rs his
inspiring words could be heard upon the floor of the Senate in all of
the leading debates of the day, and his masterly orations will go down
to posterity as an important contribution to the history of many
national administrations.

I well remember Preston S. Brooks's cowardly assault upon Charles Sumner
in the Senate Chamber in the spring of 1856. Public indignation ran very
high, and his political opponents referred to him thereafter as "Bully
Brooks." Socially, as well as politically, he was popular. He possessed
a gentle and pleasing bearing and it would have been difficult for
anyone to associate him with such a cruel outrage. His uncle, Andrew P.
Butler, who was in the U.S. Senate from South Carolina at the same time,
was a fine-looking and venerable gentleman, but he was one of the class
then designated as "fire-eaters."

There existed between Mr. Sumner and Henry W. Longfellow a strong
friendship which was contracted in early life. I have often heard the
Massachusetts statesman recite some of his friend's poetical lines,
which seemed to me additionally beautiful when rendered in his deep and
sonorous voice. In the latter years of his life he resided in the house
which is now the Arlington Hotel Annex, where he surrounded himself with
his remarkable collection of books and articles of _virtu_ which he
exhibited with pride to his guests. I especially recall an old clock
presented to him by Henry Sanford, Minister to Belgium, as an artistic
work of exceptional beauty. Mr. Sumner, by the way, was an accomplished
connoisseur in art. I have heard him strongly denounce Clark Mills's
equestrian statue of General Andrew Jackson, now standing in the center
of Lafayette Square. He told me that on one occasion he was conducting a
party of Englishmen through the streets of the National Capital and, as
they were driving along Pennsylvania Avenue, he seated himself in such a
position as to entirely obstruct the view of what he called this
"grotesque statue," calling the attention of his guests, meanwhile, to
the White House on the other side of the street.

I felt honored in calling Charles Sumner my friend, and I take especial
pleasure in repeating the encomium that "to the wisdom of the statesman
and the learning of the scholar he joined the consecration of a patriot,
the honor of a knight and the sincerity of a Christian." George Sumner,
his brother, did not appear in the land of his birth as a celebrity, but
he h