to the Union men of the Border
States. What a bitter criticism on the slow, forbearing policy of the
administration. Mr. Lincoln seems to be a rather slow intellect, with
slow powers of perception. However, patience; perhaps the shock of
events will arouse and bring in action now latent, but good and
energetic qualities. As it stands now, the administration, being the
focus of activity, is tepid, if not cold and slow; the circumference,
that is, the people, the States, are full of fire and of activity.
This condition is altogether the reverse of the physiological and all
other natural laws, and this may turn out badly, as nature's laws
never can be with impunity reversed or violated.

The diplomats complain that Seward treats them with a certain
rudeness; that he never gives them time to explain and speak, but
interrupts by saying, "I know it all," etc. If he had knowledge of
things, and of the diplomatic world, he would be aware that the more
firmness he has to use, the more politeness, even fastidiousness, he
is to display.

Scott does not wish for any bold demonstration, for any offensive
movement. The reason may be, that he is too old, too crippled, to be
able to take the field in person, and too inflated by conceit to give
the glory of the active command to any other man. Wrote to Charles
Sumner in Boston to stir up some inventive Yankee to construct a
wheelbarrow in which Scott could take the field in person.

In a conversation with Seward, I called his attention to the fact that
the government is surrounded by the finest, most complicated, intense,
and well-spread web of treason that ever was spun; that almost all
that constitutes society and is in a daily, nay hourly, contact with
the various branches of the Executive, all this, with soul, mind, and
heart is devoted to the rebels. I observed to him that _si licet
exemplis in parvo grandibus uti_. Napoleon suffered more from the
bitter hostility of the _faubourg St. Germain_, than from the armies
of the enemy; and here it is still worse, as this hostility runs out
into actual, unrelenting treason. To this Mr. Seward answered with the
utmost serenity, "that before long all this will change; that when he
became governor of New York, a similar hostility prevailed between the
two sections of that State, but soon he pacified everything." What a
Merlin! what a sorcerer!

Some simple-minded persons from the interior of the State of New York
questioned Mr. Seward, i