DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68288#0158
CHAPTER VIII
MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
Those years in Washington, after I had grown up, were
happy enough at the time, and happy enough as I look
back upon them, but they were certainly not a period dur-
ing which I either achieved greatness or had greatness
thrust upon me; a perfectly commonplace existence with
only glimpses now and then of the great events or the great
people who make it in any way worth recording; fleeting
glimpses of celebrities, of Presidents, and of official life,
which appealed to me for the moment, but which, with the
heedlessness of youth, I promptly forgot: Frances Hodg-
son Burnett, Mrs. Kate Chase Sprague, George Kennan,
Mrs. Cleveland, Peary.
My brothers were growing to manhood, scattering to
the four corners of the earth, and Washington had lost
some of its Southern character, save for the darkies, of
course. As long as I lived there, my life was intimately and
humorously associated with the darkies — old Uncle
Harris, old Uncle Lloyd, Aunt Sarah, and so on.
My cousin Dan, before he settled permanently in
Concord and Boston, as he did later, spent the first two
winters after his return from abroad in Washington, where
his father had already found him a studio. He lived with
his family in the old house of the beautiful aunt — for the
dear Major of my early days had long ago passed on —and
it was there that I became acquainted with him, though I
saw him but little, being still in the seclusion of my con-
MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
Those years in Washington, after I had grown up, were
happy enough at the time, and happy enough as I look
back upon them, but they were certainly not a period dur-
ing which I either achieved greatness or had greatness
thrust upon me; a perfectly commonplace existence with
only glimpses now and then of the great events or the great
people who make it in any way worth recording; fleeting
glimpses of celebrities, of Presidents, and of official life,
which appealed to me for the moment, but which, with the
heedlessness of youth, I promptly forgot: Frances Hodg-
son Burnett, Mrs. Kate Chase Sprague, George Kennan,
Mrs. Cleveland, Peary.
My brothers were growing to manhood, scattering to
the four corners of the earth, and Washington had lost
some of its Southern character, save for the darkies, of
course. As long as I lived there, my life was intimately and
humorously associated with the darkies — old Uncle
Harris, old Uncle Lloyd, Aunt Sarah, and so on.
My cousin Dan, before he settled permanently in
Concord and Boston, as he did later, spent the first two
winters after his return from abroad in Washington, where
his father had already found him a studio. He lived with
his family in the old house of the beautiful aunt — for the
dear Major of my early days had long ago passed on —and
it was there that I became acquainted with him, though I
saw him but little, being still in the seclusion of my con-