The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [28]
Here, one glistening January day, “suddenly there came a stir—an unexpected excitement seemed everywhere.” Gorgeously robed sampetrini approached, carrying an august Personage in a sedan-chair. Teedie, conscious of his Dutch Reformed heritage, hissed frantically that “he didn’t believe in popes—that no real American would.” As Corinne later recalled:
The Pope … his benign face framed in white hair and the close cap which he wore, caught sight of the group of eager little children craning their necks to see him pass; and he smiled and put out one fragile, delicate hand toward us, and, lo! the late scoffer who, in spite of the ardent Americanism that burned in his eleven-year-old soul, had as much reverence as militant patriotism in his nature, fell upon his knees and kissed the delicate hand, which for a brief moment was laid upon his fair curly hair.78
Teedie, recording the incident in his diary that night, was much less sentimental. “We saw the Pope and we walked along and he extended his hand to me and I kissed it!! hem!! hem!!”
The rest of his stay in Rome was happy, educational, and comparatively free from illness. So were two subsequent weeks spent touring the galleries of Florence, Bologna, and Turin. Teedie revealed a precocious sensitivity to art, commenting in his diary on as many as fifty-seven items in a single day.79 He was particularly moved by “the most beautiful of all beautiful pictures St. Cecelia listingning to the heavenly music.”
On 10 March 1870, Theodore Senior took his family back to Paris for seven more weeks of sight-seeing. Damp and snowy weather aggravated Teedie’s asthma, necessitating quick excursions out of town to Fontainebleau. As spring came in, the air warmed and sweetened, and he enjoyed “the happiest Easter I ever spent.” At the end of April, Bamie, who was to stay in France for a year of finishing school, bade everybody a tearful good-bye.80
Recrossing the Channel for a final fortnight in England, the Roosevelts embarked from Liverpool on 14 May in a calm shower of rain. As they drew near to America, a joyous escort of whales sprayed Teedie with water. Sandy Hook drifted into view; the spires of Manhattan grew tall against the sky, dipped, swayed, and came to rest. “New York!!! Hip! Hurrah! What a bustle we had geting off.”
CHAPTER 2
The Mind, But Not the Body
Then, with a smile of joy defiant
On his beardless lip,
Scaled he, light and self-reliant,
Eric’s dragon-ship.
TEEDIE’S FIRST ADOLESCENT STIRRINGS, stimulated by the overwhelming impact of Europe, relapsed into dormancy in the familiar surroundings of New York City and the Hudson Valley. He was once again, through the long summer and fall of 1870, a bookish, bug-loving boy. His diary entries dwindle to single portmanteau sentences:
July 16 I hunted for birds nests and in the Afternoon went swimming and got caught in the rain.
July 17 Went to Sunday school wrote a letter and played about.
July 18 Hunted for birds nests and went over to the Harraymans for tea and had a nice time.1
He does not even bother to record the arrival, one squally September evening, of a very important guest. “Mittie,” said Theodore Senior, as the family clustered around, “I want to present to you a young man who in the future, I believe, will make his name well-known in the United States. This is Mr. John Hay, and I wish the children to shake hands with him.”2 Teedie obeyed, and for a moment looked gravely into the eyes of his future Secretary of State.
“My father was the best man I ever knew.”
Theodore Roosevelt Senior, aged about forty-five. (Illustration 2.1)
The boy’s only sign of physical development, as his twelfth birthday approached, was a rapid increase in height unaccompanied by any muscular filling out. His resemblance to a stork was accentuated by a habit of reading