Eleanor and Franklin (15 page)

The Twombly mansion, where the Roser class met when the Cutting house was not available, was next door to St. Thomas' Church at
Fifth Avenue and Fifty-third Street. The day the duke of Marlborough married Consuelo Vanderbilt in one of the most fashionable weddings in society's annals, Margaret found the occasion irresistible and slipped out during the recess to watch the wedding. “Eleanor would never have stepped out of a class to watch a wedding,” she said.

Margaret recalled her schooling in the Roser class approvingly: “Mr. Roser gave me an excellent education.” A more general verdict was that voiced by Eleanor's cousin Corinne, who was enrolled in a younger class:

I cannot understand why on earth our mothers fell for the Roser classes. They were held at all the big houses. I wish you could have seen Mr. Roser. A Prince Albert coat. Side whiskers, Not one grain of humor. Nobody in the world as pompous as he. And the things he decided to have us learn!

In the single paragraph that Eleanor Roosevelt devoted to the Roser classes in her autobiography she wrote admiringly of his assistant, Miss Tomes, but with reserve about Mr. Roser himself. He envisaged himself as a headmaster in the British public-school tradition, was learned in a literary kind of way, and expressed himself forcefully. The girls were obliged to stand when he came into the classroom, whereupon he would bow formally and indicate to the “young ladies” that they could be seated, addressing them as “Miss Roosevelt,” “Miss Cutting,” “Miss Sloane.” He had a quotation from some great man or writer, most often from Dr. Johnson, for every occasion. The textbooks—the Nelson School Series, most of them written by William Francis Collier, LL.D., D.D.—were imported from England. History was taught from Dr. Collier's
The Great Events from the Beginning of the Christian Era Till the Present Time
, the present time being 1860, when Dr. Collier had produced this particular text, whose aim was “To give in a series of pictures such a connected view of the Christian Era as may be pleasantly readable and easily remembered.” Implausible as the Nelson textbooks appear today, they were, nevertheless, not inferior to the McGuffey reader and Webster Speller that were in use in common schools all over the United States at the time. And if the Reverend Dr. Collier presented Victorian England rather than the American Republic as history's crowning triumph, the aberration would be corrected at home, since most of the Roser pupils came from families whose genealogy was in itself American history.

Mr. Roser was a pedant and rhetorician who expressed himself in a manner that he considered aphoristic.

Self control is necessary at all ages. We cannot begin too soon to acquire this virtue.

Without order in the classroom there can be no lesson given.

Whatever breaches the order of the class constitutes an act of disorder.

There is a distinction between reasonable and unreasonable merriment.

Occasionally Mr. Roser was driven to less pompous utterances. “Some girls talk too much,” he once exploded.

He courted the rich and taught precepts that the wealthy found agreeable. “What is more natural to a good person than to help the poor?” one of his homilies began, and proceeded, “and if we yield to our emotions at the sight of a poor man we shall be surprised to hear that we are not diminishing wretchedness but increasing the number of street beggars.” The notion that the poor were victims of their own failings, that no man who was sober, industrious, and prudent went hungry, was part of the Protestant ethic of individualism.

What did young, compassionate Eleanor make of such preachments? Charity, not prudence, even when it was disguised as benevolence, ruled her heart. She felt sympathy and solicitude even for what was alien and hostile. In Italy when she saw her donkey boy's bruised feet, she made him mount the animal while she trotted alongside. While she was in a stagecoach on Fifth Avenue, Eleanor saw an impoverished man try to snatch a purse from a woman sitting nearby, terrifying Eleanor so much that she jumped from the moving vehicle. But afterward she remembered, even more vividly than her fright, the face of the “poor, haunted man.”

Eleanor found two Roser subjects difficult—grammar and arithmetic—and her mastery of them was due more to her excellent memory than to her ability to reason. The hours devoted to literature, especially poetry, were more satisfactory. The girls had to recite, and medals were given for the best performance. Gwendolyn Burden did Caroline Norton's “Bingen on the Rhine,” which began “A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,” and had them all in tears. Helen Cutting recited “The Old Clock on the Stairs” with a perceptible French
accent since she had spent so much time abroad. Eleanor declaimed “The Last Leaf on the Tree,” and was awarded a medal for her performance. She loved poetry, and memorized Tennyson's “The Revenge” in one day. Impressed, Mr. Roser had her recite the whole poem. They had no work that day, Helen recalled with delight, for Eleanor took up all the time with the ballad of brave Sir Richard Grenville, “who fought such a fight for a day and a night as may never be fought again.”

It was the era of the “Delsarte System” of elocution, which assigned an appropriate flourish or pose to every mood and emotion—remorse, the hand to the head; rejection, the right hand flung out and down as if casting off a scrap of paper. Margaret Dix was a mimic and entertained her classmates with take-offs of their poetry recitations. She often portrayed Eleanor, standing stiffly erect, her face turning from left to right in approved elocutionary style, the hand outflung, the tip of her tongue in a circular movement moistening her lips. Eleanor and Margaret were not congenial.

Some of Eleanor's compositions have survived. Mr. Roser's comment was often a prim “your handwriting is not satisfactory.” Even then Eleanor's penmanship was strong, angular, and highly individual. Sometimes Mr. Roser was impressed by Eleanor's vivid imagination, and he would append a “recommended for printing” comment to the end of the exercise, meaning that in his view it was worthy of publication, although apparently there was no school magazine or paper.

One of the first of her compositions, “Gilded Butterflies,” showed her to be, as always, the moralist, but she also displayed a growing power of observation. The “butterflies” were characters suspiciously like the people around her, especially her young aunts.

G
ILDED
B
UTTERFLIES

Lying one hot July day on my back in the long grass lazily watching the daisies nod their heads as the scarcely felt breeze passed over them I was disturbed by a sound of voices and looking around I could see nothing but a few harmless butterflies fluttering here and there. Listening again I discovered that the voices came from the butterflies. Curiosity sharpening my ears I began to understand what they were saying. Listening to the one which was now speaking I heard him say “Pooh! I'm not going to sit on a daisy always. I have higher aspirations in life. I am going to know a great deal and to see everything. I won't stay here to waste my life. I mean to know something before I've finished.”

Then he flew away and I saw a big fat portly old butterfly. He looked after him and said “Dear, dear, dear how dreadful it is to be discontented. For my part I'd rather stay where I am. I've seen life. I've met great men and been to large dinners in the crowded cities and now that it is ended it's a rest to be in the country and to see the flowers from which I can sip as much honey as I want, and besides, here I can be comfortable.”

Just then a beautiful young butterfly arrived. “Dear me I am so tired. I've been to at least six dinners and about as many dances in the last week but then it is such fun. What would life be worth if there weren't any dinners, teas or dances but there aren't enough. There ought to be more. O my! there's an old gentleman, I must go. I never can stand these old people.”

And she lifted her lovely gilded wings and fluttered by making a great noise and almost blowing the old gentleman off his comfortable seat. His old wings flapped as he muttered, “Poor little gilded butterfly what a lot you've got to learn.”

Then came one who settled down next to the old man and said, “O dear, dear what a nuisance it is always racing and tearing for your food and then you don't get anything. Every one gets there before you. What bother life is. I wish I was dead. There are nothing but daisies and buttercups never any change. Now if I were only a genius, or rich then I could buy genius! Then he stopped and the old man gave a low chuckle. Then I heard a soft, lovely voice near my ear so low it was like a whisper. The voice said “Child, learn a lesson from the gilded butterflies and be contented in this world and you will find happiness.”

An even more charming fable, written when Eleanor was thirteen or fourteen, was “The Flowers Discussion.” Its references to a “conservatory” in which orchids, camellias, and even “a huge palm tree” were growing suggest the kind of great houses where young Eleanor was welcome. This composition was rewarded with the Roser imprimatur “recommended for printing.”

T
HE
F
LOWERS
D
ISCUSSION

“I am by far the most beautiful.” These were the words I heard as I awoke from a nap I had been taking in a conservatory.

I was rather surprised to see that the speaker was a tall red rose which grew not far from me. There was evidently a hot discussion
going on among the plants as to which excelled the others. I knew that if they saw I was awake the discussion would cease & as I wished to hear how it ended I feigned sleep.

After the red rose had spoken the beautiful lily raised its head. “You, the most beautiful?” I heard it say. “Look how straight you hold your head. You have no grace. Now mine bends over gracefully & then I am white which is by far a prettier color than red. I rest every eye which looks at me while you tire it. Besides you hurt people with your thorns. I never do. I smell far sweeter than you. Most people think so. Now you see that I excell you all” & she looked around with a proud glance.

There had been several interruptions during her long speech from the smaller flowers but now for a moment there was silence. Then the orchid spoke. “Indeed, you the most beautiful of all the flowers. What an idea. Why if any one is beautiful I am. Look at my varied coloring & how gracefully I hang, far more gracefully than you. Besides everyone likes me. No conservatory is complete without me while any can go without you.”

Then a little white camelia spoke. “I hear someone coming. Whichever flower they choose as the prettiest shall excell.” The flowers had time to murmur “yes” when in came a little boy of not quite two. He gave a cry of delight as [he] entered. He looked around & then made straight for the orchid & stood by it drawing his finger lightly over the flower murmuring as he did so “Pitty flower pitty flower.” His nurse picked it for him & he passed out.

As soon as he had disappeared the discussion began again, the rose & the lily averring that it was not right to stand by his decision. He was too small. This time the modest little violet who had not as yet spoken said “someone is coming. Stand by their decision” & the flowers said yes again. This time a young girl & her lover entered. They seated themselves under a huge palm tree & the young man said “which of all these flowers do you love the best?” “I love the white rose best, she is so sweet and pure,” the young girl said. Her lover picked one for her and they went out.

They had hardly gone when the discussion began again. This time it was the orchid who said “The white rose is too small a flower to excell us all & besides the one which excells is king & imagine the white rose ruling us.” All the plants laughed at the idea of their obeying the white rose & even I had to smile at the thought of the little flower ruling the haughty red rose, lily & orchid.

The discussion continued for several minutes when the pansy said, “Be quiet. Someone is coming.” An old man & his wife now appeared. The flowers whispered as they entered “We will abide by their decision.” The old couple seated themselves & the old man said “Is it not beautiful here Jennie. Which of all these flowers do you love the best?” The old wife looked around. “I love them all.” she said & then as though she were thinking not talking “As a baby I loved the orchid, then the lily & the rose. As a young girl I loved the violet for it is the flower you picked for me when you told me of your love. Yes I loved it best then. I love it best now.

I thought so, the old man said. Then they went out. I wondered what the flowers would say to this, but I was soon to find out for the old couple had hardly gone when the rose broke out with “The violet excell all of us? The violet rule us? Why the white rose could do it better.”

“Yes, indeed,” cried all the plants. I could plainly see that all the flowers were bent upon excelling & I do not know how long the discussion would have lasted had not the violet said “Why none of us excell. We are all beautiful in our own way. Some are beautifully colored. Others smell sweetly & again others are graceful. We were all made well. From this day we are all equal.”

The other flowers listened & to some it seemed strange that the flower which had been chosen to excel should say this but they all agreed and from that day they were equal.

But I always have and always will love the violet best.

As she passed from childhood to adolescence, the beauty of nature spoke to her awakening senses. The changes of the seasons, the play of light on the river, the color and coolness of the woods began to have the profound meaning to her that they would retain throughout her life. When she was a young girl, she wrote a half century later, “there was nothing that gave me greater joy than to get one of my young aunts to agree that she would get up before dawn, that we would walk down through the woods to the river, row ourselves the five miles to the village in Tivoli to get the mail, and row back before the family was at the breakfast table.”