owell Institute, on the
"Education of the Human Race," and repeated it in several places.

At the time that I was invited to Washington, I received, in February,
1851, a document from the Government, which took me so much by surprise
that I supposed it must be a mistake. It was no other than a commission
as chaplain in the Navy. I wrote to a gentleman in Washington, asking
him to make inquiry for me, and ascertain what it meant. He replied that
there was no mistake about it, and that it was intended for me. I then
concluded, as there was a Navy Yard in Washington, and as the President,
Mr.[109] Fillmore, attended the church to which I was invited, that
he intended by the appointment to help both the church and me, and I
accepted it. On going to Washington I found that there was a chaplain
already connected with the Navy Yard, and on his retirement some months
later, and my offering to perform any duties required there, being
answered that there was really nothing to be done, I resigned the
commission.

Life in Washington was not agreeable to me, and yet I felt a singular
attachment to the people there. This mixture of repulsion and attraction
I could not understand at the time, or rather,-as is usually the case
with our experience while passing,--did not try to; but walking those
streets two or three years later, when experience had become history,
I could read it. In London or Paris the presence of the government is
hardly felt; the action of public affairs is merged and lost in the life
of a great city; but in Washington it is the one, all-absorbing business
of the place. Now, whether it be pride or sympathy, one does not enjoy
a great movement of things going on around him in which he has no part,
and the thoughts and aims of a retired and studious man, especially,
sever him from the views and interests of public men. But, on the
other hand, this very pressure of an all-surrounding public life brings
private men closer together. There they stand, while the tides of
successive Administrations sweep by them, and their relation be-[110]
comes constantly more interesting from the fluctuation of everything
else. It is really curious to see how the private and resident society
of Washington breathes freer, and prepares to enjoy itself when Congress
is about to rise and leave it to itself.

Among the remarkable persons with whom I became acquainted in
Washington, at this or a-former time, was John C. Calhoun. I had with