misunderstanding, on the part of the lady, of a very small matter, exaggerated by giddy and indiscreet tongues, working on a peculiarly sensitive nature
. Whose tongues? Jenkins tongues, Rogers tongues, Jacobs, Reynolds, Boyd, Shippen, Slaymaker? A town has many tongues, and twice as many eyes and ears.
Curtis knew more than he told, but he had not seen thepacket of mementos so precious to Buchanan that the careful old man dispatched them to a New York bank for safekeeping when Pennsylvania, and Wheatland with its reviled occupant, were menaced by an invasion of Confederate troops. In his retirement, the former President had been shown a gossipping article on theAnn Coleman incident, and, in Curtis’s words,
He then said, with deep emotion, that there were papers and relics which he had religiously preserved, then in a sealed package in a place of deposit in the city of New York, which would explain the trivial origin of this separation. His executors found these papers inclosed and sealed separately from all others, and with a direction upon them in his handwriting, that they were to be destroyed without being read. They obeyed the injunction, and burnt the package without breaking the seal
.
Another burning, and not from a stray spark. Why did he religiously preserve these papers and relics, if the executors were truly to burn them? Surely he wanted us—posterity, to whom he would be history—to know the facts of the matter.
Mr. Buchanan had a habit of preserving nearly everything that came into his hands
. Curtis was the third chosen biographer, and the first not to be overwhelmed by the mass of Buchanan papers. The initial choice, Mr. William B. Reed of Philadelphia,
a personal friend … in whom he had great confidence
, was appointed in Buchanan’s will,
but was prevented by private misfortune from doing anything more than to examine Mr. Buchanan’s voluminous papers
. Edward and Harriet, eager to have their brother and uncle vindicated and explained, found another writer.
After Mr. Reed had surrendered the task which he had undertaken, the papers were placed in the hands of the late Judge John Cadwallader of Philadelphia, another personal friend of the President. This gentleman died before he had begun to write the proposed work
. Curtis, a New Englander, Harvard graduate,and lawyer turned professional writer, who had never met Buchanan, persevered, in patient legalistic fashion. He had written a fuller account of the Coleman incident, and showed it to Samuel L. M. Barlow, his friend and Buchanan’s, for approval. Barlow, would you believe, did not approve: he wrote Curtis,
I am clearly of the opinion that you should not print any considerable portion of what you have written on the subject of his engagement to Miss Coleman.… In this view Mrs. Barlow agrees fully
. Oh, Mrs. Barlow, what a toad you are, lurking in the garden of history!
We are left, like our hero, in the dark. Night came to the so-called city of Lancaster as decisively as to a village. Only the taverns in and around Centre Square cast much light through their windows onto the sidewalks of rough planking, which thudded hollowly beneath the heels of Buchanan’s hastening boots. The tilted attic roof of blue-black clouds at whose eaves a brown sunset had wanly peeped now was breaking up, disclosing spatterings of dry cold stars. The afternoon’s feeble spittings of snow had yielded to crystalline air tasting of woodsmoke, fresh horse dung, and evening ale. He could see his breath before his face. Guilt of an unformulated and foreboding sort revolved in his stomach with what it sourly contained of tea, port, Lititz pretzels, and a lonely supper.
It has never been ascertained just whether or no Buchanan was received by his fiancée that evening. If he was, the dullest of imaginations can readily picture the chill that must have characterized the greeting. Considering the modest, sensitive nature of the young woman, it seems improbable that she
. Whose tongues? Jenkins tongues, Rogers tongues, Jacobs, Reynolds, Boyd, Shippen, Slaymaker? A town has many tongues, and twice as many eyes and ears.
Curtis knew more than he told, but he had not seen thepacket of mementos so precious to Buchanan that the careful old man dispatched them to a New York bank for safekeeping when Pennsylvania, and Wheatland with its reviled occupant, were menaced by an invasion of Confederate troops. In his retirement, the former President had been shown a gossipping article on theAnn Coleman incident, and, in Curtis’s words,
He then said, with deep emotion, that there were papers and relics which he had religiously preserved, then in a sealed package in a place of deposit in the city of New York, which would explain the trivial origin of this separation. His executors found these papers inclosed and sealed separately from all others, and with a direction upon them in his handwriting, that they were to be destroyed without being read. They obeyed the injunction, and burnt the package without breaking the seal
.
Another burning, and not from a stray spark. Why did he religiously preserve these papers and relics, if the executors were truly to burn them? Surely he wanted us—posterity, to whom he would be history—to know the facts of the matter.
Mr. Buchanan had a habit of preserving nearly everything that came into his hands
. Curtis was the third chosen biographer, and the first not to be overwhelmed by the mass of Buchanan papers. The initial choice, Mr. William B. Reed of Philadelphia,
a personal friend … in whom he had great confidence
, was appointed in Buchanan’s will,
but was prevented by private misfortune from doing anything more than to examine Mr. Buchanan’s voluminous papers
. Edward and Harriet, eager to have their brother and uncle vindicated and explained, found another writer.
After Mr. Reed had surrendered the task which he had undertaken, the papers were placed in the hands of the late Judge John Cadwallader of Philadelphia, another personal friend of the President. This gentleman died before he had begun to write the proposed work
. Curtis, a New Englander, Harvard graduate,and lawyer turned professional writer, who had never met Buchanan, persevered, in patient legalistic fashion. He had written a fuller account of the Coleman incident, and showed it to Samuel L. M. Barlow, his friend and Buchanan’s, for approval. Barlow, would you believe, did not approve: he wrote Curtis,
I am clearly of the opinion that you should not print any considerable portion of what you have written on the subject of his engagement to Miss Coleman.… In this view Mrs. Barlow agrees fully
. Oh, Mrs. Barlow, what a toad you are, lurking in the garden of history!
We are left, like our hero, in the dark. Night came to the so-called city of Lancaster as decisively as to a village. Only the taverns in and around Centre Square cast much light through their windows onto the sidewalks of rough planking, which thudded hollowly beneath the heels of Buchanan’s hastening boots. The tilted attic roof of blue-black clouds at whose eaves a brown sunset had wanly peeped now was breaking up, disclosing spatterings of dry cold stars. The afternoon’s feeble spittings of snow had yielded to crystalline air tasting of woodsmoke, fresh horse dung, and evening ale. He could see his breath before his face. Guilt of an unformulated and foreboding sort revolved in his stomach with what it sourly contained of tea, port, Lititz pretzels, and a lonely supper.
It has never been ascertained just whether or no Buchanan was received by his fiancée that evening. If he was, the dullest of imaginations can readily picture the chill that must have characterized the greeting. Considering the modest, sensitive nature of the young woman, it seems improbable that she
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