General Grant's House
The spacious and well-appointed brown-stone house of General
Grant, at No. 3 East Sixty-sixty Street, near the Central Park, is
furnished in a style that speaks of comfort rather than of ostentation.
There has been no lavish outlay of money to produce mere effects, and the
professional decorator who should enter it would find little to awaken his
surprise or envy. Nor, on the other hand, would he be inclined to
criticize keenly his surroundings, for the evidence of extreme good taste
on every hand would confront him with its charm. General Grant seems to
have said to himself: "I will found a home in the metropolis, and it shall
be such a home as suits me. Many of my friends, to be sure, would put
themselves in the midst of a much more costly and luxurious environment.
But this is not my taste; and surely it is my taste, rather than the taste
of other people, that I should consult in furnishing my own house."
Accordingly, the visitor will see at No. 3 East Sixty-sixth no
super-elegance, nor incomprehensible theatricalism in the frescoes of the
walls, in the hangings of the rooms, in the furniture, or in the pictures,
but everywhere the tokens of a refined and unobtrusive appreciation of
artistic beauty.
The curtains in the bay-window of the parlor are
beautiful specimens of
Japanese embroidery of gold on a pale-yellow silk, and the chairs and sofa
are covered with similar stuff. The walls are painted simply in neutral
tints; and Mrs. Grant purchased in India the fine rug that adorns the
floor. A handsomely-embroidered screen, with representations of a cock and
a hen, sharply, correctly, and most spiritedly done, was a present from
the citizens of Tokio. Two teak-wood cabinets, intricately carved in
delicate scroll-work, came from Japan also, as did a number of large
pieces of porcelain, the general having staid longer in that country than
in any other during his recent voyage around the world, and the Japanese,
from Mikado to artisan, having shown deep esteem and affection for the
great American soldier. A pair of large silver vases; a superb
saddle, ornamented with lacquer and gold; and a lacquer cabinet, in
which the various designs, colors, and materials, display a
marvelous harmony, are gifts from the Mikado himself, and very
striking specimens of Japanese art in its characteristic
interpretation of the domestic and national life. On a small table
stands an extremely beautiful little cabinet of silver
filigree-work, representing a temple, presented by the Maharajah of
Decca. This delightful souvenir is altogether unique, and never
fairs to attract and detain the eye of the general's guest. Perhaps
nothing like it has ever been displayed in a private house in this
country. during a visit to another Oriental of a large collection
of elephants' tusks grouped around a center table. On bidding
him farewell, his host picked up a pair of those curiosities, and
begged the general to accept them in token of his perpetual amity.
The supplication met with a favorable response, and the two immense
tusks are now among the ornaments of General Grant's parlor.
This room contains, also, three oil-paintings of peculiar interest. The
first is the original "Sheridan Twenty Miles away," by T. Buchanan Read,
in which the hero of Winchester appears mounted on his foaming and
dust-producing charger, en route for the battlefield. Holding his sword
high in the air, he spurs his steed to the utmost, forgetful of self and
of the past, concerned only with the disaster twenty miles away, which his
presence alone can repair. General Grant is said to value this picture
very highly, and several times to have refused to give it to his friend
Sheridan, who had asked for it. The next work is Page's full-length,
life-size portrait of General Winfield Scott, which hangs on the left as
you enter the apartment from the hall, not far from the front bay-window,
and was presented by the late Marshall O. Roberts. It is considered an
excellent likeness, and the treatment by which the artist has enveloped
his subject in a faint mist, somewhat like that of which Mr. George Fuller
is so fond, allows the head to make its appeal with undiminished force.
The portrait is free, simple, and noble in bearing, without posing or
other affectation, admirable in drawing and modeling, and full of a
certain distinguished air that seems to designate a characteristic
national figure. It is sad to think that illness and the infirmities of
age have staid in the hand of William Page from again producing such a
work. The artist's best paintings are undoubtedly his portraaits, and
among them the "Winfield Scott" must be assigned a very high place,
although (as often in the case of Leonardo da Vinci) his use of novel
technical means and materials does not guarantee the absolute
indestructivility of some of the choice creations of his genius. The third
picture is a large family group, painted by W. Cogswell about fifteen
years ago. Mrs. Grant sits in the center; at her left stands the general
in full uniform; while four children are easily disposed at her right, one
of them mounted on a pony. The expressions of the several faces are
amiable and spirited.
The notable feature of General Grant's library,
in the rear of the drawing
room, is a large cabinet of antique oak, whose shelves are laden with
various choice and more or less costly gifts presented to the general
during and since the late war for the Union. No piece of furniture in the
United States of American contains a display of curiosities at once so
flattering to the owner and so rich in historic interest. Among six or
eight gold-headed canes, the most interesting is one given by the ladies
of Baltimore, and formerly owned by the Marquis de Lafayette, with whose
name, as well as with General Grant's, it is inscribed, bearing also the
further inscription: "Presented to General U. S. Grant by the Ladies of
Baltimore. Fortibus honor." It is unnecessary to state that the
general has always cherished this interesting gift with special affection.
By its side lies the handle of another cane, which was broken off some
years ago at Washington, during a struggle with a lunatic. The general's
use of that instrument as a weapon was exceedingly dexterous and resulted
in the speedy discomfiture of his assailant.
In this cabinet are to be seen seeral small, oblong caskets, containing
the freedom of the principal cities of England, Ireland, and Scotland,
formally presented to General Grant during his late visit to those
countries. The handsomest, most costly, and most elaborate, is the gold
one offerd by the corporation of the city of London. At one end is a
figure of Liberty, with the United States coat-of-arms; at the other, the
figure of Britannia, similarly treated. Very clever repousse work
represents St. James's Palace on one side, and the Capitol at Washington
on the other, accompanied by the legends "Domine, dirige nos," and
"E pluribus unum." This casket will be a vluable heirloom for the
Grant children and grandchildren. The freedom of the city of Dublin was
presented in a small box of bog-wood, set with emeralds, amethysts, and
other precious stones, bound with gold, and mounted on wheels. On the
inside of the wooden box containing the freedom of Stratgord-on-Avon, an
inscription informs the spectator that the trophy was "made with
mulberry-wood from the tree planted by Shakespeare at New Place,
Stratford-on-Avon." A silver casket, with much repousse decoration,
is engraved with the announcement, "The City of Edinburgh to General
Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1877." A silver repousse casket, gilded,
contains the freedom of the city of Glasgow. "We have had our box gilded
just for a little change," said the chairman of the committee of
arrangements to General Grant. All these caskets are small, the largest of
them not exceeding eight inches in length, four inches in width, and six
inches in height, and contain parchment scrolls, carefully engrossed, in
which the freedom of the several cities is regularly and conventionally
bestowed. At Stratford-on-Avon Mrs. Grant received a beautiful album,
filled with photographs of interesting scenery. The "Royal Burgh of Ayr,"
not to be outdone by the cities, contributed a casket also.
This oaken cabinet contains, besides, the sword presented to General
Grant by his staff-officers after the battle of Shiloh; the Sword
presented by subscribers assembled at the Sanitary Fair in New York City
during the war for the Union; the sword presented by the general's friends
in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, with a circle of diamonds around the end
of the golden scabbard, the body decorated with Moorish designs
alternating with the names of battles in which the general was victorious.
It is a beautiful object. The gold medal voted in Congress "by a grateful
country," after the opening of the Mississippi through the capture of Port
Hudson and Vicksburg, is preserved in a golden casket, whose top is a
group of cannon covered by flags, surmounted by the American eagle. A
small, plain table of gold is a miniature facsimile of the table on which
General Lee signed the articles of capitulation in the presence of General
Grant.
The lower shelf presents a varied and inviting array of meerschaum pipes
and cigar-holders, in the midst of which repose a gold-enameled cigar-case
and tobacco-bowl, presented by the King of Siam. Seven or eight honorary
medals, attached to ribbons, and intended to be worn as decorations on the
breast, are conspicuous attractions.
A marble bust of General Grant, presented by the workmen of a
well-known marble-cutting establishment, stands on a pedestal in the front
room; and in the library hangs a medallion representing, cheek to cheek,
the heads of Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. The dining room is simply and
quite charmingly furnished in white-oak, with the general's monogram
stamped on the backs of the chairs. The visitor goes away from the house
with the impression that, many and valuable as are the testimonials in it
to the general's worth, they are not nearly so many nor so valuable as
might justly have been expected, or as certainly would have been found at
the residence of a successful foreign soldier, the Duke of Wellington, for
instance. And if Grant's house is interesting, nevertheless, chiefly
because of the tributes it contains, it is in a profounder sense
interesting because of the comparative fewness and unobtrusiveness of
them.
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