air long and loud. Charles K. Smith. I went to New York on my seventeenth birth- day, February 2, 1860, when I was a Freshman at Harvard College, to pay a visit to the family of David Lane, whose wife was Caroline Lamson, sister of Colonel Daniel S. Lamson, friends of my mother, who lived at 12 East 10th Street or Bre- voort Place, as it was called. The firm was Lane, Lamson, & Co. The American flag in my trophy was given me by one of this family. It was on this New York visit that I made the acquaintance of Charlie Smith, and he seemed to take a great liking to me. In my diary of Feb. 2, 1860, I find, " In the even- ing people came, it being the Lanes' reception evening, Mr. Smith and others." This is the first mention of him. One evening, shortly after this. 90 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY he invited us all to go to the Italian opera at the Academy of Music, in Brooklyn, and we accepted, driving over and back. The next mention is in regard to a visit to Wes- ton, Mass., "Feb. 16, 1860. Went to Weston in a glorious snow storm. Stunning dinner. Went for two of the party in an ox team to the station. Took profiles in the evening. Supper stunninger. Sunday, Feb. 19, 1860. There was no church but we went out in the sleigh to see Mr. Smith's protege, deaf and dumb. (A boy he was interested in and was having educated.) Good dinner." Daniel S. Lamson, our especial host and enter- tainer in 1860, was commissioned Major 16th Mass. Infantry, Aug. 1, 1861, Lieutenant Colonel July 23, 1862, and resigned for disability Sept. 29, 1862. But this was the year before the War. I always called him "Uncle Dan" and do so still (1904). Charlie Smith was about ten years my senior, and that sort of regard from an elder is always appreciated by a boy. At the time of my visit to New York he was stopping at the Brevoort House. He was a member of the New York Club in Broad- way, the crack one at that time, and won my heart and esteem at once. I was devoted to him. One day we strolled down Broadway and he treated me to oysters and a glass of beer, and I thought I was a man of the world. When we met at Weston he fascinated me more than ever, with his stories and songs, and we had many merry evenings. I was treated as a young man, not a boy, and I look back to those old times with unmingled delight. The letter I received from my mother announc- ing Charlie Smith's death at San Francisco, I can RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 91 now recall and explain. Of Boston parentage, he had gone to California in the early days, and made what at that time was considered a good fortune. He was killed accidentally by a shot when out gunning. He was so popular in the city of San Francisco that the body was laid in state in the rooms of the Union Club of that city, as a tribute to the appreciation in which he was held by its members. The New York Club. The New York Club, corner of Broadway and Great Jones street, I never visited with Charlie Smith, but during the War they moved to the Haight house. Fifth avenue and 15th street. That was the apogee of their greatness, and I was intro- duced and became a six months' member. Great Jones street was near property which belongs to the Jones-De Trobriand-Post families. To My Mother. Wednesday, Dec. 20, 1866. Saint Petersburg. My dear Mamma: I begin you a letter now, to finish sometime if possible. Your last one talked to me about the furs. I think you are quite right to want lots of Russian things, as they are fascinating, and you will probably never have as good an opportunity of getting them. Be easy, then, for I am to buy no end of various things, and send them all off to Boston, by the first Spring boat of Mr. Ropes. Mr. Prince, who is the h6ad one of the house here, is very obliging, and being a good judge of furs, 92 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY I think I can satisfy you in that line, though they won't be in time for this winter. I shall buy the skins only, and you can have them made up in Boston to suit you, as the fur goods they wear here are different from ours, and might not please you. For instance, I have not seen a pair of cuffs in St. Petersburg. I shall get handsome, dark Siberian sable skins, worthy of a princess, Persian table cloths, malachite ornaments, slippers, Cir- cassian silver, etc., etc., and also something which will make you very happy — a little box or two of the stunning tea, which is brought across from Pekin in caravans. We are to dine with Mr. Prince next Tuesday, which is Christmas day, and have since had to decline an invitation for the same day, given us by the English Ambassador. Emperor Alexander II. — Presentation, Two days ago we were presented to the Emperor. We were quite alone, no other people being pre- sented the same day. We marched through suites of apartments, and were formally ushered into His Majesty's billiard room, where we were received by two of the chamberlains, and from there we went into the reception room where we soon had a little conversation with the head of all the Rus- sias in our native (?) language of French. He is very nice, I give you my word, but we were disappointed in not seeing the Empress, though this comes some other time. We have a good many occasions of airing our French in the beau mondc of Russia, and I find that there is no trouble with it; the only thing to do being to go right along regardless of errors, RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 93 for I see that although I do not speak very well, there are plenty who speak quite as bad and worse, and this being a neutral ground of course one is bolder. However, a great many of the well educated speak English admirably. All this goes to show that we are in for society now, and have to await quietly a round of balls, operas, and dinners, and return our calls most punctiliously, a form of etiquette about which the Russians are very exacting. We went to a jolly young count's (KoucheleflE Besborodko) the other day, who immediately made us at home with a delicious cigar. His house, take it all in all, was about as lovely as any I have ever seen, with an Oriental smoking room, a Pompadour boudoir, a Chinese room, a long gallery of paintings, an immense dancing hall, and a conservatory arranged with grottoes and cascades, a rustic bridge, and an original old statue of a satyr, picked up in Rome. The Count is a great connoisseur of art, and his collection in all its branches is magnificent, with souvenirs of every city of Europe, and all the ages of the world, enough to drive to despair any such little dabblers as myself. I have met quite a charming young Austrian lady, who lives with the Spanish Ambassador's wife, but I shall take good care of my heart and bring it back to Boston. Our acquaintances, thus far, are eminently dip- lomatic, as you see, the English consul's family especially being very attentive. We skated yesterday on the Neva Club place for the first time, as the grounds are only just opened, but today it is thawing again, and we must wait a bit for it to freeze. 94 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY I think you would be rather frightened at the way they drive here in the sleighs, rushing off as fast as possible, yelling to people and carriages to get out of the way, and then bringing the horse up suddenly with a droll sound — bhr-r-r-r !— which corresponds to "whoa" in English. In some letter I will describe a sleigh for you, but they are all alike, from the Emperor's to the street cabs, except in finish. There are very few covered vehicles here to hire, and you always go, by night and day, in an open sleigh, so you can judge from that, that the cold is not so awfully severe here as you imag- ine. We take very good care not to be frozen, as we both have a horror of the amusement, but enough for today. Nate. The Presentation. The Hon. Cassius M. Clay, the American Min- ister, presented C. A. Longfellow and myself to the Emperor. The Invitation. Translated from the French. Ministry of the Imperial Court. Direction of Ceremonies. St. Petersburg, 5-17 December, 1866. The Grand Master of Ceremonies has the honor to inform Mr. N. Appleton, that he will have the honor of being presented to His Majesty the Emperor tomorrow, Tuesday, 6-18 December, at half past one in the afternoon at the Winter Palace. You are requested to come to the door of Her Majesty the Empress. [Seal.] [See binding of this book.] RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 95 The invitation was gladly accepted, not only from the desire of meeting in person the Autocrat of all the Russias, but also because once done your name was put upon the list of distinguished visit- ors to the capital, and, as a matter of course, you were invited to all the balls and festivities of the season. General Clay called for us in his sleigh, and we drove to the Winter Palace, where we were met by some of the officers of the staff, on horse- back. The regulation dress prescribed for us was "black or blue dress coat, black vest and panta- loons, white cravat and white kids," as stated in a marginal note by General Clay. Having been ushered into the presence of the Emperor, as detailed in my letter to m}^ mother, we had a little chat with him, principally answer- ing some questions about America, and then retired, and went down stairs. While waiting in the hall below for our sleigh to drive up, the Tsar came bounding down the stair- case, followed by his favorite Newfoundland dog, with which he was often photographed, and before jumping into his sleigh and dashing off on some call, he stopped and exchanged a few more words with us. Indeed the whole interview made a most agreeable impression upon me. GORTSCHAKOFF. "The days when the great Nicholas leaned on him sweep back from the mists of the buried years. In his old age. he is the Richelieu of another Tsar, for Russia draws the sword in fight once more. — Col. Richard Henry Savage on Gortschakoff in 1876. I was naturally very much delighted with the prospect of being presented to the distinguished 96 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY veteran Russian diplomatist and chancellor of the empire. This occurred in December of this year, 1866. General Clay had arranged the inter- view beforehand with Count Gortschakoff, and one morning called for us at our hotel in his sleigh to take us there. Another person was of the party, and strangely enough a negro, a certain Captain Chester, who was out in Russia on some special business. We started off through the cold, clear air, and were soon at the door of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where we were expected, and ushered in. We first met Mr. Westerman, a gentleman who for some time had been Count Gortschakoff's right hand man and assistant in the tremendous duties of his ofhce, and were then shown by him into the private cabinet of the chancellor. Our interview was, of course, not lengthy, but most interesting. The old gentleman chatted with us very pleasantly on different topics, and in his manner and reception of us was as simple and unaffected as a child. He looked hale and hearty, and as though he had before him many years, which he meant to devote to aiding the development of Russian progress and civilization, and he did live two years after the death of the Tsar and died in Baden-Baden March 11, 1883. Letter to my Mother. St. Petersburg, Thursday, Dec. 27, 1866. My dear Mamma. Another week has glided rapidly by, finding us still at St. Petersburg, and I have two of your letters to acknowledge, the last one bearing date of December 9th. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 97 To Cronstadt — An American Party. What have we been doing? Among other things yesterday a party of Americans went to see Cron- stadt. We were, General Roberts, U. S. A., a good specimen of an American general (Benjamin Stone Roberts, graduate of West Point, served in the Mexican war and the Rebellion, brevetted Brig. Gen. U. S. A., and Major Gen. U. S. V., inventor of the Roberts breech-loading rifle, which he was trying to introduce to the Russians. He was a remarkably genial fellow, and had lots of good stories which he delighted in telling.), Mr. Sawyer, correspondent of the New York Herald, and a very pleasant companion, C. A. L., and myself, and we had a Russian colonel put at our disposal to open the gates of everything. We went down by rail to a place opposite Cronstadt, and then crossed over the Gulf of Finland on the ice, with two funny little Finnish ponies to each sledge, one trotting and the other galloping, but going like the wind, and doing the five miles in less than half an hour, without lessening speed once. It was very cold and our fur coats were necessary. We visited some of the forts, and afterwards breakfasted at the Navy and Army Club of the place. The whole effect of the day and the adventures were eminently Russian. We had to get up long before daylight, and saw the sun rise about 9 o'clock, something one does not often see here, as we are generally asleep at that time. The Imperial Stables. One day last week we visited the Imperial stables, which I thought very shabby, although 98 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY many of the horses were stunning, and afterwards we examined all the swell carriages and sledges, which have been used at coronations, weddings and fetes from the time of Peter the Great to the Princess Dagmar. They showed all varieties of taste, and are more magnificent than those at the Trianon at Versailles. On Christmas Day Charlie and self dined with Mr. Prince, and attended just before dinner the christening of his youngest child. It was quite a large dinner, Anglo-American, and most decid- edly respectable. It is curious how very few American families there are living in St. Peters- burg. Last Sunday we dined with Mr. Whistler, (George W., father of the artist James Abbott McNeill W.) who is one of the gentlemen con- nected with the Winans car manufactory. There were about twelve, all gentlemen, and all Ameri- cans, indeed it included almost all the American males here, • — General Clay, and the Consul, Mr. Winans, Mr. Pierce, and others, and it was jolly enough. On Saturday next Charlie and I think of starting for Moscow, spending ten days, or so, and then returning, as we give up the Odessa plan, but we have not quite decided. Well, I must stop now, as I go in a minute to drive with the Spanish Ambassador and his wife, the Duke and Duchess d'Osuna et de I'Ynfantado, but whether it is a ''grand diner diplomatique" or a '' petite causerie intime" I know not. Friday morning: I have just time to finish and dispatch this now, before going out to perform the numerous last duties on the eve of our departure for Moscow. Cards must be sent round, etc. etc. The dinner yesterday was very good, rather in RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 99 the heavy diplomatic Hne, old swells with count- less decorations, and jewelled dowagers nodding over the table, with a sprinkling of youthful attaches and officers filling up the corners. Later in the evening I went to a ball at the rooms of the Artists' Club, and danced a little. Well, I must rush out, one is always hurried here, as I have before observed. My next will probably be from Moscow, where I can give you an account of our cousin Eliza, and deliver her your present; also, the Kremlin, and the tea-drink- ing gardens. A hard snow storm which looks like continuing. Adieu. Nate. Ross WlNANS. In a letter from my mother visiting Baltimore in 1852, to my sister and myself in Boston, she wrote: — "This morning we have been to see the most superb house in the country, built by a gen- tleman of the name of Winans, who has been employed by the Russian government in the con- struction of railroads and cars, and has made an immense fortune." This letter was sealed accord- ing to the custom of the time with a red wafer. Ross Winans, a native of New Jersey, was an inventor and manufacturer of railroad machines in Baltimore, and undertook the Russian railroads by the advice of George W. Whistler. He died in Baltimore, in 1877, at the age of eighty -one. He had two sons who went to Russia; Thomas de Kay, who died in Newport, R. I., June 11, 1878, aged fifty-eight, and William Louis, who never returned to this country, but went to England after the completion of the St. Petersburg and Moscow railroad, and died in London, June 25, 1897, aged seventy-five. 100 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY CHAPTER FIFTH. MOSCOW. THE CITY AND ENVIRONS. TROTTING IN RUSSIA. " Say, Mandarin, fresh from the Orient old, Will they give us the queue when they give us the gold ? Rise, Curtin, arise! Let the Manchu declare — Is he under the paw of the Great Northern Bear? You uncovered the Pole, brought Pan Michael to light. Ran Sienkievitch down through the vast polar night ; Then, skirting the coast to the isles of the Celt, You caught the sweet ballads that make the heart melt. Thus linking two worlds. Nate Appleton tried, But the Gulf was too deep, or the Isthmus too wide. Brother Pratt had the keynote — he doesn't know which. Art, music, the lingo of Ivanovitch. " — James Herbert Morse. Harvard College Class of 1863. Poem at Class Dinner of 1901. From St. Petersburg to Moscow. The journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow is a long ride, and in winter when the days are short, seems to be a night which will never end. You take the train in the afternoon and have not accomplished many scores of versts, or disposed of many hours, before twilight fades into dark, and the great snow plain on every side loses its brilliant whiteness, and has a grey and mysterious look. So, too, in the morning, though late, the sun is not more than fairly up when you behold RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 101 in the distance the gilded domes and fairy minarets of the old Russian metropolis, as they first afjpear, and you feel that at last you are in the heart of the Empire. But the hours passed in the cars are far from tedious. "Car" is the word that can be used, for those on that railroad line much more resembled what we have in the United States, than anything to be found in Europe. They were divided into small rooms or compartments, a large saloon being left in the middle, and a passage going the length of the car, so that you could pass from one end to the other, and get off on either platform. At that time no regular beds were made up, as in our "sleepers," but the cushions could be comfortably arranged and the weary traveller repose very satisfactorily. There was, too, a room overhead for smoking, which you entered by climbing up a narrow, ladder-like stair- case, and where the fragrant Havana could be enjoyed in security. Double doors and windows kept out the excessive cold, and a good stove plentifully supplied with wood made the temper- ature within all that was to be desired. The buffets on the road could not be excelled, and a table d'hote dinner was taken at one of the stations about six o'clock, which offered a glittering array of glass and silver as you entered on leaving the train, while the display of viands alone would tempt one, were he not ravenous with travel. The occupants of the car, in an easy fellow- feeling way, soon get acquainted with each other, and throwing off the reserve they might other- wise have, mix together in democratic freedom. Their nationalities are soon known, if not their names, for there is always one man aboard who has a knack of finding them out and of commun- 102 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY icating adroitly his information to the others, and stories of travelling adventures in different countries, with accounts of the queer persons met, and the dangers escaped, beguile the hours. St. Petersburg is entirely a modern city, and a modern city like other European capitals, or, rather, like the modern parts of them. The stranger going there expects, very naturally, to see predominant the stamp of Muscovite nation- ality but he does not find it, as the principal public buildings were designed by foreign architects, and show plainly traces of the country from which the brain that gave them birth has come. Moscow, fortunately, is quite different, and is well worthy of being the place where the Tsars are crowned. Any one who dropped down there blindfold would, as soon as the bandage was removed from his eyes, cry out like the soldiers of Napoleon's army, as its green roofs and gilded cupolas met their anxious gaze, "Moscow, Mos- cow ! ' ' No city in the world has a more marked style, which is neither of the East nor of the West, but rather suggestions of both. Constantinople, Venice, Vienna, all can be seen in part, and as you look at it calmly, in awe and admiration, you can only say, "This place is unique, it resembles nothing else," and you know why it is so, in reflecting that here is the old homestead of the great Slavonic race, a race sufficiently different from all others to be well warranted in leaving one typical city as a monument. First Letter from Moscow. To my mother from Moscow I wrote as follows: — I cannot date this as there is no French paper RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 103 about, and also, what with the Russian and our difference in the calendar, time is considerably mixed up. This cannot be better shown than by the agreeable fact that we have two Christmas Days this year, one which we passed in St. Peters- burg, and the other which comes next week, when we are to see a real German Christmas tree at the Carnatzes. Well, then to begin, Mrs. Appleton, we are now in Moscow, a truly Russian city, and as different to St. Petersburg as Boston is to Paris. We left St. P. on Saturday afternoon, and after a journey of hours, with several Americans in the train, we arrived here, and are comfortably established in the Hotel Dusaux. I first went to find Curtin, my old classmate and the secretary of our Legation, who was much sur- prised at seeing me, and said he would do his best possible to make our stay pleasant. We then called on my cousin Eliza Carnatz, and had no difficulty in finding her and making ourselves known, and she was delighted at seeing her rela- tives and appreciated your present, which I am happy to say has finally reached its destination safely. This picture (The letter-head showing a colored view of the Kremlin.) will do for your scrap book, so I will leave it entire. In the evening Curtin took us to a Russian party, and I think I passed about the pleasantest evening there in Europe. It was at the house of General Behring, a lineal descendant of the one who discovered the Straits, and the soiree began with private theatricals in Russian and French, afterwards dancing, then the mazourka, then a sit down supper, the universal custom at parties here, and finally the cotillon, something as with us, and home between four and five. 104 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY The General received us with charming cordi- aUty, and would make us believe we were doing him a favor in coming, and his lovely daughters, — their mother being dead, — acted well in the plays, and did the honors of the house most gracefully. There were several pretty Russian young ladies there, and many were the sentiments and toasts for the friendship between Russia and America, the two great rising nations of the world! The young ladies here nearly all speak English well, besides French, German, Russian, and also, sometimes, Italian. This is true of many of the young men, too, and although this seems to make us very ignorant, still, in the matter of general education, the classics, philosophy, mathematics, etc., I imagine we are their superiors. Moreover, languages are almost a necessity here, while with us they are only a very desirable luxury. Wednesday p. m. : The day after the ball we did not rise much before dinner time, when we dined with the Carnatzes. The party consisted of Coz. Eliza and husband, Mr. Watson, the father of his first wife, a brother, a French lady friend, and one or two others. It seemed quite natural there, as there were several family por- traits on the walls, and her album was filled with photographs of all of us. We had a quietly pleasant evening, with long chats about Russia and America, family events, literature, politics, — and drank tea indefinitely. Russian Tea-drinking. Tea is the national drink of the Russians, and a genuine tea-drinking restaurant is very curious. We went to one the other evening which is the DRINKING TEA. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 105 resort of the isvoschiks (cabbies) and the peasants. Your true Russ orders a pot of tea and another larger one of hot water, the latter of which is often replenished, and he will sit over it several hours, drinking fifteen or twenty cups of tea, and not finishing until he can get no more color out of it. What do your delicate nerves think of this ? The tea is wonderfully good, and the commonest stuff here would put to the blush the very best hotel article in America and much of that you have at family tea parties also. Yesterday morning we went with Mr. Young, a very pleasant and attentive young American from Niagara, who has been here several years in the business of agricultural implements, to see the Kremlin, and all the big bells therein, which are truly wonderful, and can make much noise when they try, and in the evening to the Carnatz's box at the ballet of the Grand Theatre. The building is considered, perhaps, the finest in Europe, and the ballet itself as is always in Rus- sia, remarkably fine. After the ballet Charlie and I went to a ball at the KosakofE's, where we had a good idea of a fine Moscow house and the Mus- covite hcau moride. Dancing, supper, music, etc., and finally I had for my partner in the German cotillon the prettiest girl in Moscow, a Miss Mar- tinoff. Fast Trotters in Moscow. We went out today to the race course, where they often have races in sleighs, and saw the sports of Moscow exercising their fast trotters. The scene was very like ours at home, and we con- versed on the relative inerits of Russian and Amer- 106 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY ican trotters, and one enthusiastic old Russ wanted to bet two hundred thousand roubles on his coun- try, so that if I buy and import "Dexter" (The fastest trotter of the time.) I can make a goodly sum. Snow Hills. The snow hills are a national institution on the same principle as our coasting, only the hills are artificial and are all ice, and you take a lady on the sled with you, and dash down like the wind. There are two hills opposite, so that they go from one to the other and then return. Remembrance to all, Nate. The Carnatz Connection. My diary when a boy of fourteen had the fol- lowing entry: — "January 16, 1858. Our Russian cousin sent us some nice things; among them were a malachite pin and sleeve buttons, and one of the medals thrown to the peasants at the corona- tion of the present Emperor Alexander." My mother's mother, Mrs. Jesse Sumner, was a daughter of Mrs. Nathaniel Coffin, whose son Thomas estabHshed himself in business in Mos- cow about 1829, and died in Perovo, Russia, in 1832. His daughter Eliza married Mr. Carnatz, a German. In 1S70, we received the intelligence that they proposed to remove to Dresden. The Carnatz Children. Nothing has ever shown me more conclusively how easy it is for children, when very young, to RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 107 learn and speak several languages, than my expe- rience with my little Carnatz cousins. Of course being Russians by birth, that may naturally have been their first language, but their mother, who insisted upon being an American, the country of her father, had them at once instructed, probably by herself, in the English tongue. Then her husband, their father, being a German the language of the Fatherland had its proper place. After that came French, which was the cosmopolitan language of all well-to-do people in the Russian empire. They coidd rattle off these various languages "as easily as rolling off a log," and so can any one who begins them in childhood. A Russian Mansion. A good type of the elegant Russian mansion was large, made of wood and only two stories, with a long array of rooms running en suite. At the door stood the ever watchful porter, ready to take the shubes and overshoes of the guests, and never forgetting to whom each belonged, resplendent in his showy livery with the eagles embroidered in the wide border of his cape, look- ing the picture of comfort as he stood by the blaz- ing fire, the thermometer outside showing a tem- perature well below the zero of Fahrenheit. Beyond him, at the foot of the stairs, a huge, stuffed black bear stood erect, in his paws a salver, with a pitcher and glasses, as if bidding you wel- come to the hospitalities of the house. The City and its Environs. We went on many excursions in the city and its environs. The Kremlin, with its endless inter- 108 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY esting objects, the churches so numerous that they say there is one for every day in the year, and the old historical monuments from which can be gleaned a knowledge of all the phases from bar- barism to civilization through which the vast Muscovite nationality has passed, were carefully and intelligently studied. We would ramble for hotirs through the curious bazaar, the Gostinny Dvor, gazing at the different wares exposed, talk- ing and bargaining with the shrewd Jew shop- keepers, and picking up many curiosities, from Persian talismans to Siberian rugs, which had found their wa}'' to this cosmopolitan mart in boats through the Caspian Sea and up the curving Volga River, or in caravans all along the dreary plains and through the steep mountain ranges, from the interior of China and Hindostan. Mal- achite from the mines in the Ural Mountains, fragrant packages of high-priced tea, chain-armor from Circassia, and quaint Albanian gems, gorgeous colored silks, pipes of every description, in short, a perfect medley of bric-a-brac, we hunted up leisurely, sending daily some newly discovered treasure to our collections. Trotting in Russia. The trotting during the winter months takes place on the ice, when a large river or pond is accessible; as, for instance, on the Neva itself at St. Petersburg, which is the favorite place of all. But a well made track on the frozen snow is nearly, if not quite, as good, and this can be found and laid out anywhere. The course, which is one or two versts long, — the Russian verst is 3501 Eng- lish feet, — is in the form of an ellipse; that is, the RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 109 length of two of the curving sides is much greater than that of the other two, as is often seen in American tracks, where a long and narrow piece of ground only can be obtained. But now comes the great peculiarity of the Russian race, which is, that the horses do not start or trot together. One starts from a line in the centre of one of the long sides of the course, while the other starts from a line exactly opposite and on the other side. Should there be four horses entered they have two parallel tracks close to each other, and for six horses three of these ellipses, and so on. When there is more than one track the effect is most peculiar: for, at the signal for starting, the horses all seem to be rushing off in different directions. Then, too, the horses all start from a standstill, each one toeing the line before the word "go" is given. Of course, in this system, there is not the excitement of seeing the horses together, changing places, now one ahead, and now another; those who break held in, and all trying to secure and keep the pole from the others. They merely trot round the course at their greatest speed and the one which returns to his goal or starting point first, is declared the winner. In case of breaking, a certain number of steps at a gallop only is allowed during the heat, and any horse that is not brought down into this alloted number is thrown out of the races by the judges, and loses his chance. It is common to have a running horse by the side of the trotter to excite him to his utmost speed, but generally this horse is not harnessed, but is mounted by a skillful rider, who keeps close along- side of the other, knowing exactly the pace at which he can go without breaking. The sleighs used are very light, seemingly made no RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY of some kind of basket-work, and also very low, the driver being seated not more than a foot off the ground or snow, bracing himself with his feet in a sort of stirrup on either side. Low vehicles are also used for racing on the gravel track, and primitive they are in appearance, a narrow board supported on the axles, with four small wheels nearly the same size, and the American two- wheeled spider-sulky has come into use, as the small wheeled vehicles detract from the speed, on account of a badly regulated centre of gravity and excessive friction. For getting the greatest pulling power out of the horse with the least fatigue, and leaving all the muscles unimpeded and in full play, the Rus- sian method of harnessing is excellent. The shafts of the drosky or sleigh, the collar of the horse and the duga meet at one point on the horse's shoulder, and at this point is all the strain of pulling. There are neither traces nor breeching to interfere with the action. The collar, made of wood, is care- fully fitted to the horse's neck, and while the shafts are inclined to press it against the neck, the duga exerts a corresponding pressure out on either side, and these three parts of the harness are so lashed together by leather thongs that they remain firmly in place, and it is a rare sight to find a horse with his neck galled from exercise. The horses are put on the track very young, at the age of two, three or four years, and after that time, are found rather to lose than increase their speed. Perhaps there may be peculiarities in the breed which gives them their greatest strength when young, or it may be the climate brings out forces which in milder regions it takes more time to develop. Certain it is that the Russian horse, A COURSIER. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY HI of which the Orloff is the handsomest type, when taken to a foreign country soon loses his grace of action and fire. At home they are the beau ideal of beauty, with great natural knee action, arching necks, distended nostrils and flashing eyes, but it has often happened that the same horse which would attract the attention of every passer by on the Nevski Prospect, when seen in the Bois de Boulogne or Hyde Park has lost his distinguishing traits and seems but an ordinary animal. As there is always a question as to the beauty of "banging" the horse's tail in accordance with the English taste, or of leaving the natural growth as was more common in America some years ago than at present, I would state that the tail in Rus- sia is left as nature made it, long and waving, and sometimes even trailing on the ground. And for another disputed question, whether or not it is beneficial to clip the horse in winter, without touching on the numerous arguments which human- ity, convenience and preference have brought plaus- ibly up on either side, I will simply say that in Russia it is the universal rule to leave the horses, whether they be for work or for pleasure, with the long-haired coat, God has given them, untouched all through the months when they need some pro- tection against the cold. To Harness a Horse a la Russe. First put on the bridle, which is merely a head- stall without blinders. Saddle and surcingle to- gether. Collar and breeching together. Put the horse in the shafts and put on the hoop, strap- ping the shafts and hoop together with a long strap, which is afterwards wound around the shafts. 112 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY There is a strap on each shaft just opposite the saddle. The one on the left shaft goes over the saddle, passing through rings, and is wound around the right shaft. The one on the right shaft goes through loops under the surcingle and is wound around the left shaft. These straps help to keep the shafts firmly in place. The horse pulls from his collar. The ends of the shafts and hoop must just meet, the hoop going inside of the shafts and pressing them out. Of the four straps from the top of the hoop, two go under the check strap and fasten to the bit ring, and the other two, with the loops through which the reins pass, are fastened to the shafts, behind the hoop. The bit should be simple snaffle. The running horse is on the left side. A strap goes from his bit to the shaft of the wheeler, pass- ing through the martingale ring. This strap is quite long, and gives him considerable play. The rein, only one, goes from the outside ring of the bit. For a pair of horses there are no saddles. The traces are fastened to leather rings on the collar. A surcingle is fastened on the traces and passes under each horse, close behind his forelegs. They always drive with four reins but this is useless. The ridiculous custom of having blinders over the horse's eyes is unknown to the Russians, except as imported from other countries. The animal is allowed to see for himself on all sides, pleasant or ugly sights, and is not treated like an infant, whom his human doctors suppose is going to be frightened at what may meet his gaze. Sen- sible both for horse and man is this, as the former doubtless derives pleasure in his way from the sights of the street or the scenery of the country. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 113 while the latter enjoys seeing what is one of the finest points of a horse — his eye. Check reins are happily not a part of the Rus- sian harness. The men who congregate about the race-course are pretty nearly the same types in all the nations of the world. There are the elaborate dandies, known as petits creves in France, who go because it is the fashion to see and be seen, whether or not they have any taste for the racing itself, and can tell one horse from another. There are gentle- men who really are devoted to the noble animal, who are interested in improving the breeds, and who, if possessed of fortune, generally have some of their own stock taking part in the races. Then comes the sporting fraternity of all degrees, horse dealers sharp for making a good bargain in buying or selling, trainers, jockeys, stable boys and besides them plenty of loafers who are there for betting on the race, or for " turning an honest (?) penny" in any way that their wits suggest. Letter to my Mother. Moscow, Dec. 27, 1866. This is dated by the Russian calendar, which is just twelve days behind ours, so you can calculate. I have a few minutes before going to dine with Cousin Eliza to begin this and I will dip promiscuously into some of the events of the past week. The Christmas Tree. Let me see, — Christmas has come and gone for the second time this year, and we have seen the way it is done in Russia. It is the same old story — 114 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY a tree, arbre deNoel, — everywhere, though the cus- tom has been brought here by the Germans. We went to the Carnatzes about half-past seven, and they being German of course all the arrange- ments were a la mode Allemande. The tree always comes off Christmas eve, and is generally a family gathering, gotten up especially for the amusement of the little ones. A large tree just like ours at home, greeted our gaze on entering, placed on a table, brilliantly lighted, covered with all kinds of things, bonbons, gold balls, etc., topped off with an American flag in compliment to us. The pres- ents were all lying around on tables, and the tree remains untouched for a week, so that poor chil- dren can come in and enjoy it on different days. Charlie and I were not forgotten, and we received each a portfolio filled with different views of Mos- cow. Every guest, on leaving, also, takes a huge box filled with almonds, sugar plums, cakes, etc., etc., quite enough to make you ill for a week. The party was not very large, and we broke up just before midnight to go to the French Catholic church to hear the mass, but the place was jammed, and we did not stay long. Charlie and I then jumped into our sleigh, and the great bells of the Kremlin and the neighboring churches were boom- ing all around. The Patriarchal Cathedral. We wended our way up the hill and pushed into the Patriarchal Cathedral of Russia, where all the Tsars are crowned, and here we saw the Russian mass. The crowd was so dense that it was impos- sible to penetrate more than a few feet into the church, and we soon left. RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY 115 The Russian Bath. One evening last week we did the Russian bath. It is perfectly delicious, a general steaming all over first, and then you are bodily champooed by the careful attendant, — the soap suds being, so to speak, whipped in with a bunch of rushes flour- ished round you,— and then recline at your ease, as long as you please, and finally cool off with differently moderated showers of water. We have made the acquaintance of a Mr. Amoldi, who has a charming wife. He is a great lover of horse flesh, and took us over a stable, where we saw splendid specimens of the different types of the Russian horse, and afterwards we went to the trotting track and saw the sports with their fast trotters. The scene was not unlike Riverside Park at home, and very interesting to me. They want to get up international races. We afterwards dined with Mr. A., quite en fam- ille. The Mazourka. We have been to another party at the aunt's of my lovely Miss M — , and I again watched her going through the graceful slides of the mazourka. There are two public balls every night now dur- ing the holidays, sometimes a masquerade at the Nobility Club or the Grand Opera, or again a dance or concert at the German Club, and so on, but the masquerades, after Paris, are tame. The holidays are much made of here, and every one celebrates them by getting tipsy, for the Rus- sian, besides his everlasting tea, also manages to dispose of considerable vodki, the alcoholic drink 116 RUSSIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY of the country. (Spelled vodki and vodka, dis- tilled from rye, also from potatoes.) To a hard working Yankee it is odd, the slow- ness and want of ambition of all. For instance, Sunday is a holiday, and the day before he pre- pares himself for it, and the day after he gets sober, and as there is on the average one fete day during the week, when the same game is tried, it does not leave many days for work. Off to St. Petersburg. Thus you see the days slip along on golden wings, and your ftdneur looks with horror on the bore of packing up his traps, but we may be off on Satur- day to St. Petersburg. I have your letter No. 11, with the Boston gayeties. I will get you some nice postage stamps some time, but for the pres- ent these will suffice. Accept, also, the photo- graph of Chawls and myself a la Russc, with the Kremlin in the background, and us in the front, done up in our shubes and boots, and waiting the approach of many bears. (See frontispiece.) Fear not for our ears and noses now, for although the thermometer keeps down steadily in the region of " Niblo " (Meaning zero, an old joke of First Lieutenant Peleg W. Blake of the Fifth Mass. Battery, who when speaking of the weather always called zero " Niblo,") we are much more comfort- able in the streets than we are at home, where it seems to be the fashion to be cold always out of doors. The photographs of Moscow are the best in the world. (I had never seen such beautifully glazed ones at that time.) We do not get much news here about Americans, as there is no French paper *^' ' * .^PBhfc - ""^-^^--^s^ ^^^^^^^^ 3W-. »||Q|g^v^