8 to 8:30. Receiving the dinner guests.
8:30 to 10:45. The dinner.
10:45 to midnight. Receiving the guests for the dance—on her feet all the time.
Midnight to 6 in the morning. Sitting, but incessantly busy.
6 to 9. In bed.
9. A new and crowded day.
This has been a short season, but I don't think it was the shortness, crowding much into a few days, that made the pressure so great. It's simply that year by year Washington becomes socially worse and worse. As I looked round at that last ball of ours I pitied the people who were nerving themselves up to trying to enjoy themselves.
Almost every one was, and looked, worn out. Here and there the unnatural brightness of eyes or cheeks showed that somebody—usually a young person—had been driven to some sort of stimulant to enable him or her to hold the pace. Quick to laugh; quick to frown and bite the lips in almost uncontrollable anger. Nerves on edge, flesh quivering.
Yet, what is one to do? To be "in it" one must go all the time; not to go all the time, not to accept all the principal invitations, is to make enemies right and left. Besides, who that gets into the hysterical state which the Washington season induces can be content to sit quietly at home when on every side there are alluring opportunities to enjoy?
No wonder we see less and less of the men of importance. No wonder the "sons of somebodies" and the young men of the embassies and legations and departments, most of them amiable enough, but all just about as near nothing as you would naturally expect, are the best the women can get to their houses.