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To Henry Adams
.
The President’s death
was all the more hideous that we were so sure of his recovery. Root
and I left Buffalo on Wednesday convinced that all was right. I
had arranged with Cortelyou that he was to send a wire the next
day telling me if the Doctors would answer for the President’s life.
He sent it, and I wrote a circular to all our Embassies saying that
recovery was assured. I thought it might stop the rain of inquiries
from all over the world. After I had written it, the black cloud
of foreboding, which is always just over my head, settled down and
enveloped me, and I dared not send it. I spoke to Adee and he confirmed
my fears. He distrusted the eighth day. So I waited—and the next
day he was dying.
I have just received your letter from
Stockholm, and shuddered at the awful clairvoyance of your last
phrase about Teddy’s luck.
Well, he is here in the saddle again.
That is, he is in Canton, [267][268]
and will have his first Cabinet meeting in the White House to-morrow.
He came down from Buffalo Monday night—and in the station, without
waiting an instant, told me I must stay with him—that I could not
decline nor even consider. I saw, of course, it was best for him
to start off that way, and so I said I would stay, forever, of course,
for it would be worse to say I would stay a while than it would
be to go out at once. I can still go at any moment he gets tired
of me, or when I collapse.
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