The prevailing lack of fashionable society in Washington, to-day, is high motive, purity of feeling, a more varied and brighter intelligence. These all exist, and in no meagre proportion, but as scattered elements, they wait the supreme social queen, the centripetal soul which shall draw them into one potent and prevailing power that shall lift the whole social life of the capital to a higher plane of æsthetic attire, culture, and amusement. Fortunately, Mrs. Grant has been surrounded by numerous ladies in official life of superior mental endowment and culture, and true social grace. This is especially true of a portion of “the ladies of the Cabinet,” of the Senators’ wives from several States, and of no small number among the wives of Representatives. Many ladies, whose husbands are in Congress, bring the most exquisite tastes in art, music and literature, and the loveliest of womanhood to grace the life of Washington. For what is termed its “society” in the “season,” the pity is these rare women have no taste, it is to them a burden, or an offence, and they have never yet combined in organized force (which alone is power) to uplift and redeem it.
Nevertheless, Washington is rapidly becoming an intellectual as well as social centre. The large and varied interests which concentrate in a national capital tend more and more to draw the highest intellectual as well as social forces into its life. These need but assimilation, fusion, unity and purpose to develop into the most superb manifestation of civilization. In looking back upon the wives of the Presidents, we discover, with but two or three exceptions, they were women of remarkable powers and exalted character.
CHAPTER XXVI.
RECEPTION DAY AT THE WHITE HOUSE—GLIMPSES OF LIFE.
Mrs. Grant at Home—A Reception—Feeling Good-Natured—Looking After One’s Friends—Ready to Forgive—Mr. Grant’s “Likeable Side”—The East Room on a Reception Day—“The Nation’s Parlor”—Rags and Tatters Departed—The Work of Relic-hunters—Internal Arrangements—Eight Presidents, All In a Row—“As Large as Life”—Shadows of the Departed—A Present from the Sultan of Turkey—A List of Finery—A Scene Not Easily Forgotten—How They Wept for Their Martyr—Tales which a Room Might Tell—David, Jonathan and Sir Philip Sidney Superseded—Underneath the Gold and Lace—“Into the Ear of a Foolish Girl”—“The[“The] Census of Spittoons”—“A Horror in Our Land”—An Under-bred People—“We Talk too Loud”—Preliminaries to Perfection—“More Than Shakespeare’s[Shakespeare’s] Women”—The Shadow of Human Nature—Two “Quizzing” Ladies—Nothing Sacred to Them—An Illogical Dame—Her “Precarious Organ”—A “Vice that Thrives Amid Christian Graces”—How some Pious People “Avenge their Defrauded Souls”—A Lady of Many Colors—“A New Woman”—A Vegetable Comparison—What “a Good Little Girl” was Allowed To Do—The Lady of the Manor—Women Who are Not Ashamed of Womanhood—Observed and Admired of All—Another “Reigning Belle”—Sketch of a Perfect Woman—After the Lapse of Generations—The “German”—“You Had Better Be Shut Up”—The “Withering” of Many American Women—Full Dress and No Dress—What the Princess Ghika Thinks—A Young Girl’s Dress—“That Dreadful Woman”—“My Wife’s” Dress—The Resolution of a Young Man.
It is Tuesday—Mrs. Grant’s day—and all the gay world is going to the White House, besides a portion of that world which is not gay.
Mrs. Grant’s morning receptions are very popular, and deservedly so. This is not because the lady is in any sense a conversationalist, or has a fine tact in receiving, but rather, I think, because she is thoroughly good-natured, and for the time, at least, makes other people feel the same. At any rate, there was never so little formality or so much genuine sociability in the day-receptions at the White House as at the present time. General Babcock pronounces your name without startling you out of your boots by shouting it, as on such occasions is usually done. He passes it to the President, the President to Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Grant to ladies receiving with her. After exchanging salutations with each, you pass on to make room for others, and to find your own personal friends dispersed through the great rooms. They are in each of them; loitering in the Blue Room, where the receiving is going on; chatting in the Green Room; promenading in the East Room. You may go through the long corridor into the state dining-room, into the conservatories, full of flowers and fragrance, and back, if you choose, to your starting-point, where the President and Mrs. Grant are still receiving.
This is one of the pleasantest facts of these morning receptions—the informal coming down of the President to receive with Mrs. Grant. I have never been accused of over enthusiasm for him, but find myself ready to forgive in him the traits which I cannot like, when I see him, with his daughter, beside Mrs. Grant. Then, it is so perfectly evident that, whatever the President may or may not be, “Mr. Grant” has a very true and likeable side, with which nobody is so well acquainted as Mrs. Grant.
Here is the East Room, that you have read about so long. It never looked so well before. There are flaws in the harmony of its decorations which we might pick at; but we won’t, as we are not here to-day to find fault. Besides, it is too pleasant to see that the nation’s parlor, erst so forlorn, has absolutely taken on a look of home comfort. In proportions it is a noble room, long and lofty. It has seven windows—three in front, facing Pennsylvania avenue and Lafayette square; three looking out upon the presidential grounds and the Potomac; and a stately bay window overlooking the Treasury. It has four white marble mantel-pieces, two on each side. It has eight mirrors, filling the spaces over the mantels and between the windows. Richly wrought lace curtains have taken the place of the tatters left there a few years ago, when the curtains of the White House windows were scattered over the country in tags, taken home by relic-hunters. Over these hang draperies of crimson brocatelle, surmounted by gilt cornices, bearing the arms of the United States. The walls and ceilings are frescoed, and from the latter depend three immense chandeliers of cut glass, which, when lighted, blaze like mimic suns. On the walls hang the oil portraits, in heavy gilt frames, of eight Presidents of the United States. Opposite the door, as you enter, is the portrait of Filmore. On the other side of the mantel, that of Lincoln. Next beyond the bay window, that of Washington; all of life size. Beyond the further mantel is that of Franklin Pierce. Above the door opposite, one of John Adams. Above the next door, of Martin Van Buren; the next, of Polk; the last above the entrance door, of John Tyler.
THE GREAT EAST ROOM.