Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century

by Virginia Tatnall Peacock

From Dr. Park's Emily went to Madame Canda's French school on Chestnut Street. Her musical education, which continued till the time of her marriage, was conducted by Mr. Matthew, Mademoiselle Berthien, and Mr. Ostinelli.

The long acquaintance existing for generations among the families and individuals who made up the Boston society of Emily Marshall's day, had instilled into it a spirit of delightful simplicity. A traveller from Great Britain who visited the United States early in the century declared that all the people of the Bay State called one another by their Christian names.

Dinner-parties were daylight affairs, beginning usually not later than four o'clock. The dinner was served in courses, beginning with soup, which was followed frequently by a corn-meal pudding designed for the avowed purpose of mitigating the appetite before the introduction of the roast, which was carved upon the table by the host, and served with Madeira, port, or sherry.

One of Harrison Gray Otis's favorite after-dinner stories, which he told in his own matchless way, was of the first appearance of champagne in Boston. It was introduced by the French consul, the unsophisticated Bostonians partaking of the palatable beverage with all the confidence which they were wont to bestow upon cider, of which they thought it to be only a mild form and of foreign extraction.

From eight until twelve were the hours for balls, at which girls out for the first time wore white book-muslin frocks, the belles of a season or more appearing in tarleton, and dancing out a pair of slippers in an evening, slippers then being made with paper soles and no heels. Light refreshments, such as nuts, raisins, or oysters, were served at these evening affairs, and were passed on trays, there being no elaborately set supper-tables.

The five-o'clock tea, now so prevalent throughout the country, made its way first into Boston and New York, where it appeared in all its native English simplicity.

From England also came actors bringing us our first conception of Shakespearean characters, Cooper interpreting Hamlet to a Boston audience in 1807, the year Emily Marshall was born, followed by Wallack, Edmund Kean, Charles Matthews, the comedian, and Phillips, with his infectious songs, the echoes of such refrains as "Though love is warm awhile" floating long after from drawing-room, nursery, and kitchen.

From the mother-country came our literature of the early century, Scott, the new writer, being much read, also Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, and Shakespeare always.

Boston early achieved her reputation as a patroness of letters. At her noted seat of learning not only the youth of America, but a number of foreigners were even then educated. Many an American boy who claimed Harvard as his Alma Mater had journeyed to her sacred precincts, when the country was in its teens, all the way from the wilds of Kentucky on horseback.

Commencement day was a State holiday, when the flower of Massachusetts womanhood united to do honor to the occasion. Many a man went thence on his way with a face enshrined in his memory that he had not found in his Virgil or his Homer, though nothing more perfect graced those classic pages than the face of Emily Marshall.