Orleans under care of her “beau.” It by no means follows that the young lady marries the said party; he is merely a temporary social convenience, a purveyor of bouquets, favoured partner, and trusted coachman. The old people play a very kindly part, though perhaps there is on their side too entire an abnegation of authority. One lady said to me, “I guess my Narcissa is a right good girl, she always asks me to the parlour the night she receives.” They would on no account interfere to spoil the sports and frolics of the younger members of the society—or, as they emphatically express it by an idiom little known, “put a spider in their dumpling.” Yet all this unshackled liberty produces no bad effects; never did I hear a breath of scandal assail the maidens of Washington. Once married, the girls—particularly the Southern ones—settle into grave and staid matrons, household cares and duties supplant those of society, and, unless the husband holds some public office necessitating hospitality, the gay belle of a few seasons ago becomes a most “domestic” character, and looks back on her past gaiety and whirl of excitement without regret. In Baltimore, marriage almost excludes from society the flattered beauty of yesterday, transformed into Mrs. Greenleaf Parrott; or Mrs. Powhattan Ellis finds herself deserted, and gives up a society where she has no longer a place.
The American type is no longer Anglo-Saxon: it has lost the ruddy freshness, the race is smaller, more fragile; what is in the men meagreness and punyness, becomes littleness and delicate outline in the women. Their figures are very graceful, their complexion pure alabaster, their eyes large and expressive, their mouths well shaped. Classical outline of features is seldom or never seen; their voices are their only defects; perhaps it may be said, as in Gay’s fable, “the smallest speck is seen in snow.” I think especially of one “vision of delight,” whose short life was cut short by cold caught at her first ball. Only child and daughter of Captain Dahlgren, the American Armstrong, her sad fate thrilled every heart with sorrow. On the whole, the social condition of Washington is, or was, simpler than in England—to my mind, happier. You say frivolous—granted; but compare frivolity with frivolity, and is it worse than a London season?
Balls and routs, which are almost the same in every capital, had there an element of originality, as the men came frequently in morning coats and checked trousers, and an Orson, such as “Sam Houston,” is not to be seen every day. His adopted daughter, the child of a Cherokee or Sioux chief, was also unique in her way. Like the immortal Miss Schwartz, in “Vanity Fair,” her hands sprawled in her amber lap. Her large fierce eyes roamed restlessly among the crowd of dancers, and her terpsichorean performances betrayed the wild energy of a half-civilised savage. In the supper-room a young lady might be seen eating gigantic oysters off the same plate as her partner; and after the departure of her guests the careful housewife had to mourn the impressions left by wet ice-plates on her rose-coloured damask lounges.
But there is one entertainment which can be seen nowhere else—a Presidential Reception. Such a motley crew throng in at the door,—rowdies, cab drivers, belles, beaux; diplomates, like the new discovered fossil, half golden-scaled lizard, half-crested bird; last, not least, a troop of Red Indians in war paint, with their best necklaces of bears’ claws, come to do honour to their great father. Having first shaken hands with the President, who stood in the centre of a large saloon, we waited to watch the behaviour of the crowd. One and all insisted on vigorously shaking the poor old President’s hand, holding up afterwards their dirty brats to be kissed. The next day the President had rheumatism in his arm, and no wonder.
MY LITTLE PICTURE.
I have sent you a little picture
Of a face you used to know,
And I ask you to guard and keep it
For the sake of years ago.
As a token of Peace and Friendship,
I have sent it across the sea,
To ask if, as I have forgiven,
You too have forgiven me.
Not to call up the love that is gone,
Or to bring back the sad dead past;
Or the blossoms of hope that faded
In the biting wintry blast.
Not to recall the tight grasp of hands
That told what lips could not speak;
Or the long last kiss that gave “Farewell,”
And branded it on the cheek.
Nor to tell of a weary, wasting pain,
The wish for a well-loved face,
The useless longing to fill once more
The heart’s cold vacant place.
The sobs o’er the love that passed away,
The cry of woe’s keen smart,
That echoed, unanswer’d and unheard,
Through the chambers of the heart.
But to tell of bygones forgotten,
And bid thee pardon the past,
And take from the hand I offer
Peace and friendship at the last.
It will look at you gently and kindly,
And bid you be happy again,
And tell you to bury the wretched years
Of our passion and our pain.
It will tell that though life may be weary,
There are bright days for us still,
If we live with a true and honest heart,
And a firm and upright will.
And through the dim coming future,
As the great years roll along,
It will whisper some sweet words of comfort,
And sing you a cheering song.
It will ask you to look far onward,
To the land where spirits meet,
To the calm for the weary heart-ache,
And the rest for weary feet.
Then take care of my little picture,
And do not cast it away;
’Tis the face that you used to look at
And love in a bygone day.
