Laus Deo, this day is over, and the services at Trinity Church were marked by no gross indecency.
It was a cold, gray, bleak morning. The afternoon and tonight wet and stormy. Called for Cisco at nine-thirty and went with him to the Fifth Avenue Hotel as committee to show our august friends the way to church. Shown to their parlor. Lord Lyons and others of the suite came in, and then the Prince of Wales, looking boyish, feminine, and modest, but remarkably courteous and self-possessed. He stopped the Earl of St. Germans, who was introducing me, and said, "O, I met Mr. Strong at the ball Friday night.” He is, no doubt, under orders to be studiously polite and make a good impression, and has had the printed list of the Reception Committee before him, on which my distinguished name appears. We talked a little for ten minutes or so about the weather, and the voyage to West Point tomorrow, and the scenery of the Hudson, and our fall foliage. The Duke of Newcastle came in. He looks like a duke of the tenth century, a vigorous hirsute Dux rather than a starred and gartered duke of these days. The Prince said, “It’s ten o’clock, and it won’t do to be late at church.” So we marched downstairs and entered our barouches, the police keeping back the crowd that filled Twenty-third Street. Cisco wanted me to take a seat in the Prince’s carriage, as senior in the vestry, but as he evidently coveted that distinction, I declined it, and drove down in Carriage No. 2, with St. Germans, General Bruce, and Major Teesdale. My anticipations were dreary, but I found myself at once on terms of pleasant acquaintance, I could not tell how, with these well-bred, easy-mannered aristocrats. Major Teesdale looks like one of Leech’s “heavy swells” in Punch, and is taciturn. The other two were very agreeable persons. They asked many questions about matters and things—the American church, the endowment of Trinity Church, education, public and private, and answered queries of mine about the universities and the relations of the colleges to them. They were, of course, polite enough to commend everything they had seen here, or at least to make no criticism on their reception; and they spoke so warmly and earnestly that I think they felt what they said. Unless they are uncommonly good actors, I am sure they are gratified by our ovation. Noticed particularly General Bruce’s manner and expression when I said something about the unanimity and the depth of the popular feeling. Nothing could have been more cordial and genuine and kind.
We reached Trinity Church and found a great crowd at the gates, kept back by Superintendent Kennedy’s myrmidons. Dunscomb and Hyslop received the visitors. I think Dunscomb had prepared a speech. He bowed and hummed and choked, more solito, and Lord Lyons observed sotto voce, “I suppose we may as well move on.” So we went up the middle aisle and were spared the infliction. The church (all but the middle aisle) was packed. I saw no indecorum. H.R.H. and suite took the front pews on the south side of the middle aisle; the vestry sat on the north side. I had secured a good place for Ellie and for Mr. Ruggles and Mrs. Governor Hunt and others on the north side of the south aisle just behind the Royal pew. . . .
As soon as [the services] were over, H.R.H. got up, looked warily down the aisle to see whether the coast was clear, and then pegged out of church as fast as his legs would carry him, instead of staying, as I thought he would, a few minutes after service. He showed much practical sense thereby. We followed and reentered the carriages as before. The crowd was very dense and occupied the whole street as far as the park. With a score of mounted police to help, it was not easy to get through. It was a vociferous crowd and cheered vehemently. . . . There were lines of people waiting all along Broadway to Fourteenth Street, two or three deep, and all cheering, the better class of men raising their hats as the Prince passed by.
We left the party at Archibald’s (the Consul’s in Fourteenth Street) where they were to lunch or dine, and I took leave of my three and of Dr. Acland and Mr. Englehart very pleasantly, and walked home with Cisco.
So that matter is over. My judgment of the future King of England, from the little I’ve seen of him, is that he is not remarkably bright or forward for his years, and that he has been carefully trained to remember the duty of courtesy to all classes. Everyone has some little instance to tell of his good-breeding, under difficulties at the ball, when he must have been sorely tried by the well-meant gaucheries of a few and the unpardonable flunkeyism of others. Today, when he got out of his carriage and bade Cisco goodbye, he added a request to bid Mr. Strong goodbye and thank him for his attention in accompanying me, or some such thing. Many young Americans of eighteen would have forgotten this little civil formality. . . .
His visit has occasioned a week of excitement beyond that of any event in my time, and pervading all classes. Its permanent effect, if any, will be good here and in England. The unanimity of the feeling is wonderful, when one thinks of twenty years ago. The protest of certain militia companies of Irishmen against parading to do honor to a Saxon and an oppressor of Ireland is the single exception. I’ve not heard a single growl or sneer about the fuss we have been making over this young man, who is no better than anybody else, after all, or anything tending that way even remotely.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 49-51
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