The new President was a bachelor. Despite his years and his cold, reserved manner, his fidelity to the memory of beautiful Miss Coleman, to whom he had been affianced in his youth, invested him with the interest which attaches to romance. This was enhanced by his devotion to his niece, Miss Harriet Lane. In her affection he found the only solace of his lonely life. For her sake he condescended to unbend in public; and to brighten the atmosphere around her, he sometimes became quite a jaunty old bachelor. She was his confidante in all matters political and personal. A stately etiquette ruled between the two. She was always addressed as "Miss Harriet," and to her he was "The President"—never "Uncle Buchanan," except on the rare occasions when she considered it worth her while to coax him in order to carry a point.
Washington was never gayer than during this administration, more memorable than any other except Washington's and Lincoln's. The mighty giants of the House and Senate were there, the men who must be held largely responsible for that most unnecessary, cruel, and wicked war—the war between the Northern and Southern states of America. Washington was the storm centre, charged with the electric forces so soon to burst in fury upon the country.
But before we enter upon these troubled times, we will live over again some of the happy, care-forgetting months of our life in Washington.
My husband who had succeeded Mr. Ritchie as one of the editors of the Richmond Enquirer was now a member of Congress. He had accomplished his mission to Greece to the satisfaction of his government and to his own pleasure and profit. With a good courier and a generous country at his back, he had traversed Europe, had seen Venice rise from the sea, had revelled in the grandeur that was—and is—Rome, had beheld the mosques and minarets of the Byzantine city from the waters of the Golden Horn, had looked into the inscrutable eyes of the Sphinx, and had finally taken up his abode under the shadow of the Acropolis. There he had met the "Maid of Athens," now stout, middle-aged Mrs. Black, so the poor American Minister, who was young and romantic,—in order to understand the passionate entreaty of Byron to return the wandering heart of him or else take the rest of him,—was constrained to think of the poem, and look the while at a dark-eyed Greek beauty named "Elpis"—at least this was the explanation made to me of his frequent allusions in his letters to the latter. There, too, he had charmed Queen Mathilde with a description of the night-blooming cereus of this country and had stricken the court of King Otho dumb with amazement by outrageous American boasting.
"Kindly tell us, your Excellency," inquired the king at a state banquet, "what subject most interests your country at the present moment."
"The problem, may it please your Majesty, of how we shall govern our superfluous territory and invest our superfluous treasure."
This may not have pleased his Majesty, but it certainly astounded him. Little Greece was, at the moment, hemmed in by organized bands of brigands and sorely pressed for the means of existence.
Our envoy had the honor, too, of attending, with Madame le Vert, the ball at the Hôtel de Ville, and of witnessing the opening quadrille, danced by Victoria and Albert, Louis Napoleon and his sister Mathilde, the empress being ill. Both queen and princess seemed young and happy, both attired in white satin flounced with point lace, and wearing a prince's ransom in jewels.
The weather was fearfully hot, and the royal party danced but once. The queen did not step a stately measure, dancing "high and disposedly";—but she entered into the spirit of the hour heartily, and, although the mother of eight children, danced with the glee of a young girl, growing withal very red in the face like any ordinary mortal.
At one of the gala days of the Exposition in Paris, a very large woman attracted much attention. She was neither young nor handsome, but had a comfortable, well-to-do air of content. A profusion of light curls clustered around her rotund face. These ringlets were all that was left of the beauty of the Countess Guiccioli! Alas, there was no "Elpis" at hand for consolation. All these things and more would have appeared in a charming volume but for the secession of South Carolina, as will be seen later on in my story.