Americans at that time had ever seen him, for he lived a very secluded
and laborious life in a little brick house at Chelsea, in the southwest
of London; and he rarely kept open doors. His life was the opposite to
that of Dickens and Macaulay, and he was never lionized, except when he
went to Edinburgh to deliver his address before the University, years
afterwards. I sent him a note in which I informed him of the
enthusiastic admiration which we college students felt for him, and that
I desired to call and pay him my respects. To my note he responded
promptly: "You will be welcome to-morrow at three o'clock, the hour when
I become accessible in my garret here." I found his "garret" to be a
comfortable front room on the second floor of his modest home. It was
well lined with books, and a portrait of Oliver Cromwell hung behind his
study chair. He was seated at his table with a huge German volume open
before him. His greeting was very hearty, but, with a comical look of
surprise, he said in broad Scotch: "You are a verra young mon." I told
him of the appetite we college boys had for his books, and he assured me
at once that while he had met some of our eminent literary men he had
never happened to meet a college boy before. "Your Mr. Longfellow," said
he, "called to see me yesterday. He is a man skilled in the tongues.
Your own name I see is Dootch. The word 'Cuyler' means a delver, or one
who digs underground. You must be a Dutchman." I told him that my
ancestors had come over from Holland a couple of centuries ago, and I
was proud of my lineage; for my grandfather, Glen Cuyler, was a
descendant of Hendrick Cuyler, one of the early Dutch settlers of
Albany, who came there in 1667. "Ah," said he, "the Dootch are the
brawvest people of modern times. The world has been rinnin' after a red
rag of a Frenchman; but he was nothing to William the Silent. When
Pheelip of Spain sent his Duke of Alva to squelch those Dutchmen they
joost squelched him like a rotten egg--aye, _they did_."