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Page 14
Rather, in the providence of God, there is a time for all things; a
time when the sword may cut the Gordian knot, and set free the
principles of right and justice, bound up in the meshes of hatred,
revenge, and tyranny, that the pens of mighty men like Clay, Webster,
Crittenden, and Lincoln were unable to disentangle. Wishing you all
success, I am, with respect, your friend, W. T. SHERMAN.
Mrs. Grant had asked Edward to send her a photograph of himself, and
after one had been taken, the boy took it to the Fifth Avenue Hotel,
intending to ask the clerk to send it to her room. Instead, he met
General and Mrs. Grant just coming from the elevator, going out to
dinner. The boy told them his errand, and said he would have the
photograph sent up-stairs.
"I am so sorry we are just going out to dinner," said Mrs. Grant, "for
the general had some excellent photographs just taken of himself, and
he signed one for you, and put it aside, intending to send it to you
when yours came." Then, turning to the general, she said: "Ulysses,
send up for it. We have a few moments."
"I'll go and get it. I know just where it is," returned the general.
"Let me have yours," he said, turning to Edward. "I am glad to
exchange photographs with you, boy."
To Edward's surprise, when the general returned he brought with him,
not a duplicate of the small _carte-de-visite_ size which he had given
the general--all that he could afford--but a large, full cabinet size.
"They make 'em too big," said the general, as he handed it to Edward.
But the boy didn't think so!
That evening was one that the boy was long to remember. It suddenly
came to him that he had read a few days before of Mrs. Abraham
Lincoln's arrival in New York at Doctor Holbrook's sanitarium. Thither
Edward went; and within half an hour from the time he had been talking
with General Grant he was sitting at the bedside of Mrs. Lincoln,
showing her the wonderful photograph just presented to him. Edward saw
that the widow of the great Lincoln did not mentally respond to his
pleasure in his possession. It was apparent even to the boy that
mental and physical illness had done their work with the frail frame.
But he had the memory, at least, of having got that close to the great
President.
The eventful evening, however, was not yet over. Edward had boarded a
Broadway stage to take him to his Brooklyn home when, glancing at the
newspaper of a man sitting next to him, he saw the headline: "Jefferson
Davis arrives in New York." He read enough to see that the Confederate
President was stopping at the Metropolitan Hotel, in lower Broadway,
and as he looked out of the stage-window the sign "Metropolitan Hotel"
stared him in the face. In a moment he was out of the stage; he wrote
a little note, asked the clerk to send it to Mr. Davis, and within five
minutes was talking to the Confederate President and telling of his
remarkable evening.
Mr. Davis was keenly interested in the coincidence and in the boy
before him. He asked about the famous collection, and promised to
secure for Edward a letter written by each member of the Confederate
Cabinet. This he subsequently did. Edward remained with Mr. Davis
until ten o'clock, and that evening brought about an interchange of
letters between the Brooklyn boy and Mr. Davis at Beauvoir,
Mississippi, that lasted until the latter passed away.
Edward was fast absorbing a tremendous quantity of biographical
information about the most famous men and women of his time, and he was
compiling a collection of autograph letters that the newspapers had
made famous throughout the country. He was ruminating over his
possessions one day, and wondering to what practical use he could put
his collection; for while it was proving educative to a wonderful
degree, it was, after all, a hobby, and a hobby means expense. His
autograph quest cost him stationery, postage, car-fare--all outgo. But
it had brought him no income, save a rich mental revenue. And the boy
and his family needed money. He did not know, then, the value of a
background.
He was thinking along this line in a restaurant when a man sitting next
to him opened a box of cigarettes, and taking a picture out of it threw
it on the floor. Edward picked it up, thinking it might be a
"prospect" for his collection of autograph letters. It was the picture
of a well-known actress. He then recalled an advertisement announcing
that this particular brand of cigarettes contained, in each package, a
lithographed portrait of some famous actor or actress, and that if the
purchaser would collect these he would, in the end, have a valuable
album of the greatest actors and actresses of the day. Edward turned
the picture over, only to find a blank reverse side. "All very well,"
he thought, "but what does a purchaser have, after all, in the end, but
a lot of pictures? Why don't they use the back of each picture, and
tell what each did: a little biography? Then it would be worth
keeping." With his passion for self-education, the idea appealed very
strongly to him; and believing firmly that there were others possessed
of the same thirst, he set out the next day, in his luncheon hour, to
find out who made the picture.
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