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Friends and Acquaintances 35
ally romantic outpouring of an aspiring poet and song-writer. Sophie* and the other girls,, we may be sure, quite understood.
Among the others in Cincinnati who shared Stephen's friendship was Eliza Russell, daughter of Mr. and IVfrs. John B. Russell. At their pleasant house on Fourth Street the latchstring was always out. The Russells were lovers of music, and dark-eyed, dark-haired Elizaf would play the piano when Stephen dropped in of an evening.21 At that time J ohn Russell was superintendent of the job department of the Cincinnati Gazette?'1 His place among the literati of the city was shown when he was elected to the executive council of the Cincinnati Historical Society.23 Stephen, who humorously acknowledged his weakness in spelling,24 could have taken lessons from Russell of whom it was said in later years, when he entered the government service in Washington, that his department didn't need a dictionary; they had Russell.21 We know that he held Stephen in high regard. He praised him for his "most amiable character and the modesty allied to true genius."25 Russell heartily approved of Stephen's writing his own
* The Christ Church records show that Sophia B. Marshall was married on October i8, 1852, to "Henry I. Miller, gas manufacturer, at Mrs. Marshall's, 4th St., Cincinnati, Rev. Dudley A. Tyng (Rector)."
t Eliza Russell in later years married a Mr. Ostrom. Photographs of her and of John B. Russell are exhibited in the Foster Memorial Room, University of Cincinnati Library, the gift of Miss Mary G. Russell of Cincinnati. |
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