“Are you not completely worn out?” inquired a friend.
“O, no,” replied the President. “A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.”
Anna Symnes, the wife of President Harrison, a lady of strong intelligence and deep piety, never came to the White House. Her delicate health forbade it, when her husband made his presidential journey to Washington. In a little more than a month he was borne back to her, redeemed by death. She survived, almost to the age of ninety, to bid sons and grandsons Godspeed when they went forth to fight for their country—as she had bidden her gallant husband the same, when he left her amid her flock of little ones, in the days of her youth, for the same cause. From time to time sons and grandsons came from the field of battle to receive her blessing anew. She said to one: “Go, my son. Your country needs your services. I do not. I feel that my prayers in your behalf will be heard, and that you will return in safety.” And the grandson did come back to receive her final blessing, after many hard-fought battles. Her only surviving son writes: “That I am a firm believer in the religion of Christ, is not a virtue of mine. I imbibed it at my mother’s breast, and can no more divest myself of it, than of my nature.”
Mrs. Letitia Christian Tyler, wife of the tenth President of the United States, was another sensitive, saintly soul, whose children rise up to-day, and call her blessed. She died in the White House, September 10, 1842. Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Robert Tyler, writing of the event, says:
“Nothing can exceed the loneliness of this large and gloomy mansion, hung with black, its walls echoing only sighs and groans. My poor husband suffered dreadfully when he was told his mother’s eyes were constantly turned to the door, watching for him. He had left Washington to bring me and the children, at her request. She had every thing about her to awaken love. She was beautiful to the eye, even in her illness; her complexion was clear as an infant’s, her figure perfect, and her hands and feet were the most delicate I ever saw. She was refined and gentle in every thing that she said and did; and, above all, a pure and spotless Christian. She was my beau ideal of a perfect gentlewoman.
“The devotion of father and sons to her was most affecting. I don’t think I ever saw her enter a room that all three did not spring up to lead her to a chair, to arrange her footstool, and caress and pet her.”
Mrs. Robert Tyler presided at the White House till June, 1844, when President Tyler was married to Julia Gardiner, of Gardiner’s Island, New York, a youthful beauty and belle. After many vicissitudes Mrs. Tyler entered the Catholic church, and now resides in Georgetown. Like Mrs. Madison, she has returned to the scenes of her early triumphs, and during the sessions of Congress may often be seen in the diplomatic gallery of the senate chamber, a stately black-eyed matron dressed in deep mourning.
Mrs. Polk, intellectually, was one of the most marked women who ever presided in the White House. A lady of the old school, educated in a strict Moravian Institute, her attainments were more than ordinary, her understanding stronger than that of average women; but she obeyed St. Paul, and held her gifts in silence. She never astonished or offended her visitors by revealing to them the depth or breadth of her intelligence; nevertheless she used that intelligence as a power—the power behind the throne. Never a politician, in a day when politics, by precedent and custom, were forbidden grounds to women, she no less was thoroughly conversant with all public affairs, and made it a part of her duty to inform herself thoroughly on all subjects which concerned her country, or her husband.
She was her husband’s private secretary, and, probably, was the only lady of the White House who ever filled that office. She took charge of his papers, he trusting entirely to her memory and method for their safe keeping. If he wanted a document, long before labeled and “pigeonholed,” he said: “Sarah knows where it is;” and it was “Sarah’s” ever ready hand that laid it before his eyes. At the age of twenty she came to Washington as the wife of Mr. Polk, then a Member of Congress from Tennessee. Many years of her youth and prime were spent at the Capital, and, as she had no children, she had more than ordinary opportunity to devote herself exclusively to the service of her husband. She was the wife of the Speaker of the House before she was the wife of the President of the United States, and in every position seems to have commanded superlative respect and admiration on her own behalf, aside from the honor always paid to the person holding high station. Many poems in the public prints were addressed to her—one, while she was the wife of a Member of Congress, by Judge Story. When her husband became the President, Mrs. Polk was deemed the supreme ornament of the White House, and the public journals of the land broke forth into gratulation that the domestic life of the Nation’s house was to be represented by one who honored American womanhood. Mrs. Polk was tall, slender, and stately, with much dignity of bearing, and a manner said to resemble that of Mrs. Madison. The stateliness of her presence was conspicuous, and so impressed an English lady, that she declared that “not one of the three queens whom she had seen, could compare with the truly feminine, yet distinguished presence of Mrs. Polk.”