The New England magazine . h has been occupied at various timesby very wealthy and prominent people, in-cluding the Cornelius Vanderbilts, wholived in it one season, is the second of theDepartment of Justice houses; and thePayson house, also well known, the Palmer house is in the centre, but thebeauty of its construction, finishing, anddecoration, and its costliness, are lost sightof in its use as a public office. It was in this house that Private JohnAllen, of Mississippi, who for several yearsheld the record as the most popular wit ofthe House of Representatives, made the fa-mous r
The New England magazine . h has been occupied at various timesby very wealthy and prominent people, in-cluding the Cornelius Vanderbilts, wholived in it one season, is the second of theDepartment of Justice houses; and thePayson house, also well known, the Palmer house is in the centre, but thebeauty of its construction, finishing, anddecoration, and its costliness, are lost sightof in its use as a public office. It was in this house that Private JohnAllen, of Mississippi, who for several yearsheld the record as the most popular wit ofthe House of Representatives, made the fa-mous remark that is still quoted and laughedat in Washington clubs and Palmer, a cultivated, well-read, widelytravelled man, a genial soul, who waswont to draw about him in his palatialdining-room those whom he admired andcared for, regardless of their political statusor worldly surroundings, gave a dinner ofunusual elegance one night, at which was one of the guests. The solemn 596 NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE. Senator Simon Guggenheim, of Colorado, headof the smelter trust visaged Mississippian with a Washingtonbelle on his arm reached the door of thedining-room, when he stopped suddenly, asthough overcome, and wiped an imaginarytear from his eye. Why, Mr. Allen, anxiously asked hisfair companion, what is the matter? Areyou ill? No, Madam, no, replied Mr. Allen, ina choking voice, Im better now. But thelights, the flowers, the music, the glass, thesilver, the whole room — oh, it reminds meso of my own dear little home in Tupelo! Many public men in Washington, al-though well able to maintain pretentiousestablishments, prefer to live quietly andmodestly in a hotel or in one of the manyfine apartment-houses erected in Washing-ton in the past ten years, in order to be ridof the bothers of housekeeping and theworry of looking after servants. Indeed, iftheir wives or daughters are not socially am-bitious, or if they have none, they are, as arule, inclined to take thin
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