Julia Sand – Letter 16
Context
On August 20, 1882, President Arthur arrived unannounced at the Sand residence and spent an hour with Julia and her family. This letter recounts Julia’s thoughts on the visit.
Julia notes Arthur’s poor health. What she mistakes for malaria was actually a kidney disease, at the time known as Bright’s Disease. Though kept hidden from the public, the ailment would plague him throughout his presidency and ultimately take his life in 1886.
Letter 16
August 24, 1882
My friend,
How good you were to come & see me after all – & how badly you were repaid for it! But that is the usual fate of goodness. I am afraid you had a – what shall I call it? – a very stiff visit – which was a pity, for my family are not given to stiffness – but you see, you took them quite by surprise. And do you know they had the coolness to find fault with me for not entertaining you more agreeably? My brother said I was like the man in the Arabian Nights, who got the Big Genie out of the vase, & then was so frightened, he wanted to put it back again. But that is not true. I did not want to put you in your carriage & send you home again – I felt much more like putting some of the rest in a carriage & sending them out for a moonlight drive. However, you have taken all the vanity out of me. I thought, if you did come, it would be to see me – but now it is quite evident that it was my mother, sisters, brothers & nephews in whom you were interested. All summer our house is open, but we very rarely all are in it. Of the ten days you were in town, you could not have hit another when so many of us were at home, nor of all hours in the day, one when you would be more certain to find us all in the parlor. But I am glad you had your way – & perhaps it is quite natural that you should give them the preference – they are wiser & “gooder” & never said anything ugly to hurt your feelings – in fact, my nephew said you were handsome & looked about forty (what nonsense!) & my sister thought you conversed exceedingly well. But none of them were conscious of your compliment. They really thought you came to see me – to scold me, perhaps – & that I was so cowardly that I made them sit there & talk to prevent your having a chance. But that was slander. If you had come any morning, or afternoon, for a week before, when I expected you, you would have found me, in long white robes, like Patience on a monument, waiting to be scolded. If you had come any evening early, for a week before, when I did not expect you, you would have found me, in short white robes, alone with my little nephew, willing to be scolded – (yet, in the twilight, looking so like the “Child Angel” in the American Baron that you could not possibly have done it!) But even coming as you did – when I was tired, cross, had given up all thought of seeing you, had gone into mourning out of respect to the weather, had disdained roast beef & scorned peach-pie, was on the lounge, vowing I would never write another line to that horrid man, at the same time wondering who that gentle-voiced Episcopal minister in the front parlor might be – till a word or two in his conversation caused me to jump up suddenly & find out – even under all these trying circumstances, I endeavored to give you an opportunity to say anything dreadful that you chose, & you would not avail yourself of it. I asked if you were fond of music. You said: “Reasonably” – what an unreasonable answer! If you had said: “Irrationally,” I would have made my sister & brother sing a long trio from some German or Italian opera. And when they were embarked on the high Cs, you might have argued, scolded, in fact, picked up the chairs & thrown them at me & no one would have noticed it, provided you calmed down in time to say: “Oh how beautiful!” at the end, with a clear idea whether it was Mozart or Meyerbeer that you were applauding.
Was I really frightfully unjust to you? I am so glad & so sorry. Glad that it was a mistake – sorry that any mistake of mine should have pained you. But you must realize that it is difficult for me to know just what to & what not to believe in the papers. It is never easy for a woman to trace all the motives that may lie back of the printed words. It is doubly hard for me, because for five years I have been so cut off from the world – I have not met the people who could help me. You said you would like some time to tell me the real truth on several points, in regard to which I had false impressions. If the opportunity comes, I hope you will. Nothing would give me greater pleasure. I have no desire to live in a little clique & hear the same opinions reiterated every day. I like to know people as different from each other as possible. In every case I want to hear both sides. More than for anything else, I care for the truth.
But I did not like what you said, just when you were leaving. Firstly, it was fearfully mean, for it left the bystanders to imagine that I had accused you of being an angel, or something of the sort! – when you know that I have never for a moment been under such hallucinations! Nextly, it hardens you to say such things. Thirdly, it has a bad influence on others to hear you say them. And fourthly, it is not true. There is no such thing as standing still & remaining the same – stagnation means deterioration. Not all of us are given to introspection & setting up moral milestones to mark our moral progress – but would it be fair then to say that there was no progress? Sometimes we progress slowly, sometimes rapidly, & much depends on circumstances to develop, or repress certain qualities in us. But it is by our opportunities that we will be judged. The Presidency puts a man terribly to the test. If he has fine qualities, they will shine with double brilliancy. If he is commonplace, it kills him. What has Grant been good for since – except to eat dinners? Will Hayes ever be heard of again – unless at a Sunday school festival? It has not killed you yet – & will not, unless you, at some important turning-point, deliberately choose the wrong path. Setting aside all cant (8) about sudden conversion – I hope you do not understand me as believing in that – & thinking simply of what it is to meet a great emergency, to rise to it, or to fail, are you not wiser & better than you were? Look back on the past year – did you ever in your life work harder? – & has not almost all that work been for others? Even in your pleasures, have you not considered more what you could give, than receive? Have you not had larger thoughts in your mind? When Vice-President, you had no dignity, to keep, or to lose – forgive me for saying anything so hateful, but it is true. As President – so far as the world knows – you have never lost your dignity once. Opponents have been forced to admire you. You have done better than friend or foe expected. And it is to your honor that it is so. You should not deny it & be ashamed. You should be proud of it, I would say, only that it is humility, not pride, which marks all true greatness of soul.
There is something more I want to say to you, but will not now. Why should you be talked to death, when off on your holidays? Besides, if I argue with you, to prove that you are better than you think, perhaps you will forgive me, but if I should argue on exactly the opposite tack, perhaps you might not. So I will give you time to rally from your malaria, before I find fault. Am I not generous?
Do you know, though I was very glad to see you, your visit left a rather sad impression on me? It seemed to me that you were not well, that you were very weary & worn out. You must not rely too much on your good constitution. There are so many strains it must bear, you ought to avoid all that are avoidable. You ought not keep your malaria a secret & endure it so patiently. It is a disgrace to the country that the White House should be so unhealthy – & the sooner people understand it, the better. If Congress will sit in summer, could you not have a cottage in some healthful locality five or ten miles out of town & attend to business from there? And if, when you are in New York, people will ring your door-bell all day & night – which is enough to give you brain-fever – why not have the wire detached from the bell & let the populace pull the handle as much as it pleases, a servant being near enough to hear that sound & attend to your callers, without your being so disturbed? I felt so sorry, I wanted to do something for you & did not know what. Or rather I did know – but is anything more unnatural than to be quite natural? If I had said: “Do lie down on the sofa – no one shall speak to you for an hour – & as soon as you are rested, you must have some dinner,” you would have thought I was demented, would you not? And even if you were tired as a tramp & hungry as the traditional beggar, you would have exclaimed: “Thanks, no!” in amazement. So you sat up & talked, & were talked to, had some of that melancholy beverage called claret – in a sherry glass, our waiter probably having lost his head in delight at seeing you! – & then a long drive home. I am afraid, your visit to me being a sort of last straw, after a whole summer of burdens, you will have me associated in your mind forever & ever with annoyance & fatigue. Is it so? Please tell me. But not now – when you are rested. Hoping that your visit to Newport will do you a great deal of good.
Yours sincerely,
J. I. S.
Letter 17 – Advocates against pardons; concern for Arthur’s associations; desires second visit