Mr. Cleveland, a Personal Impression

This book was published in 1909. A Personal Impression So much has been written about Gro- ver Cleveland, whom the world ad- mired, and so little about Mr. Cleve- land, whom his friends loved, that it is right, now that this great figure has passed into history, to tell of that side of his life and personality revealed to those who had the privilege of know- ing this man as a private citizen and a good neighbor, rather than as a pub- lic personage and a great statesman. For except that he was given to shooting ducks and passed his mellow latter years in serene, academic seclu- sion, there is less known about the hu- man side of this President than of any public character our country has pro- duced. While he was with us those who knew him kept silent, out of regard for his own habitual reserve. Now that he is gone, however, they should speak, out of equally sincere regard for his memory. For the public forms its opinions of the private side of public characters whether the latter like it or not. It is the penalty of fame. And those who like it least and try hardest to retain the simple luxury of privacy are the ones to suffer most. The lies about Mr. Cleveland's sin- gularly beautiftil home life — such pre- posterous lies that they would seem amusing to those who knew, if they had not been so painful to those whom they concerned — are no longer be- lieved, I suppose, by any one. But the effect of this upon a man by nature extremely reserved, yet possessed of delicacy of feeling which few people understood, was to increase a strange physical shyness, of which the world never suspected this great rugged fig- ure. It resulted in an abnormal shrink- ing from public gaze, which was some- times misconstrued, but which per- sisted all through his life and was felt even in the last rites in death. His funeral, more private than that of many an ordinary citizen, was so dramatically simple, indeed, that the representa- tives of foreign Powers present could hardly conceal their surprise, and the representatives of the press could not understand why they were excluded from the obsequies of the nation's ex- President. The quality which impressed one most on becoming acquainted with Mr. Cleveland was not his greatness — one had anticipated that; but his genial kindliness and his quiet, pervasive hu- mor. He even had charm. These char- acteristics I, for one, had not anticipated at all. I had pictured him, as many per- haps still see him, a gruff, old warrior, resting after his battles, brooding over the past; silent, except when stirred occasionally to pronouncing a poly- syllabic profundity ; august, austere, a personage difficult to know and im- possible to love. I expected to admire him, but it never occurred to me that one might like him; still less that he might care to be liked by those among whom he had cast his lot. I