WASHINGTON is the court city of the American Republic. It is the only place in the United States where the people make society a business. Social duties in it are as imperative as political and governmental duties, and the old as well as the young take part in its receptions, calling, and dinner-giving. Gray-haired ladies vie with blushing girls in passing the compliments of the day, and the aged statesman or the retired general makes the round of calls with the same avidity as does the young lieutenant or the Senator’s son, who has yet to show his manhood by the down upon his upper lip. In no other city of the United States will you meet so many brilliant people in so short a time, and no other social gatherings show to such an extent the representatives of statesmanship, art, literature, and culture.
The receptions at the White House bring together some of the most noted of all the great nations of the globe. The Chinese Minister, in his gorgeous silks, looks out of his almond eyes at the dark-faced, black-bearded diplomat from Turkey, who appears with sword at his side, and a red fez skull-cap covering his black hair. The polished French Minister talks in a friendly way with the straight, stiff representative of the Kaiser of Germany; and the fat Coreans, with their sugar-loaf hats tied on by strings of beads under their chins, wabble about like so many fantastically-dressed old women, chatting to such of the Chinese and Japanese legations as they may meet, and looking with eyes of wonder at the beautiful ladies of the American Court. The Italian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Portuguese, and Swiss governments, the little kingdom of Greece, and the great empire of England, have here their representatives in titled men and women, and the American kings and queens are here en masse, and on a par with them.
The old saying that in America every woman is a queen and every man a king, nowhere holds so good as here, and among the crowd which assembles in the great East Room of the White House at a President’s reception are all classes and conditions of men and women. Here the golden calf is less worshiped than in others of our cities, and here brains, deeds, and official positions are more courted than blue blood or millions. Our nation is a democracy, and its court is democratic. It could not be otherwise where the changes take place so rapidly, and where the social leaders change with every Administration. The school-teacher of to-day becomes the mistress of the White House to-morrow, and she is succeeded a year later by a school-girl, who captures the hearts of statesmen and of generals, and who ranks as the most charming of our First Ladies of the Land.
This is, indeed, the story of Mrs. Cleveland. She is, if anything, more popular now than when she first came into the White House nearly two years ago. I watched her as she stood at the first presidential reception after her marriage, when all fashionable Washington came by card invitation to shake hands with and to criticise her. She received all so cordially and with such unaffected grace that she captured the social world on the first night of her campaign, and since then her popularity has steadily grown. She looks a little more matured now than she did at her marriage, but she is fully as handsome and as winning. I do not think it right to call Mrs. Cleveland surpassingly beautiful. She appeared in Washington before any one outside of the White House thought of her marriage, and she did not attract attention in this respect. She is fine-looking. Her features are too noble and dignified to be characterized by the diminutive title of “pretty.” The word “handsome” better expresses it, and if the adjectives “strikingly graceful” and “remarkably womanly” be added, they convey a better idea of Mrs. Cleveland as she is.
She has a fine form. She is tall and straight and well-rounded, without being plump. She carries herself well, and acts in a perfectly natural manner. She gauges her actions by the standard of common sense and a kind heart, and she is, as one of the leading senatorial ladies expresses it, a noble type of American womanhood.
“Mrs. Cleveland,” says this lady, “would have made a good wife for a poor man, and the same elements which have made her the most popular mistress the White House has had for many years, would have adorned a cottage and have brightened the life of a day-laborer. She is, above all, a true woman, and I have noted that the domestic affairs of the White House are better managed now than they have been during the last four Administrations.”
Mrs. Cleveland’s social duties are greater than is generally supposed. She assists the President at his state receptions, and sits opposite him at the state dinners. She is considered the social head of the Administration, and she is, indeed, the mistress of the White House. The gorgeous floral decorations of the State Reception Rooms are subject to her approval; and she stands with the President whenever he receives his guests in a social way.
The state dinners of the President are perhaps the grandest social affairs of the American Court, and to be invited to the White House to one of these is the social event of a lifetime. The White House blazes with light. The Marine Band plays in the vestibule. The great East Room becomes a tropical flower garden, and its white and silver pillars are wreathed with garlands and hung with flower shields, upon which have been woven American eagles of pinks and roses. It is here that Mrs. Cleveland stands with the President, and receives the thirty or fifty guests who have been invited to the dinner, and it is from here that she is escorted to the state dining-room by the most honored of the party. This dining-room sparkles with cut glass and silver, and the dinner of many courses is gotten up by French cooks. The daintiest of viands are washed down with rare old wines, and a number of glasses stand by each plate save that of Mrs. Cleveland. The President’s wife has, as far as her own example goes, espoused the cause of temperance. She drinks nothing at these dinners but Apollinaris water, and, though she does not, as did Mrs. Hayes, endeavor to regulate the tastes of others, she does not touch wine herself.
At her state receptions she shakes hands with from three to five thousand persons on every such night during the season. It is said that she has shaken hands with more than one hundred thousand people during the past winter. She is a good hand-shaker, and each caller receives a warm grasp and a decided pressure. In most cases this is accompanied by a cordial smile, and those who have the pleasure of chatting with Mrs. Cleveland for a short time become her friends. There is no opportunity for such chats at these state receptions, but Mrs. Cleveland gives audience several times weekly to people from all parts of the country who wish to meet the President’s wife, and at her Saturday afternoons she receives the general public. In her conversation she shows great tact, making her visitors feel at home, and here she is at her best. She quickly grasps, and almost intuitively, the subjects that are of interest to her callers. She dispels their embarrassment, and draws them out, as it were. She is a good talker, and she keeps up her reading amid the demands of society.
Since her marriage Mrs. Cleveland has joined the church, and she took her first sacrament with the modest Presbyterian congregation which is presided over by the Reverend Byron Sunderland. She goes to church regularly, and the storm and the slush do not keep her at home. She sings with the congregation, and when the contribution box is passed around, she drops something into it. She has attended some of the church socials, and she is ever trying to do something to make others happy. She dresses for church with excellent taste, and there is nothing about her air which would lead to the supposition that she thought herself better than the remainder of the congregation.
Mrs. Cleveland is, however, not a religious enthusiast. She is liberal in her views, and she is full of life. She enjoys life, and likes to walk, ride and drive. She is not snobbish. She does her own shopping, and you may often see her in the stores picking out this and that article for her own use or that of her friends. There is nothing supercilious in her treatment of the clerks, and she is in her daily life the same kind woman that she appears at her state receptions. She is fond of the country, and her home, Oak View, with its magnificent stretch of scenery of river, hill, and valley, is one of the prettiest country estates about Washington. In it Mrs. Cleveland passes most of her summer months, and here she receives the hundreds of friends who come to visit her and the President. Within a stone’s throw of Oak View is Grasslands, the country-seat of Secretary Whitney, and Mrs. Secretary Whitney and Mrs. Cleveland are thus neighbors here as they are in the city. Mrs. Cleveland does no calling. She is not expected to return calls, and she can refuse all invitations to dinner.
It is different with the Cabinet ladies. They return all calls received, either in person or by card, and it is not uncommon for a Cabinet lady to receive from three to five hundred in a single afternoon. Mrs. Secretary Whitney is the most generous entertainer of the Cabinet circle. Her grand reception-room reminds one of the salons of Versailles or Fontainebleau. Its walls are covered with brocaded silk, made in France to order, after the styles of Louis XVI., and old masters and Gobelin tapestries look from them down upon you. The dining-room with walls of silk of a quality so fine that it would honor a diplomatic reception at the White House as a lady’s dress, has tables loaded with the best productions of the French cuisine, and the succulent terrapin is washed down with the dryest of French champagne. The center of the house, however, and its greatest attraction, is its accomplished mistress, Mrs. Flora Payne Whitney. Plump, blue-eyed and cultured, she dispenses her hospitalities so gracefully that there is never a jar. She has many of the qualities of Dolly Madison, and she has the happy faculty of putting embarrassed people at ease at once. She sees everything that is going on in her parlors, without appearing to see anything, and she entertains people because she likes to do so. With an income so large that its yearly amount equals a fortune, she believes in enjoying her money rather than hoarding it, and she uses it to make others happy. Very charitable, she feels that she owes a duty to society in her present condition, and she has made her home the social center of the Capitol.
Mrs. Whitney’s country home at Grasslands is entirely furnished with antique furniture. It is kept open winter and summer, and Priscilla, the colored maiden in charge, serves refreshments to all who call. The society belles and beaux of Washington go to Grasslands in parties, and it is from here that the tally-ho coach-riders start, and many a fox-hunt or paper-chase dates here its beginning. Mrs. Whitney is a good wife and mother as well as a social leader. She watches carefully the health of her handsome husband, and she does not tire of talking of her baby Dorothy, her bright boy at school, or her little daughter whom she very sensibly keeps out of society.
Mrs. Secretary Endicott is also a very womanly woman. She is tall, slender, and her face is full of culture. She does not entertain to the extent that Mrs. Whitney does, and I do not think that she is so fond of society. Her home in Washington is the fine pressed brick house of Queen Anne architecture which Mr. George H. Pendleton built for himself when he was in the Senate. It is a beautiful home. The drawing-room walls are hung with pale blue momie cloth, and the wood is painted white. A red-faced butler in livery, who looks as though he had been transplanted from England, throws open the wide front door with a flourish when you call, and the rooms of the ground floor are so arranged that three rooms can be thrown into one. Mrs. Endicott is a woman of reading. She is modest and retiring in her disposition, and she is very much opposed to having herself quoted on society matters in the newspapers. She comes of one of the old families of New England, and she was a daughter of George Peabody, of Salem, and is of the same family as the bachelor millionaire philanthropist. She gives many receptions, and her parlors are always crowded on Wednesdays during the social season.
Another Cabinet lady who ranks as one of the queens of Washington society is the wife of the Secretary of the Treasury, Mrs. Fairchild. Her house has been one of the largest of those open at Washington during the season of 1888. It is an immense square brick mansion with two tiers of glass rooms running along the southern side, and with wide halls and generous parlors.
Mrs. Fairchild is of medium height, and rather slender than plump. She is a blonde, with brown eyes and regular features. She is well read, and she is much interested in Dutch literature. She comes of an old Dutch family, and her father was Ledyard Lincklaen, and he was of the same family as that of the noted traveler who circumnavigated the globe with Captain John Cook, and who was with him when he was killed by the cannibals of the Sandwich Islands. Mrs. Fairchild’s mother is a sister of the late Horatio Seymour, and she is thus related to the late Roscoe Conkling by marriage. The Ledyard family was connected with the Seymour family by several marriages before the Revolution, and the family was one of the oldest in New York State.
Secretary Bayard’s house has been closed for a year owing to the death of his daughter Catherine, who was so noted for her accomplishments, literary, social, and equestrian. This was followed by the death of Mrs. Bayard, and during the whole of the last season no receptions were given. The social season of 1888 demanded, on account of the Fisheries Treaty Commission, entertainment on the part of the Secretary of State, and Secretary Bayard’s eldest daughter, Miss Annie Frances Bayard, became its hostess, and took her mother’s place in the Cabinet circle. Miss Bayard is tall, dark, slender, and pleasant looking. She has stood beside Mrs. Cleveland at her state receptions as the leading Cabinet lady, by virtue of her position, and, dressed in mourning, has been presented to the people as they passed through. She has won many friends as her father’s companion, and her receptions have been more democratic than those of the family in the past. She is a charming girl, well educated, and cultured. She is said to be one of the finest horsewomen in Washington.
Mrs. Vilas has been ill during the whole of the past social season. She is, however, one of our society queens, and is called by many the handsomest of the wives of the Secretaries. She has a charming womanly face, beautiful dark hair, and a bright eye. She is a good talker, and is quite domestic in her tastes. Mrs. Cleveland and she are great friends, and Mrs. Cleveland has spent much of her leisure during the past season at the home of Mrs. Vilas. Mrs. Vilas is a devout Episcopalian, and when well she may be seen with her whole family on Sunday at one of the churches of this denomination in Washington. She is very well read, and keeps up with the current literature of the day. She lives very nicely at Washington, in the fashionable northwest part of the city, and her home at Madison, Wisconsin, is one of the finest of the Northwest. It slopes down to beautiful Lake Mendota, upon which our Secretary of the Interior and his wife fish during their summer vacations. Mrs. Vilas’ maiden name was Annie Fox, and her father was one of the pioneer physicians of Wisconsin. While she was attending school at Madison she met William F. Vilas, who was a promising young attorney there, and she married him in 1866. The two have three children now living, and their home is one of the happy ones of Washington.
A very important part of the Presidential circle at Washington is the family of Mr. Cleveland’s Private Secretary, Colonel Daniel Lamont. Colonel Lamont stands so close to the President that he has as much influence as a Cabinet officer. His pretty babies play about the White House grounds, and his wife is a close friend of Mrs. Cleveland. She is an almost daily visitor at the White House, and she is one of the most popular women of Washington society. A little over medium height, she has a handsome womanly face with dark eyes and hair. She dresses well, and her receptions are among the most largely attended of the season. Her personal tastes are, I doubt not, rather domestic than social, though she maintains her part in the social world. She is very fond of her children, and her two little flaxen-haired daughters might be called the babies of the White House, for they are great favorites with the President and his wife. Mrs. Lamont lives in a fine three-story brick house near that of Secretary Whitney, and not far from the White House.
The Supreme Court circle is a very important element of Washington society. The Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed for life, and their salaries of ten thousand dollars a year give them ample funds for entertaining. They have no fear as to a change in the Administration, and while they make up a part of the general Court society, they have a certain standing of their own, and have not the transient nature of the other elements of Washington life. It has long been a question as to whether the wives of the Justices of the Supreme Court have a social precedence over the Senators’ wives, and also as to whether the wives of the Senators or those of the Cabinet Ministers should make the first call. Nearly all of the Cabinet ladies, however, have told me that they believed that the Senators’ wives should be first called upon by them, and the Senators’ wives, as a rule, make the first call upon the wives of the Justices.
Mrs. Waite presides over the house of the Chief-Justice with dignity, and her daughter Annie is one of the bright young ladies of the Capital. Mrs. Justice Miller is one of the authorities of the ladies of the Supreme Court on social questions, and Judge Miller, as the senior member of the Court, is looked upon as the patriarch of the body. Mrs. Justice Field is noted for her social entertainments and dinners, and Mrs. Harlan is one of the bright women of Washington society. Mrs. Stanley Matthews has entertained a great deal during the past season. She has a magnificent house, with a number of large parlors on the ground floor which can be thrown into one, and this is located in the heart of fashionable Washington. The family is especially fond of music, and their musicales have been very enjoyable affairs. There is a big pipe organ in one of their parlors, and this, with a great harp, a piano, and other instruments, enables them to have fine concerts. Mrs. Matthews is tall and fine-looking. She has bright eyes, a plump face, and she is a very bright talker.
The leading lady of the Army circle is Mrs. Sheridan, and she is, as her picture will show, one of the most beautiful of all the Washington women. Straight, well rounded, and fine looking, her face might have been that of an ideal portrait. Its features are regular and refined, and a great mass of dark brown hair is rolled up on the back of her shapely head. As wife of the General of the Army, she gives her regular receptions to the public, and she has on some days as many as three hundred callers. General Sheridan’s house is a comfortable three-story brick, facing Rhode Island Avenue. It is well furnished, and the stuffed heads of deer and other animals shot by the General look down upon you from its walls. All around are trophies and mementos which Mrs. Sheridan and the General have picked up here and there over the world, and it is indeed a very homelike home. Mrs. Sheridan is noted for her good sense. A friend of hers tells me that when she first came to Washington she was surprised at the silly remarks made by some women at receptions, and she decided that she would think before she spoke, and if she had nothing to say she would remain silent. She persevered, says this lady, in this determination, and she is one of our society ladies who always talk well. She is a good mother and a good wife, and she takes the greatest care in the education of her children. She and the General are wrapped up in their family, and the four little ones, the three girls and “Little Phil, Junior,” who make up the family circle, are as bright, intelligent, and well-bred children as you will find at the Capital. They all speak French, and they are getting a good start on the road to a finished education, while at the same time they are not having the boyhood and girlhood squeezed out of them by being overtasked at their books. Mrs. Sheridan is the daughter of General Rucker. She is one of the leading spirits in the charitable enterprises of the Capital, and she is a devout Catholic.
Senator John J. Ingalls, the President pro tem. of the Senate, occupies the position of acting Vice-President of the United States, and his wife, as such, leads the Senatorial circle. Mrs. Ingalls is a stately, handsome woman with bright blue eyes and dark hair, which is now sprinkled with gray. Her cheeks, however, are as rosy almost as those of her débutante daughter, and she does not look like a mother of eleven children. Mrs. Ingalls lives in a large white brick house near the Capitol. She has held very large receptions during the social season of the present year, and she has the happy faculty of making her guests feel perfectly at home. She is, though a very womanly woman, possessed of strong views upon most matters of public interest. She is thoroughly republican in her sympathies, and she thinks that the greatest man in the United States is Senator John J. Ingalls.
Mrs. Ingalls comes of one of the oldest families in New England. She is a lineal descendant of Peregrine White, who was the first child of English parentage born in New England, and who was born on the Mayflower in the harbor of Cape Cod, November 20, 1620. Mrs. Ingalls’ father was named Chesebrough.
The ladies of the Senate have not entertained largely as a rule during the social season of the past winter, and the loss of Mrs. Logan’s society leadership has been greatly felt. Before the General died, her beautiful home, Calumet Place, was a favorite resort of both ladies and gentlemen, and she was a sort of social mother to the young ladies of Washington society. Every one felt at home at Mrs. Logan’s. She never forgot a face, and she seldom forgot a name, and she was at the head of all charitable and social movements. Since her husband’s death she has not gone into society, and her life upon the hills above Washington has been most retired.
The two leading senatorial ladies of the winter have been Mrs. Palmer, of Michigan, and Mrs. Stanford, of California. Both have grand houses at Washington, and both have entertained profusely. Mrs. Palmer is a bright-eyed, pretty, petite woman who dresses exquisitely, and who has become one of the most popular ladies of Washington society. A Supreme Court Justice’s daughter remarked at one of her receptions this winter that one was always sure of a good time at Mrs. Palmer’s, for she knew how to entertain, and did it without overdoing it.
This is indeed one of the charms of Mrs. Palmer’s entertainments. She is perfectly natural, and she lets her guests think they are taking care of themselves. Her magnificent paintings aid her in this, and when she introduced Mrs. Dickinson to her friends she had fully one thousand people inside the walls of the Palmer mansion within one evening.
Mrs. Palmer is a descendant of Governor Winslow of Vermont. Her father was wealthy, and Mrs. Palmer has a fortune in her own right, in addition to that owned by her husband. She is a woman of broad culture and wide travel. She reads French fluently, and she thinks that the prettiest place in the whole world is the log-cabin home which her husband has built on his country estate near Detroit. This log cabin cost twelve thousand dollars to build. A beautiful artificial lake stretches out in front of it, and at its back is a forest as dense as the wilds of pioneer days. Mrs. Palmer prefers this home to her Washington house, and its country life pleases her more than the dining and calling of Washington society.
I wish I could introduce you into Mrs. Stanford’s Washington home. Upon its walls hang the finest of paintings. Its portières are brocaded in gold in figures that a queen might envy, and beautiful embroideries, rare curios, and wonderful things gathered from the four corners of the earth look at you from every side. I wish you could see her diamonds, each set of which is worth many times the value of a king’s ransom, and four sets of which, it is stated in the newspapers, cost six hundred thousand dollars. I wish I could paint her magnificent costumes in which she appears at the White House receptions, and could at the same time show you the unostentatious democracy and kindness of heart which she displays toward all with whom she comes in contact. She is a tall, stately lady, well formed and well rounded. She believes in doing good with her money, and her acts of charity are more numerous than the world is aware of. It was a kind thing to give one of her handsomest dinners to the boy pages of the United States Senate, and it is a wise charity which she and her husband are engaged in—the giving of twenty millions of dollars to found a University in California. Neither she nor Senator Stanford publish their charities, and I hear of kind things every day which they do for deserving people.
Mrs. Stanford’s receptions are largely attended, and during the past winter she has given many fine dinners. At one of her receptions General Grant’s widow received with her, and I saw the eyes of white-haired generals fill with tears as they shook the hands of the two ladies. Mrs. Stanford’s greatest loss has been that of her son, who, extraordinarily bright, had almost reached manhood when he died of Roman fever while traveling in Europe. His portrait has the honored place in the Stanford drawing-room, and the fresh flowers which are always wreathed around it bring the hearts of every motherly caller closer to Mrs. Stanford as it meets their eyes.
Mrs. Sherman has always entertained largely in Washington, and her social career has been longer, perhaps, than that of any other Senator’s wife. She has spent her winters at the Capital during the past thirty-three years, and she came here first with her husband when he was elected to Congress in 1854. This was in the Pierce Administration. She saw Buchanan rise and fall, attended the levees of Harriet Lane, dined at the White House with President Lincoln, was one of the leading society ladies during the Grant Administration, and was one of the chief entertainers during the rule of President Hayes, when her husband was Secretary of the Treasury. She received with Mrs. McElroy, and, as wife of the acting Vice-President, her husband being President pro tem. of the Senate, she was last year the leading lady of the senatorial circle. Still, Mrs. Sherman is a comparatively young woman. She is tall and fine looking. Her rosy face is free from wrinkles, and her brown hair has few gray strands. She is noted as a housewife as well as a society leader, and when at her home in Mansfield, Ohio, she superintends all the domestic arrangements, even to the turning the Jersey cream into butter, and seeing that the gardener puts in the seeds at the proper time. She is a well-educated woman, and she speaks and reads French as well as she does English. She is fond of the society of young people, and frequently has her Washington house full of guests. This house is on Franklin Square, one of the fashionable parts of the Capital. When Senator Sherman bought the land years ago this square, which is now one of the finest of Washington, was a cow pasture and ball ground. Mrs. Sherman is the daughter of a noted Ohio judge, and Senator Sherman was a young lawyer when he proposed and was accepted. The two have the happiest of married lives, and they form one of the striking couples of our National Capital.
Mrs. Sherman’s niece, Mrs. Don Cameron, was living with her aunt when she made the acquaintance of her husband. She was then one of the prettiest girls of Washington society, and was, I think, in her teens; she does not look much older now, and she is one of the beauties of Washington. Tall, slender, with a fine, pure face, sparkling blue eyes, she is a bright conversationalist. She is a good linguist, and is very fond of and popular in the diplomatic circles of the Capital. Her home in Washington is the old Ogle Taylor mansion, which has for sixty years and more been one of the leading houses in a society way. It is a great square brick, painted now a cream yellow, and having an iron balcony over its English basement entrance. It was in this house that General Winfield Scott was dining one day when a furious hail-storm came up, and the hailstones, as large as pigeon eggs, broke in the front windows. The servants brought in these stones and showed them to the party at the dinner table. Scott took several of them and dropped them into his champagne, cooling it, as he said, with “celestial ice.”
Senator Hawley has brought a new wife to Washington, and Mrs. Hawley has already made many friends with her English accent and her common-sense English ways. She is a finely-educated Englishwoman, and she was acting as a hospital nurse when the bluff General Hawley fell in love with her and married her. She is a woman of literary tastes, and she gave a reception to the authors of the United States during their readings in Washington for the benefit of the International Copyright League.
There are many other bright ladies of the Senate, and the accomplished wives of the Representatives of the House could rightly bear the name of legion. The wife of the Speaker, Mr. Carlisle, is a tall, Juno-like lady, with blonde hair and a dignified air. She was during the last days of President Arthur the First Lady of the Land, and she has long been a leading figure in Washington society. Her receptions at the Riggs House are largely attended, and she gives many dainty teas during the season. She is very much wrapped up in the Speaker, and is a woman of domestic tastes. She is the leader of the social circle of the House of Representatives, and the wives of the other members esteem it a favor to be asked to receive with Mrs. Carlisle.
It is a mooted question as to what position the Speaker’s wife now holds in Washington society. Before the passage of the Presidential Succession bill, the Speaker was third in line of succession to the Presidency, and in case the President and Vice-President died, he would have become President. The passage of this bill makes him simply the Speaker, and his wife is the leading lady of the ladies of the House. There are a number of people who, affected by foreign customs, believe that the precedence of ladies should be in the line of the presidential possibilities of their husbands. These ladies theorize thus: The President’s wife is the first lady of the land, and, according to reason, the social standing of those beneath her should be more or less important as they have more or less possibility of becoming mistress of the White House. On this basis, the wife of the Vice-President ranks next to the wife of the President, and, according to the new law passed upon the death of Mr. Hendricks, vesting the presidential succession in the members of the Cabinet, the wives of these members should rank next to Mrs. Cleveland in the order of the places which the Secretaries hold in the line of succession.
Another theory is—and this is the generally accepted one—that the wives of the Senators, as representatives of sovereign States, stand next to Mrs. Cleveland, and that the Cabinet ladies are expected to make the first call. The Cabinet ladies have acknowledged this right, and have acted in accordance with it. It is customary for the ladies of the Senate to make the first call upon the wives of the Justices of the Supreme Court, though there are frequent discussions as to whether the Justices’ wives can rightly claim this precedence. Strangers in Washington always make the first call upon people holding official positions, and also upon old residents, and the wives of bureau officers call upon the wives of their husbands’ chiefs.
In the diplomatic circle there are many bright women, and one of these during the past few years has been a Japanese lady. Madame Kuki, the wife of the Japanese Minister, who was but lately recalled, was, I am told, as pretty a woman as Japan can produce. She was a petite body with a face the color of a lemon, with bright, dark, almond-shaped eyes, and with glossy hair as black as a raven’s wing. She wore the dress of an American belle, and her costumes came from Worth. She had diamonds in her ears, and she learned to speak English while she was in Washington. The Minister asked for his recall because the Washington climate did not agree with her health, and she now presides over his palace at Tokio, Japan.
During the past winter, Madame Romero, the wife of the Mexican Minister, has opened the new building of the Mexican Legation to the public, and her receptions have been the most generally attended of those of the diplomats. This new Legation building is one of the finest houses of Washington, and Madame Romero presides over it with grace. She is a New England girl, and is a descendant of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and of John Hart, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. She is a bright-eyed blonde, dignified and accomplished, and it is largely due to her that the Mexican Legation has become one of the most popular in Washington.
Such, in brief, is a rapid résumé of the leading ladies of the American court. The ladies spoken of by no means comprise all of the leading ladies of Washington society. Representative women have been taken in every instance, and the rapidly growing circle of ladies not in official life has not been mentioned. Among these are some of the brightest minds and cleverest tongues of our National Capital. The old Washingtonians, who have for generations mixed with the best circles of the Administrations as they have come and gone, have many bright old ladies who will entertain you by the hour with the doings of generations ago. Their daughters’ daughters, well educated, bright and beautiful girls, will talk to you in French, English and Spanish, and this circle has been considered one of the most exclusive of Washington. Then there is the semi-literary society, made up of littérateurs who do their work at Washington, and among these are such men as Colonel John Hay, the author, with Nicolay, of the Life of Lincoln; Librarian Spofford, whose daughter is as bright as her father; and the number of bright women who adorn the homes of the scientists of the Smithsonian Institution and of the National Observatory. Then there are the ladies of wealth, culture and travel who make Washington their winter home, and those who come here to enjoy its social advantages.
