Famous Persons and Places

by Nathaniel Parker Willis

There is no city, probably no village in America, where the female society is not refined, cultivated, and elegant. With or without regular advantages, woman attains the refinements and tact necessary to polite intercourse. No traveller ever ventured to complain of this part of American society. The great deficiency is that of agreeable, highly-cultivated men, whose pursuits have been elevated, and whose minds are pliable to the grace and changing spirit of conversation. Every man of talents possesses these qualities naturally, and hence the great advantage which Washington enjoys over every other city in our country. None but a shallow observer, or a malicious book-maker, would ever sneer at the exteriors or talk of the ill-breeding of such men as form, in great numbers, the agreeable society of this place—for a man of great talents never could be vulgar; and there is a superiority about most of these which raises them above the petty standard which regulates the outside of a coxcomb. Even compared with the dress and address of men of similar positions and pursuits in Europe, however (members of the house of commons, for example, or of the chamber of deputies in France,) it is positively the fact that the senators and representatives of the United States have a decided advantage. It is all very well for Mr. Hamilton, and other scribblers whose books must be spiced to go down, to ridicule a Washington soirée for English readers; but if the observation of one who has seen assemblies of legislators and diplomatists in all the countries of Europe may be fairly placed against his and Mrs. Trollope’s, I may assert, upon my own authority, that they will not find, out of May Fair in England, so well-dressed and dignified a body of men. I have seen as yet no specimen of the rough animal described by them and others as the “western member;” and if David Crockett, (whom I was never so fortunate as to see) was of that description, the race must have died with him. It is a thing I have learned since I have been in Washington, to feel a wish that foreigners should see Congress in session. We are so humbugged, one way and another, by travellers’ lies.

I have heard the observation once or twice from strangers since I have been here, and it struck myself on my first arrival, that I had never seen within the same limit before, so many of what may be called “men of mark.” You will scarce meet a gentleman on the sidewalk in Washington, who would not attract your notice, seen elsewhere, as an individual possessing in his eye or general features a certain superiority. Never having seen most of the celebrated speakers of the senate, I busied myself for the first day or two in examining the faces that passed me in the street, in the hope of knowing them by the outward stamp which, we are apt to suppose, belongs to greatness. I gave it up at last, simply from the great number I met who might be (for all that features had to do with it) the remarkable men I sought.

There is a very simple reason why a Congress of the United States should be, as they certainly are, a much more marked body of men than the English house of commons or lords, or the chamber of peers or deputies in France. I refer to the mere means by which, in either case, they come to their honors. In England and France the lords and peers are legislators by hereditary right, and the members of the commons and deputies from the possession of extensive property or family influence, or some other cause, arguing, in most cases, no great personal talent in the individual. They are legislators, but they are devoted very often much more heartily to other pursuits—hunting or farming, racing, driving, and similar out-of-door passions common to English gentlemen and lords, or the corresponding penchants of French peers and deputies. It is only the few great leaders and orators who devote themselves to politics exclusively. With us every one knows it is quite the contrary. An American politician delivers himself, body and soul, to his pursuit. He never sleeps, eats, walks, or dreams, but in subservience to his aim. He cannot afford to have another passion of any kind till he has reached the point of his ambition—and then it has become a mordent necessity from habit. The consequence is, that no man can be found in an elevated sphere in our country, who has not had occasion for more than ordinary talent to arrive there. He inherited nothing of his distinction, and has made himself. Such ordeals leave their marks, and they who have thought, and watched, and struggled, and contended with the passions of men as an American politician inevitably must, cannot well escape the traces of such work. It usually elevates the character of the face—it always strongly marks it.

A-propos of “men of mark;” the dress-circle of the theatre at Power’s benefit, not long since, was graced by three Indians in full costume, the chief of the Foxes, the chief of the Ioways, and a celebrated warrior of the latter tribe, called the Sioux-killer. The Fox is an old man of apparently fifty, with a heavy, aquiline nose, a treacherous eye, sharp as an eagle’s, and a person rather small in proportion to his head and features. He was dressed in a bright scarlet blanket, and a crown of feathers, with an eagle’s plume, standing erect on the top of his head, all dyed in the same deep hue. His face was painted to match, except his lips, which looked of a most ghastly sallow, in contrast with his fiery nose, forehead, and cheeks. His tomahawk lay in the hollow of his arm, decked with feathers of the same brilliant color with the rest of his drapery. Next him sat the Sioux-killer, in a dingy blanket, with a crown made of a great quantity of the feathers of a pea-hen, which fell over his face, and concealed his features almost entirely. He is very small, but is famous for his personal feats, having, among other things, walked one hundred and thirty miles in thirty successive hours, and killed three Sioux (hence his name) in one battle with that nation. He is but twenty-three, but very compact and wiry-looking, and his eye glowed through his veil of hen feathers like a coal of fire.

Next to the Sioux-killer sat “White Cloud,” the chief of the Ioways. His face was the least warlike of the three, and expressed a good nature and freedom from guile, remarkable in an Indian. He is about twenty-four, has very large features, and a fine, erect person, with broad shoulders and chest. He was painted less than the Fox chief, but of nearly the same color, and carried, in the hollow of his arm, a small, glittering tomahawk, ornamented with blue feathers. His head was encircled by a kind of turban of silver-fringed cloth, with some metallic pendents for earrings, and his blanket, not particularly clean or handsome, was partly open on the breast, and disclosed a calico shirt, which was probably sold to him by a trader in the west. They were all very attentive to the play, but the Fox chief and White Cloud departed from the traditionary dignity of Indians, and laughed a great deal at some of Power’s fun. The Sioux-killer sat between them, as motionless and grim as a marble knight on a tombstone.

The next day I had the pleasure of dining with Mr. Power, who lived at the same hotel with the Indian delegation; and while at dinner he received a message from the Ioways, expressing a wish to call on him. We were sitting over our wine when White Cloud and the Sioux-killer came in with their interpreter. There were several gentlemen present, one of them in the naval undress uniform, whose face the Sioux-killer scrutinized very sharply. They smiled in bowing to Power, but made very grave inclinations to the rest of us. The chief took his seat, assuming a very erect and dignified attitude, which he preserved immovable during the interview; but the Sioux-killer drew up his legs, resting them on the round of the chair, and, with his head and body bent forward, seemed to forget himself, and give his undivided attention to the study of Power and his naval friend.

Tumblers of champagne were given them, which they drank with great relish, though the Sioux-killer provoked a little ridicule from White Cloud, by coughing as he swallowed it. The interpreter was a half-breed between an Indian and a negro, and a most intelligent fellow. He had been reared in the Ioway tribe, but had been among the whites a great deal for the last few years, and had picked up English very fairly. He told us that White Cloud was the son of old White Cloud, who died three years since, and that the young chief had acquired entire command over the tribe by his mildness and dignity. He had paid the debts of the Ioways to the traders, very much against the will of the tribe; but he commenced by declaring firmly that he would be just, and had carried his point. He had come to Washington to receive a great deal of money from the sale of the lands of the tribe, and the distribution of it lay entirely in his own power. Only one old warrior had ventured to rise in council and object to his measures; but when White Cloud spoke, he had dropped his head on his bosom and submitted. This information and that which followed was given in English, of which neither of the Ioways understood a word.

Mr. Power expressed a surprise that the Sioux-killer should have known him in his citizen’s dress. The interpreter translated it, and the Indian said in answer:—

“The dress is very different, but when I see a man’s eye I know him again.”

He then told Power that he wished, in the theatre, to raise his war-cry and help him fight the three bad-looking men who were his enemies (referring to the three bailiffs in the scene in Paddy Carey.) Power asked what part of the play he liked best. He said that part where he seized the girl in his arms and ran off the stage with her (at the close of an Irish jig in the same play).