llan's Peninsular campaign he called at the
White House one morning, and while waiting to see the President, Senator
Wilson of Massachusetts entered the chamber, having with him four
distinguished-looking Englishmen. The President, says Mr. Kelly, "had
evidently had an early appointment, and had not completed his toilet. He
was in slippers, and his pantaloons, when he crossed one knee over the
other, disclosed the fact that he wore heavy blue woollen stockings. It
was an agreeable surprise to learn that the chief of the visiting party
was Professor Goldwin Smith of Canada, one of the firmest of our British
friends. As the President rose to greet them, he was the very
impersonation of easy dignity, notwithstanding the negligence of his
costume. With a tact that never deserted him, he opened the conversation
with an inquiry as to the health of his friend John Bright, whom he said
he regarded as a friend of our country and of freedom everywhere. The
visitors having been seated, the magnitude of recent battles was
referred to by Professor Smith as preliminary to the question whether
the enormous losses which were so frequently occurring would not so
reduce the industrial resources of the North as to affect seriously the
prosperity of individual citizens and consequently the revenue of the
country. He justified the question by proceeding to recite the number of
killed, wounded, and missing, reported after some of the great battles
recently fought. There were two of Mr. Lincoln's official friends who
lived in dread of his little stories. Neither of them was gifted with
humor, and both could understand his propositions, which were always
distinct and clean cut, without such familiar illustrations as those in
which he so often indulged; and they were chagrined whenever they were
compelled to hear him resort to his stories in the presence of
distinguished strangers. They were Senator Wilson of Massachusetts and
Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War; and, as Professor Smith closed his
arithmetical statement, the time came for the Massachusetts Senator to
bite his lips, for the President, crossing his legs in such a manner as
to show that his blue stockings were long as well as thick, said that,
in settling such matters as that, we must resort to 'darkey arithmetic.'
'To darkey arithmetic!' exclaimed the dignified representative of the
learning and higher thought of Great Britain and her American Dominion.
'I did not know, Mr. President, th