I recall an amusing incident by which I offended (happily, only momentarily) our good friends Congressman and Mrs. Keitt, owing to a tendency I possessed to indulge in nonsense whenever furnished with the slightest pretext for it. When the former arrived at the capital, he was commonly addressed and alluded to as “Kitt,” a wholly unwarrantable mispronunciation of his name, but one which had become current in the vernacular of his State, and which, from sheer force of habit, continued in use in the Federal City. To the retention of this nickname, however, his bride strongly objected, and so persistently did she correct all who misscalled the name, that the Congressman’s old friends, though publicly conforming to the lady’s wishes, smiled in private, and among themselves clung fondly to the old pronunciation.
This little contention was still in operation when an interesting event took place in the Keitt household. On the evening of the happy day, meeting Senator Hammond at dinner, he asked me casually, “What’s the news?”
“Why! haven’t you heard?” I replied. “Kitt has a kitten!”
My poor joke, so unexpected, exploded Senator Hammond’s gravity immediately. So well did the sally please him, that it speedily became an on dit, alas! to the passing annoyance of the happy young pair. Mrs. Keitt was one of Washington’s most admired young matrons, a graceful hostess, and famous for her social enterprise. It was she who introduced in the capital the fashion of sending out birth-cards to announce the arrival of infants.
I have spoken of Barton Key. He was a widower during my acquaintance with him, and I recall him as the handsomest man in all Washington society. In appearance an Apollo, he was a prominent figure at all the principal fashionable functions; a graceful dancer, he was a favourite with every hostess of the day. Clever at repartee, a generous and pleasing man, who was even more popular with other men than with women, his death at the hands of Daniel E. Sickles in February, 1859, stirred Washington to its centre.
I remember very vividly how, one Sunday morning, as I was putting the finishing touches to my toilette for attendance at St. John’s, Senator Clay burst into the room, his face pale and awe-stricken, exclaiming: “A horrible, horrible thing has happened, Virginia! Sickles, who for a year or more has forced his wife into Barton’s company, has killed Key; killed him most brutally, while he was unarmed!”
This untimely death of a man allied to a famous family, and himself so generally admired, caused a remarkable and long depression in society. Yet, so strenuous were the political needs of the time, and so tragic and compelling the demands of national strife now centred in Washington, that the horrible calamity entailed no punishment upon its author.
Only the Thursday before the tragedy, in company with Mrs. Pugh and Miss Acklin, I called upon the unfortunate cause of the tragedy. She was so young and fair, at most not more than twenty-two years of age, and so naïve, that none of the party of which I was one was willing to harbour a belief in the rumours which were then in circulation. On that, Mrs. Sickles’ last “at home,” her parlours were thronged, one-half of the hundred or more guests present being men. The girl hostess was even more lovely than usual. Of an Italian type in feature and colouring (she was the daughter of a famous musician, Baggioli, of New York), Mrs. Sickles was dressed in a painted muslin gown, filmy and graceful, on which the outlines of the crocus might be traced. A broad sash of brocaded ribbon girdled her slender waist, and in her dark hair were yellow crocus blooms. I never saw her again, but the picture of which she formed the centre was so fair and innocent, it fixed itself permanently upon my mind.
When my husband first entered the United States Senate, in 1853, there were not more than four men in that body who wore moustaches. Indeed, the prejudice against them was great. I remember a moustached gallant who called upon me on one occasion, to whom my aunt greatly objected, for, she said, referring to the growth upon his upper lip, “No one but Tennessee hog-drivers and brigands dress like that!” When Mr. Clay withdrew from the Senate, in January, 1861, there were scarcely as many without them. Side and chin whiskers were worn, if any, though the front of the chin was seldom covered. Many of the most distinguished statesmen wore their faces as smoothly shaven as the Romans of old. Until late in the fifties, men, particularly legislators, wore their hair rather long, a fashion which has been followed more or less continuously among statesmen and scholars since wigs were abandoned.
This decade was also notable as that in which the first radical efforts of women were made toward suffrage, and the “Bloomer” costume became conspicuous in the capital. “Bloomers are ‘most as plenty as blackberries,’” I wrote home late in ’6, “and generally are followed by a long train of little boys and ditto ‘niggers’!”