The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [64]
Chestnut Hill, Feb. 3rd 1880
My Dear Mrs. Roosevelt I feel almost powerless to express my thanks and appreciation of your sweet note received this afternoon, full of such kind assurances of love and welcome, it is more than kind, and feeling so unworthy of such a noble man’s love, makes me feel that I do not deserve it all. But I do love Theodore deeply and it will be my aim both to endear myself to those so dear to him and retain his love.
How happy I am I can’t begin to tell you, it seems almost like a dream. It is such pleasure to have known all his loved ones, and not to feel that I am going amongst perfect strangers … I just long for tomorrow to see Theodore and hear all about his visit home. I was so afraid you might be disappointed when you heard what he went on for, and I assure you my heart is full of gratitude for all your kindness. With a great deal of love, believe me, Ever yours devotedly,
ALICE HATHAWAY LEE87
There remained the problem of reconciling the Lees to the premature loss of their daughter. Although that amiable couple had no objection to Alice’s early engagement, Theodore foresaw “a battle royal” in winning their consent to her early marriage. With his usual regard for the calendar, he hoped to announce the former on Valentine’s Day, and celebrate the latter on his birthday, 27 October. Even that eight-month interval would likely be too short for Mrs. Lee.88 Alice wanted to press for a fall wedding, but he wisely left the date open when negotiating with her father. Pleased at this show of responsibility, George Cabot Lee made the engagement official on 14 February 1880, and Theodore was free to dispatch a series of triumphant announcement notes to his friends. “I have been in love with her for nearly two years now; and have made everything subordinate to winning her.…”89
Now that Alice was his, Theodore’s natural exuberance, so long bottled up, burst out like champagne. His letters and diaries for the months following are awash with adoration. “My sweet, pretty, pure queen, my laughing little love … how bewitchingly pretty she is! I can not help petting her and caressing her all the time; and she is such a perfect little sunshine. I do not believe any man ever loved a woman more than I love her.”90 Although the February weather was snowy, he drove constantly to Chestnut Hill, “the horse plunging to his belly in great drifts,” impatient to be in the arms of “the purest, truest, and sweetest of all women.” When his family arrived in Boston later that month for a round of festive luncheons and dinner parties, Theodore worked himself up to such a pitch of excitement that he went for forty-four hours without sleep.91
For all his joy, there came now and again, cold as ice in his stomach, a reminder that he had very nearly failed. “The little witch led me a dance before she surrendered, I can tell you,” he confided to his cousin John, “and the last six months have been perfect agony … Even now, it makes me shudder to think of some of the nights I have passed.”92 He remained insecure about Alice long after the Lees agreed, in early March, to a fall wedding.93 “Roosevelt seemed constantly afraid,” recalled Alice’s cousin, “that someone would run off with her, and threaten duels and everything else. On one occasion he actually sent abroad for a set of French duelling pistols.”94 Planning an Easter visit to New York with Alice, he was naively anxious to impress his local friends at a dinner in her honor: “I want to include everybody, so as to rub up their memories about the existence of a man named Theodore Roosevelt, who is going to bring a pretty Boston wife back to New York next winter.”95
As the weather softened, and Alice remained faithful, Theodore learned to relax. By