wishes to say that your coming is a pleasure to all the family at
Ashland, the library is yours as well as the whole place, lunch is at one
o'clock, and George will get you anything you wish. And back in the shadow
of the hallway you catch sight of the old colored man and see him bow low
when his name is mentioned.

Ashland is probably in better condition today than when Henry Clay worked
and planned, and superintended its fair acres. The place has seen
vicissitudes since the body of the man who gave it immortality lay in
state here in July, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two. But Major McDowell's wife
is the granddaughter of Henry Clay, and it seems meet that the descendants
of the great man should possess Ashland. Major McDowell has means and
taste and the fine pride that would preserve all the traditions of the
former master. The six hundred acres are in a high state of cultivation,
and the cattle and horses are of the kinds that would have gladdened the
heart of Clay.

In the library, halls and dining-room are various portraits of the great
man, and at the turn of the stairs is a fine heroic bust, in bronze, of
that lean face and form. Hundreds of his books are to be seen on the
shelves, all marked and dog-eared and scribbled on, thus disproving much
of that old cry that "Clay was not a student." Some men are students only
in youth, but Clay's best reading was done when he was past fifty. The
book habit grew upon him with the years.

Here are his pistols, spurs, saddle and memorandum-books. Here are
letters, faded and yellow, dusted with black powder on ink that has been
dry a hundred years, asking for office, or words of gracious thanks in
token of benefits not forgot.

Off to the south stretches away a great forest of walnut, oak and chestnut
trees--reminders of the vast forest that Daniel Boone knew. Many of these
trees were here then, and here let them remain, said Henry Clay. And so
today at Ashland, as at Hawarden, no tree is felled until it has been duly
tried by the entire family and all has been said for and against the
sentence of death. I heard Miss McDowell make an eloquent plea for an old
oak that had been rather recklessly harboring mistletoe and many
squirrels, until it was thought probable that, like our first parents, it
might have a fall. It was a plea more eloquent than "O Woodman, spare that
tree." A reprieve for a year was granted; and I thought, as I cast my vote
on the side of mercy, that the jury