Nicolay and I visited to-night the Secretaries of the
Interior and of the Treasury. Usher talked about the vacancy occasioned by the
death of Caleb B. Smith. Said he understood Smith to be for him, when he was
asking it for himself. Otto is an admirable man for the place, but Usher does
not want to lose him from the Department.
We found at Chase’s a most amusing little toy, “the
Plantation Breakdown.” The Secretary and his daughter were busily engaged
exhibiting it to some grave and reverend old fellows who are here at the
meeting of the Society of Arts and Sciences. In the course of conversation the
Secretary said to me: — “It is singularly instructive to meet so often as we do
in life and in history, instances of vaulting ambition, meanness and treachery,
failing after enormous exertions; and integrity and honesty march straight in
triumph to its purpose.”
A noble sentiment, Mr. Secretary!
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 152-3; for the entire diary entry
see Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln and the Civil War in the
Diaries and Letter of John Hay, p. 152.
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