[A TALENTED QUARTETTE.]
Madame Le Vert, Gail Hamilton, Vinnie Ream, and Mrs. Lander.
Washington, January, 1869.
A reception at the governor’s mansion occupies that middle ground which may be supposed to be between a President’s levee and the private party given by a well-to-do Congressman. The governor must invite everybody because he is everybody’s servant, like the President, only he has no White House and paid retinue of lackeys, no fuel and gas found, and no fifty thousand per year. On the contrary “he must find himself,” and this he will be obliged to do whenever the enormous bills are paid. If one could have seen the crowds that for four mortal hours filled the governor’s large dining-hall they would have prayed for a repetition of the same miracle that took place some eighteen hundred years ago, when the bread and fish could not give out, and water was spoiled by being turned into wine.
But the worst comes. We have got a governor—none of your milk-and-water kind—and who looks every inch a governor, as much as the great Napoleon looked like an emperor. We have so many “figure-heads,” which are the result of the appointing power, that when the real article turns up let us thank President Grant for his act, for it makes no difference to us whether he does the right thing by design or mistake. But the governor’s ball. Everybody was there. The governor stood at the entrance of the broad door that led to the right of the hall, arrayed with the usual ministerial black-looking robe, and acting only as a governor should. By his side stood my lady, tall, elegantly dressed in charming simplicity. She is still very youthful to be called to occupy so prominent a place. Her dress was simple white muslin with an overdress of black velvet, white ruche at the throat with tiniest of rosebuds in the pleatings; no jewels, no gewgaws. She must have taken Madame Thiers, the wife of the early President of the French Republic, for her model, or, later still, Madame MacMahon, not only the first lady but one of the most sensible women in France.
The governor’s mansion is admirably arranged for entertaining large companies. The rooms seemed to be fastened to the arc of a circle. The guests entered the broad folding doors, followed on from room to room, and came out near the point where they started; a turning wheel of glaring colors, a huge human kaleidoscope—what better comparison? We will suppose you are behind the governor, as Mephistopheles is said to have stood behind Faust. But then you are only a harmless correspondent, and the image is in the very worst taste; and yet, even in newspaper comparisons, it is well to keep all the best things for one’s self. You are behind the shadow of the governor—invisible, you see nothing, but you feel a great deal. A turn of the wonderful kaleidoscope and there comes to view the great warrior Tecumseh, sometimes called General Sherman, the Beau Brummel of fashionable life in Washington. Straight as one of those guns he carried so successfully to the sea, and just about as useful at the present day, yet very dear to us, because he is the best paid for the least work of any man in the Union. And yet he was seen at the Burns Festival, as well as many other places, with Vinnie Ream on his arm, and who knows what the veteran warrior may have suffered? Vinnie is not large, neither is a Minie ball, and yet if either one should hit the mark the most direful consequences might follow. When we compare Vinnie Ream to the great men who work in stone she grows beautifully less, but when we compare her with women she rises almost beyond feminine proportions. She is a very small man, but a very great woman. Go ahead, Vinnie! Bust Tecumseh, or somebody else will! Our great men must be busted by some one, and women ought to have a hand in that kind of work. We intend to write a book about the famous women of Washington, and you, dear, persecuted, self-sacrificing little sprite, shall have almost the best place.
Another turn of the wheel. Who comes there? It is our tall, lordly speaker of the House—our handsome would-be next President—polished as steel, and Colfaxian to the last degree, except the smile. But he is our Speaker of the House, and, as Don Quixote said about his own Dulcinea, we challenge the world in his defence, and if an enemy chooses to break a lance they can do so at their own risk.
Here comes Mrs. Blaine, frozen as a New England landscape in midwinter. The salt mist of the gray sea! Ugh! ugh! Turn the kaleidoscope quick. The air is so cold the artificial flowers are nipped by the frost.