1886, where Schuyler continued writing and traveling. During this time, he
wrote a lengthy reminiscence on his
time with Count Leo Tolstoy that appeared in Scribner’s magazine in May
1889.
When James G. Blaine became the
new U.S. Secretary of State in March
1889, he tried to appoint Schuyler as
his assistant secretary. But Schuyler’s
nomination ran into some opposition
in the U.S. Senate, reportedly because
of his latest book. In a May 11, 1889,
letter to a friend, Schuyler wrote: “Had
I known of the Senate opposition to
me, I should have declined sooner for
a patriotic reason: it is essential to the
success of an administration that the
State Department and the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations
should work well together. ... The objections to me on the part of certain
senators were not political, but from
such petty, trifling, personal reasons,
During his time
in Constantinople,
Schuyler helped the
new Bulgarian leadership
draft their country’s
first constitution.
that, had I been in Washington, I could
have stopped it all by threatening to
tell the true cause.” However, there is
no mention of the actual cause.
Schuyler instead accepted an appointment as consul general in Cairo,
arriving on Oct. 1, 1889. Egypt fasci-
nated him, and he spent all of his free
time learning about its history and traveling along the Nile. In a letter to his
sister dated Oct. 14, 1889, Schuyler
wrote: “The moist heat at this season,
when the Nile is overflowed, and the
consequent flies, mosquitoes, etc.,
beggar all description.”
As fate would have it, Schuyler contracted malaria sometime in early
1890, from which he never recovered.
He died quite suddenly while convalescing in Venice, Italy, on July 16,
1890.
Upon the 1901 posthumous publication of his essays and memoirs,
Eugene Schuyler: Selected Essays, a
reviewer in the New York Times
described Schuyler as “one of America’s
most brilliant scholars, patriots and
men of letters.” In testament to this
talent, both his travelogue Turkestan
and his biography of Peter the Great
are still in print today. ■
