Aaron Burr's gift

Mr Burr was vice president,  and there has never been such a president of the Senate since his day.  He presided with dignity yet with firm, urbane politeness.  The force of his manner was illustrated in this little man, for independent of his known gallantry with the ladies, he kept them [the senators] under the most perfect and judicious control during the daily sessions at which they attend, and the little hammer in his graceful little hand would startle them into silence at the instant application...

On the the third of March Mr Burr took his leave of the Senate in a most elegant and even pathetic address, delivered in the most graceful and touching manner; and Mr Adams, who has never liked him, came home quite affected by his manner, appearance, and sentiment...

I was formally introduced to the vice president.  He was a small man, quite handsome, his manners strikingly prepossessing, and in spite of myself I was pleased with him.  He appeared to fascinate everyone on the boat, down to the lowest sailor, and knew everybody's history by the time we left.  He was politiely attentive to me, devoted to my sister.  At table he assisted me to help the children, with so much ease and good nature that I was perfectly confounded.  At about midnight we landed, and it was diverting to see Mr Burr with my youngest child in his arms, a bundle in his hand, and I leaning on his other arm to walk from the wharf; yet it was done with so little parade, and with such entire good breeding, that it made one forget he was doing anything out of the way.  He talked and laughed so that we were quite intimate by the time we got to Philadelphia where he called to see us.  And this was the first and last occasion which I ever met the celebrated man.

---from the diaries of Louisa Johnson Adams, wife of the senator from Massachusetts at the time, John Quincy Adams, quoted in Henry Adams and the Making of America by Garry Wills.

Comments

[daveminnj]

have you read gore vidal's "Burr", lance?

[Matt]

I hear that those in charge of the water-torture devices at Abu Ghraib spoke of Cheney in similar tones of reverence and respect.

[NeddieJingo]

Dang. That's what I get for not checkin' with the MannionMeister.... I'm quoting reviews of Henry Adams and the Making of America at The Street, while you're reading the actual-factual book. I'm such a fraud.

[Lance]

dave,

I have read Burr. It's one of my favorite novels, although I don't like any of the other books in Vidal's series.

Ned, not to be too smug about it, but I'm also trying to read Adams' History right along with Wills' book.

Operative word there is trying.

Matt, I don't know about that. Cheney's own wife doesn't seem to like him. At least, she's made him the villain in several of her novels. Burr was genuinely likeable, apparently. Didn't stop Jefferson from hating him though.