Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/330

Rh afraid of admitting their liberal opinions into the slave states.

Mr. Poinsett has travelled much, as well in Europe as in America, and he maintains that no scenery, not even the sublimest scenery of South America, its Andes and its river Amazon, equals Switzerland in picturesque beauty. Switzerland is the only country on the face of the earth which he desires to see again, and there he would like to spend his last days. He seems weary of statesmanship and of the life of a statesman. Even Calhoun, the great and almost idolised statesman of Carolina, is not great in Mr. Poinsett's opinion, excepting in ambition. His whole life seems to have been a warfare in the service of ambition, and his death (for he is just dead, during the sitting of Congress at Washington) the result of this warfare in his breast, owing to the political feuds in which he perpetually lived.

It is very charming to see my two old friends together in everyday life. They are heartily attached to each other. One standing quarrel they have about a horrible old straw bonnet of Mrs. Poinsett's, which looks like an ancient up-turned boat, and which Mr. Poinsett cannot bear the sight of, and which he threatens to make an end of, to burn, every time he sets eyes on it, but which she obstinately will keep, and which she defends with terror whenever he makes any hostile demonstration against it. But it is altogether a love-squabble, and as it has now lasted for ten years I suppose, it will last on to the days of their death. They have both of them a cough which they call “constitutional,” and I also cough a little now and then, as I have always done; we have now three constitutional coughs. I contemplate this good feeling between my old couple with delight, and see how true love can bloom in and beautify old age. There are attentions, pleasing little acts of forethought or compliance, which are worth many kisses, and