Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/45

23 favored coast which outlined Marshfield, touching my youthful cheeks with its caressing fingers.

Mr. Webster's dinners in Washington, in Louisburg Square, were well ordered and well served — more elaborate than those of Marshfield. A good ochra soup; a fish, fresh and admirably gotten up; a turkey, roasted and basted as only Monica could do it; oysters, scalloped, fried, or broiled; sometimes terrapin, and often ducks, are the dishes I remember. He had a way of talking about each dish, and I remember his commenting on a salt-codfish salad, as a "dish 'fit' to eat." Then he went into a long discourse as to the meaning of the word "fit" — he knew his English very well. He laughed at the criticisms on his having said, "The nomination of Taylor was one not 'fit' to be made."

As I remembered him at Marshfield, Mr. Webster's conversation was like a great organ playing, and his smile was grandly beautiful. I had listened with an affectionate reverence akin to awe, and when I left he gave me a Drummond's Botany, with his valuable autograph:

"To Miss Mary Elizabeth Wilson:

"Taken from his own library at Marshfield for her, and offered by her friend,

It is unnecessary to say that I have that book still.

Thus my visit to Washington was to me chiefly valuable that I might see Mr. Webster again.

And at a Presidential levee I had that honor. He came in in full evening dress, very carefully groomed, his black hair brushed back from that extraordinary forehead; he was the observed of all observers. When my turn came and my father mentioned modestly, "Here is my little girl," he took my hand in both of