A few words about Mr. Daniel Webster.  I remember going to Marshfield with my mother, his niece, and sitting on his knee while he looked over his large morning mail, throwing the greater part into the waste basket.  Also in the dining-room I can still recall the delicious meals prepared by an old-time Southern mammy, who wore her red and yellow turban regally.  The capital jokes by his son Fletcher and guests sometimes caused the dignified and impressive butler to rapidly dart behind the large screen to laugh, then soon back to duty, imperturbable as before.

The large library occupied one ell of the house, with its high ceiling running in points to a finish.  There hung the strong portraits of Lord Ashburton and Mr. Webster.  At the top of his own picture at the right hung his large grey slouch hat, so well known.  In the next room the silhouette of his mother, and underneath it his words, “My excellent mother.”  Also a portrait of Grace Fletcher, his first wife, and of his son Edward in uniform.  Edward was killed in the Mexican War.

There is a general impression that Mr. Webster was a heavy drinker and often under the influence of liquor when he rose to speak; as usual there are two sides to this question.  George Ticknor of Boston told my father that he had been with Webster on many public occasions, and never saw him overcome but once.  That was at the Revere House in Boston, where he was expected to speak after dinner.  “I sat next to him,” said Ticknor; “suddenly he put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, ‘Come out and run around the common.’” This they did and the speech was a success.  There is a wooden statue of Daniel Webster that has stood for forty years in Hingham, Massachusetts.  It is larger than life and called a good portrait.  It was made more than sixty years ago as a figurehead for the ship Daniel Webster but never put on.  That would have been appropriate if he was occasionally half seas over.  Daniel’s devotion to his only brother “Zeke” is pleasant to remember.  By the way, there are many men who pay every debt promptly and never take a drop too much, who would be proud to have a record for something accomplished that is as worth while as his record.  When Daniel Webster entered Dartmouth College as a freshman directly from his father’s farm, he was a raw specimen, awkward, thin, and so dark that some mistook him for a new Indian recruit.  He was then called “Black Dan.”  His father’s second wife and the mother of Zeke and Dan had decidedly a generous infusion of Indian blood.  A gentleman at Hanover who remembered Webster there said his large, dark, resplendent eyes looked like coach lanterns on a dark night.

Mrs. Ezekiel Webster told me that her husband asked her after their marriage to allow his mother to come home to them at Boscawen, New Hampshire.  She said she was a strikingly fine-looking woman with those same marvellous eyes, long straight black hair, high cheekbones; a tall person with strong individuality.  Mrs. Webster was sure where the swarthy infusion came from.  This mother, who had been a hard worker and faithful wife, now delighted in sitting by the open fire evenings and smoking an old pipe she had brought with her.