Lost Journal

MR. W. AND I -- Caroline Le Roy Websfer--lves Washburn ($2.75).

One day last year Helena Hall, a vacationing Bennington girl, found a yellowed manuscript in the family attic. The manuscript was Caroline Le Roy Webster's diary of her trip to Europe (1839) with her husband, Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, and his daughter Julia. Published for the first time, as Mr. W. and I, this long-lost journal has the stylistic simplicity of a 19th-Century My Day.

In later years Caroline Webster sometimes watered a redheaded parrot in the belief that it was a geranium. But when she reached England with the statesman she always calls "Mr. W," she was still in her prime and determined to miss nothing. England was impressed by rugged, eloquent Mr. W. Benjamin Disraeli noticed Webster's "fine brow, lofty, broad, and beetled, deepset eyes." Wrote Philosopher Carlyle to Emerson: "He is a magnificent specimen."

The Websters' junket was a series of parties. In London they dined with young Queen Victoria's uncle, the Duke of Sussex, who insisted on giving Mrs. Webster a prize strawberry "from his own plate." Said Mrs. Webster ungratefully: "A thorough radical and not very refined." The Queen gave them "a superb dinner" served on gold & silver plates. Mrs. Webster could not resist washing her hands in the ladies' room "to show that I knew the use of the scented water and napkins."

By the time the Websters reached Scotland Caroline was quite annoyed with Mr. W. A good farmer, Statesman Webster kept deserting his wife to look at British livestock. Once he left Caroline to "see some Ayrshire cows." While Mrs. W. was chiefly interested in looking at Durham Cathedral, Mr. W. concentrated on buying "one ram and three ewes." At Oxford he went to see "implements of farming." Mrs. W. looked over the colleges, avoiding Titian's paintings of The Loves of the Gods ("The subject not suited to ladies").

Mrs. W. had a better time in Paris. She shopped, saw the Chamber of Deputies ("superb . . . the French have so much taste"). Daughter Julia bought a "superb" dessert set. The W.'s dined with King Louis Philippe and the Queen ("Very superb. The King helps the soup . . . and the Queen the fish"). Then they flitted back to London where they saw a new play called Love, a Melo Drama ("The thunder storm, where her lover . . . was slightly stunned . . . was very pretty").

As the time for their departure drew near Mr. W. became inspired: "Last night at midnight his poetical feelings were aroused, and he absolutely got out of his bed and wrote four stanzas 'on the memory of the heart.' " Mrs. W. does not quote them. But by then she was completely exhausted, among other things "from rheumatism & exposure to the Duke of Wellington." She was glad to get back to the U.S.

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