Senator Wade has left the chair and Chief Justice Chase immediately succeeds him. For an instant let us survey this cold, haughty, handsome face. Not for a moment could one imagine fire coursing along his veins. His lips move, but only inarticulate sound reaches the gallery. The New York _Independent_ must be mistaken when it says “he has become the friend of Andrew Johnson, the idol of the young Democracy.” Ambition may consume him with its unquenchable fire, but with the corpse of William H. Seward before his eyes he will never commit suicide. The Senate chamber is as quiet as a vaulted tomb. The orator of the day arises, and thousands of eyes are brought to a sudden focus. Benjamin F. Butler has the floor. History has associated the name of Burke with Warren Hastings; and inseparably linked must be the names of Butler and Andrew Johnson. Mr. Butler is not an orator. He did not attempt to impress a jury. He simply read a great speech to the whole country, expecting the people to read it after him, and weigh its arguments discriminately; to note the strong points, and feel that Benjamin F. Butler had proved himself equal to the task imposed upon him as a trusted servant of the American people. In making up the gifts for this rare son, it must be said that Old Mother Nature denied him beauty; but he had managed to outwit the fickle old dame and come out even with her at last, for amongst the few beautiful women in the gallery Blanche Butler, the petite daughter, was fairest amongst the fair. “What a strong resemblance between the two!” you say. The crooked eyes are straightened, a little added to their size, and the same fire is flung into them both. In one case you have a pair of Oriental almonds, seen nowhere outside of Correggio’s Madonnas. In the other, you have eyes belonging to Benjamin Butler. The description ends. There is nothing on earth out of which to manufacture comparison.
In the exclusive crowd which filled the galleries, it may be said there were two grand divisions--the aristocracy and the press. The first named were elevated to their seats by their social relations; the latter by the divine right of being anointed sovereigns in the world of mind, born to their inheritance, like the Bourbons and Hapsburgs. Conspicuous amongst the limited but strictly exclusive set might be seen the delicate, _spiritual_ face of Mary Clemmer Ames, of the New York _Independent_. She writes poetry; the newspapers tell us all that. She also writes stately, solemn prose. Sometimes it is bitter and pungent, as many of our public men know. How easy and smooth the machinery of her mind must work! There are no sudden jars in the cogwheels of her brain, for her face is almost as smooth as a dimpled babe’s. She is pure womanly, from the low, handsome brow to the taper fingers, and when the time comes that woman shall stand upon the true platform of equality and justice Mary Clemmer Ames, with all the rest of the same sisterhood, will be remembered as the noble pioneers whose united efforts alone achieved the great work.