A fashionable young American at Gadsby’s Hotel.—A Washington Party.—Description of the Parlour and the Refectory.—Apple Toddy.—Introduction to the Lady of the House and to a Fashionable Belle.—The young Lady’s Literary Taste.—Mr. Wise.—Grand Distinction between American and English Conservatism.—American Literati.—A regular American Tory—his Rise and Progress.—Mr. Rives.—Mr. Preston.—Mr. Webster.—Pendant to the Old Bailey Speech quoted by Miss Martineau.—Calhoun’s Remarks on the Money-mania of his Countrymen.—Webster’s Answer and pathetic Conclusion—his giving into Poetry and sinking the Bathos.—John Quincy Adams.—Mr. Forsyth.—Anecdote of an American Anchorite.—A Mazurka danced by four Fashionable Indies, a Polish Count, and three Members of the Corps Diplomatique.
“The greatest problem of the human race, to the solution of which men are forced by the peculiarity of their nature, is the establishment of a society for the maintenance of their rights.”—Kant’s Idea of a Universal History in a Cosmopolitical Sense.
On my return to the hotel I found the people at tea, which was served with beefsteaks, chops, ham, &c. and answered the purpose of a regular meal. It being too early for me to join them, I quietly sneaked off to my room, or rather to the third part of a room, which was granted me by the kindness of the innkeeper; the other two-thirds, with the corresponding beds, &c. being occupied by a lieutenant in the navy, and a young man of fashion just returned from Europe, who, in proof of his foreign civilization, was constantly singing French songs without reference to melody or metre. One of these, which he usually sang in the morning, when owing to our late rising we got a cold breakfast, I yet remember had this singular refrain:—
“Je suis content, je suis heureux;
Tout homme doit l’être dans ces lieux.”
Being afraid lest the songster should enter the room, and dispute with me the use of the only looking-glass, I dressed as quickly as I could; and then went down to the reading-room, to drag out the time from six till eight with the newspapers. The appointed hour finally arrived, and with it the carriage I had previously engaged; and in less than three-quarters of an hour,—the house of Mrs. *** being situated on the confines of the ideal town,—my “negro driver” halted before a small building with a wooden staircase in front, which looked as though it might be blown off by the first gale, or washed away by the rain, considering that it was exposed to the unmitigated fury of both, and evidently placed there for no other purpose but to save room for the kitchen. The house, which was so uncommonly snug as to have but three windows in front, was brilliantly illumined by the aid of a single chandelier; and the door left open, in order that the invited guests might see their way up stairs into the parlour.
Arrived at the place, my coachman sprung off the box, opened the door of the carriage, and assisted me in alighting amidst a group of dark faces that were only rendered visible by the reflection from the whites of their eyes. I passed the review of the servants without loss of time, and scrambled up the wooden staircase in order to force my entrance into the parlour. This, however, was in vain; the gentlemen, who, much against their own inclination, were placed with their faces in the room and the more vulgar part of their composition outside, being unable to move forward, in order to admit the ingress of a new-comer, without interfering with the dancers. I tried to look into the room, in order to have at least a peep at the ladies; but, measuring but five feet ten, and the two gentlemen who guarded the entrance being probably Kentuckians, I could not manage to look over their shoulders. I endeavoured to have a glance between their bodies, or between their shoulders and arms. Vain attempt! they were too compact to suffer a beam of light to go through them.
In despair I went up another pair of stairs, which led into a sort of refectory, to which the entrance, though difficult, was not impossible. The room was furnished in a befitting style of simplicity. There was no display of overgrown wealth; a few painted chairs and tables, a small ebony-framed looking-glass, and a few settees,—the bed having been previously ejected in order to make room for the company,—constituting the sum total of the ameublement. On a small side-table, neatly covered with a white table-cloth, were placed several large plates of sandwiches, bread and ham; and in the middle of the room stood a large basin, which at first I took for a Roman bathing-tub, placed there for the accommodation of such guests as came from a distance, but, on drawing near, discovered to be full of that exquisite beverage called “apple toddy,” which differs very little from Mr. Price’s gin punch at the Garrick, so much approved of by Mr. Theodore Hook. Indeed, I rather think the advantage, if any, on the side of the toddy, the apples imparting to the gin a much more simple and delicate flavour than the Maraschino; and the thing would be better still if iced soda-water were added to the compound.
The gentlemen formed a very interesting group round this tub; and, perceiving a stranger step amongst them, immediately made room; while one of them, probably the president pro tem, seized a huge ladle, and immersing it first into the liquid, and holding it up again in triumph as high as he could, filled a more than double-sized glass to the very brim without spilling one drop of the liquid. This feat, which convinced me at once of his being an habitué, was scarcely accomplished, before, in the most graceful manner possible, he offered me the glass with the amicable greeting of—
“Every stranger is welcome in Washington!”