‘Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morris.’
No doubt about their importance, for he was as intimate with Washington as she with Mrs. Washington, and such was her intimacy that she was frequently referred to as ‘the second lady in the land.’ It was she who accompanied Mrs. Washington from Philadelphia to New York after the inauguration, and during the spring and autumn the two might frequently be seen under the trees at ‘The Hills,’ the Morris farm near the city, enjoying the view of the river and such pastoral pictures as were offered by the imported sheep and cattle grazing on the rolling hills. Of Mrs. Morris it was said that ‘so impressive is her air and demeanor that those who saw her once seldom forgot her.’[521] She had dignity, tact, and elegance, and, like Mrs. Washington, no respect for ‘the filthy democrats.’ She was a thorough aristocrat. Her husband, banker, merchant, Senator, was of imposing height, his merry blue eyes, clear complexion, and strong features denoting something of his significance; and he had the social graces that captivate and hold. His wealth alone would have made him a commanding figure in the society of the time and place. Some generations were to settle on his grave before he was to appear as the martyr who had sacrificed a fortune to liberty, for there was a different understanding in his day.[522] A natural aristocrat, ultra-conservative because of his business connections and great possessions, if he was tolerant of the experiment in republicanism, he took no pains to conceal his contempt of democracy—in Senate or drawing-room.
‘Mrs. Walter Stewart.’
Another of the intimate circle of the Washingtons who dwelt in a fine house next door to the Morrises, she was one of the most brilliant and fascinating women with whom Mrs. Bingham liked to surround herself. A long way she had traveled from her girlhood home as the daughter of Blair McClenachan, the ardent democrat who was to help burn Jay’s Treaty, welcome Genêt, and to follow Jefferson, for she was the wife of the rich General Stewart, and had been seduced by the glitter of the aristocracy. Like Mrs. Bingham, she had had her fling with the nobility in London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome, and had returned to open her house for some of the most elaborate entertaining of her time. In striking beauty, conversational charm, and a caressing manner, she rivaled Mrs. Bingham at her best. About her dinner table the leaders of the Federalist Party were frequently found.[523]
‘Mrs. Samuel Powell.’
An interesting lady, ‘who looks turned fifty,’[524] enters to be greeted by the hostess as ‘Aunt.’ A courteous, kindly woman, almost motherly in her manner, she talks with the fluency and ease to be expected of the mistress of the famous house on ‘Society Hill.’[525] No one of Mrs. Bingham’s guests who has not promenaded on summer evenings in the Powell gardens, the walks lined with statuary.[526]
‘General and Mrs. Knox.’
An impressive figure, the Secretary of War, his height carrying the two hundred and eighty pounds not ungracefully, his regular Grecian nose, florid complexion, bright, penetrating eyes giving an attractive cast to his countenance. They who know him best suspect that he enjoys too well the pleasures of the table, but love him for a kindliness that temper cannot sour, a sincerity and generosity that know no bounds, a gayety that his dignity cannot suppress—a fine sentimental figure with a Revolutionary background. What though he had been a bookseller before he eloped with a lady of quality, he was too keenly appreciative of the advantages of aristocracy to have much patience with the queer notions of Tom Jefferson, whom he liked. He rubbed his shins when Hamilton stumbled over a chair.
And Mrs. Knox—she must have been a dashing belle in her romantic youth, for despite her enormous weight, she was still handsome with her black eyes and blooming cheeks.[527] Passing her girlhood in the Loyalist atmosphere of an aristocratic home, she had never become reconciled to the impertinence of the people, and even during the war her adoring Henry had been moved to warn her against sneering openly at the manners and speech of the people of Connecticut. ‘The want of refinement which you seem to speak of is, or will be, the salvation of America,’ he wrote.[528] But hers was the more masterful nature and his democracy was to capitulate to her aristocracy in the end.[529] But—whither goes the lady from the drawing-room so quickly? Ah—of course, it is to the card-room, for was it not the gossip that ‘the follies of a gambling wife are passed on to the debits of her husband?’[530] In the morning, no doubt, she will run in on Mrs. Washington at the Morris house, for they are very close.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Hamilton.’