[THE GREAT REAPER.]
Gathers a Number of the Beaux and Belles.
Washington, December 31, 1876.
Within the space of three brief years society at the capital has entirely changed in tone and character. The great drawing-rooms that were thrown open to receive guests from all parts of the civilized world are now closed forever, whilst a new set of people are pressing forward to blaze in the social sky as stars of the first magnitude. Glancing at the banquet halls, deserted, one sees with astonishment the path cut by the reaper Death. It requires no stretch of the imagination to call to mind the grand old home of the “West End” so long occupied by Admiral and Mrs. Powell (the latter lately deceased), where all that was most cultivated and refined in what is known as “Washington society” gathered to do honor to this late American queen. Mrs. Powell was the peer of Dolly Madison, the bosom friend of Mrs. Polk and Mrs. Tyler, and her remarkable vivacity and piquant wit lost none of its charm in advancing years. This made her old age just as attractive to youth as to people in the full bloom of life. So it may be truthfully said that this society belle never saw her scepter waning. It is true that only the ladies connected with the Army and Navy have the opportunity to officially perpetuate their reign. Our Republican court is so constructed that no matter how much a woman’s success may prove to be, like her husband, she must “step down and out,” sacrificed on the guillotine of “rotation in office.”
The closing of the Steele mansion, which became for a great many years the “headquarters” of elegant hospitality, was caused by the death of both Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Steele within ten days of each other.
Mrs. Wise, the daughter of Edward Everett, made her home most attractive to the elite of the capital, for, in addition to inheriting to a large degree much of the talent enjoyed by her gifted father, a long residence abroad had given her the advantage of every social acquirement. But she, too, has joined the “innumerable throng.”
Capt. Carlisle Patterson, late head of the Coast Survey, was a gentleman whose hospitality was boundless, so much so that his fortune at his death was found to have melted away. But whilst he lived what a grand good time he had.
The Myer mansion, for so many years occupied by the English legation, but purchased by the late head of the Signal Bureau, was closed by the last summons of its master. During his life this fairy dwelling, with its works of art, was thrown open and enjoyed by those who feel they “ne’er shall look upon its like again.” No doubt finer houses will be built, and the Bonanza kings will import the ancient ruins of Greece and Rome, but every year our receptions are growing colder, and our “drawing rooms” resemble those held in the monarchical palaces of the Old World.
Coming back to the closed habitations, the homes of Justices Hunt and Swayne pass before the mind’s eye—the first closed by affliction, the latter by death. And long will linger in the minds of our old residents the unostentatious hospitality of the late George W. Riggs, banker, and whose “business house” was felt to be the safest in Washington, though avaricious. Mr. Riggs was known to be clean-handed, and he inspired the public to believe that his bank was as solid as the foundation of the earth.