I do not know where in the world you can find a more curious and pathetic monument to human vanity than the family rooms of this Stanford museum; rooms full of great glass cases, filled with the domestic implements and the clothes, the toys and the trophies of the tribe of Stanford. Case No. One: The senator’s uniform, his military vest, gloves, sword and pistols, which he never had occasion to use except on parade. Case No. Two: the crockery and lamps used by the Stanford family at all stages of its career. Case No. Three: the skirts and other wearing apparel of Mrs. Stanford’s sisters—all these objects patiently classified and labeled in the old lady’s handwriting. Case No. Four: the photographs of the senator’s racehorses, the cups they won, and the hoofs and ears of many of them. Case No. Five: sixty-two photographs of the Stanford family—this not counting the photographs in other cases. Case No. Six: the baby paintings, the chess set, and eight of the canes of the only begotten son. Case No. Seven: his baby shoes, toilet set, pens and cups. Case No. Eight: his boxing gloves, fishing lines, rifles, magic lanterns. Case No. Nine: his wood carvings and other apparatus. Case No. Ten: his toy boats and trains. Case No. Eleven: his soldiers, cannon, drum. Poor, feeble lad, spoon-fed and coddled, he beat his little drum, but the drum-sticks fell from his nerveless fingers. If he had grown up he would have wasted the Stanford fortune, as the Pullman boys, and the Goulds, and the Thaws, and the Crokers, and the Whitneys, and the MCCormicks, and so many others. Instead, he died, and the world has a university!
We continue our walk about the room. Case No. Twelve: the fans which Mrs. Stanford wielded in a lifetime of fascination. Case No. Thirteen: her souvenir spoons and necklaces. Case No. Fourteen: the senator’s chair, and the canes which he carried, all carefully labeled as to where he purchased them and carried them. A plain and humble author, I have been able to go through life so far without ever owning a cane; but it appears that a senator and railroad king must have twenty-four elaborate and expensive ones; and posterity must have a fireproof building in which to preserve them, and great steel doors, such as you find in the vaults of a bank, to keep them safe from thieves. If you have not seen enough, come downstairs, and inspect more of Leland’s toys, including his old-fashioned bicycle. The students declare that somewhere in this museum is hidden a model of Leland’s last breakfast of fried ham and eggs; but this, of course, may be just youthful waggery.[J]