W. was not very
likely to consult me in his choice of nominations--and in fact the small
appointments, secretaries, were generally prepared in the Chancellerie
and followed the usual routine of regular promotion. An ambassador, of
course, was different, and was sometimes taken quite outside the
carriere. The lady persisted and appeared one morning--a pretty,
well-dressed femme du monde whom I had often met without making her
acquaintance. She plunged at once into her subject--her brother's
delicate health, accustomed to all the comforts and what the books call
"higher civilisation" of Europe, able to do good service in courts and
society, as he knew everybody. It was a pity to send him to such an
out-of-the-way place, with an awful climate,--any consul's clerk would
do as well. I supposed he had been named to Caracas, South America, or
some other remote and unhealthy part of the globe, but when she stopped
for a moment, I discovered that the young man was named to Washington. I
was really surprised, didn't know what to say at once, when the
absurdity of the thing struck me and I answered that Washington was far,
perhaps across the ocean, but there were compensations--but she took up
her argument again, such an impossible place, everything so primitive, I
really think she thought the youth was going to an Indian settlement,
all squaws and wigwams and tomahawks.
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