lth of Massachusetts, I
never had but one such interview, which prolonged itself far enough to
deserve a place in these memoirs of our time. This was with a President
of the then United States,--with him who was, I fear, the Last of the
Virginians. At least, I know no one on the line of promotion just now
who seems to me likely to succeed him.

"Have ye travelled in Virginia, Mr. Larkin?" said the President to me.

I said I had not, but that I hoped to see the Valley of Virginia before
I went home. That is the name given, in those regions, to the district
west of the Blue Ridge. The President listened, but expressed himself
dissatisfied with my plan.

"Ah, Sah!" he said, "ye sh'd see Jeems River. Every American sh'd see
Jeems River. Ye'll not see the appearance of a large population,
to which ye're used in Massachusetts,--the--customs,--the
--arrangements,--the habits--of--our--laboring people--are
such--that--that--their residences--are--are--more distant--from the
highway than with you;--but--but--ye'll be greatly interested in
seeing Jeems River. We've not the cities to show that ye have in
Massachusetts,--but--there are great historical associations with Jeems
River."

I bowed assent,--and when the President spoke again with some
depreciation of their productions, I made up my mouth to say, in courtly
vein,

"Man is the nobler growth your realms supply,"

when I recollected that that remark was too literally true to be
complimentary to a State which made its chief business the growing of
men and women for a distant market. So I did what it is always wise to
do,--I said nothing. And the President, warming with his theme, said,--

"Yes, Sah, ye sh'd see Jeems River. There, at Jeemst'n, America first
gave a home to the European,--and hard by, at Yorkt'n, the tie with
Europe was sundered. There ye may see Williamsburg,--and our oldest
college. There ye may see the birthplaces of four Presidents,--and there
the capital of Virginia!"

With such, and other temptations, did he direct me on my journey.

I have been thinking how little the poor man foresaw that the time would
come when in the valley of "Jeems River" the traveller would see the
grave of the only President of the United States who ever in his old age
turned rebel to the country which had honored him. How little he foresaw
that other campaigns were impending, which would give more historical
interest to the valley than even Cornwallis's marchings an