I have always thought that New York's Centennial celebration in 1889 was largely responsible for the patriotic societies of men and women which have swept the country.

Everybody was willing at the time of the celebration to sit for two entire days on rude seats under the April sun while the evidences of the power and achievements of our great country passed in review before us.

We remember the military pomp of the first day, the dignified carriage of the governors of our United States as they bared their heads in gracious acknowledgment of the cheers of the people, the triumphant blare of trumpets, the stirring strains of martial music, the glitter of bayonets, the long, living line, which was only a small part of the nation's bulwark against its possible foes.

Then the schools and colleges, then the gorgeous civic parade and the illustrations and representatives of the trades, occupations, and nationalities that have found a home in our broad land.

All this passed before us and is but dimly remembered. No permanent impression was made by the great display. Little remains except the recollection that there were millions and millions of people lining our pavements, that the show was hardly adequate to the expectation of these people, that it was a time of many mistakes and much discomfort. 419 But this pageant was not all of the Centennial. A number of men of taste and feeling had conceived the happy idea of collecting revolutionary relics, papers, and portraits, and exhibiting them in the Metropolitan Opera House.

We expected to be interested in these, and some of us gave time and thought to the task of making the collection as choice as possible. But we were unprepared for the effect of the exhibition upon the minds of the beholders. We filed along the galleries of the Metropolitan Opera House and mused over the papers of "The Cincinnati"; the books, few and well worn; pocket dictionaries with bookplates, candlesticks that had held the tallow dips in difficult times; silver caddies that had done duty in the "tea-cup times"; pewter platters that had served many a frugal meal at Valley Forge; the curtains that had shaded the bed of Lafayette; the piano-cover embroidered by sweet Nellie Custis; pathetic empty garments, the silken coat of George Washington, the brown silk gown of Martha Washington. We remembered at what price the glories of the preceding days had been purchased. We lived over the early times of anxiety, privation, and danger. Raising our eyes to the walls, we encountered the pictured eyes of the men and women whose spirit, behind our little army, had compelled events and given dignity and importance to our Revolutionary history.

It was difficult to associate thought, learning, courage, foresight, and statesmanship with those placid faces. Artists of that day presented only the 420calm, impassive features of their sitters. There was George Washington, serene in every pose, dress, and age; Alexander Hamilton, Richard Henry Lee, keen-eyed Patrick Henry, Martha Washington, Elizabeth Washington, fair Nelly Custis, dark-eyed Frances Bland, whose patriot brother fills a lost grave in Trinity churchyard. These and scores of others looked down upon us from the walls of our great opera-house.

And yet it is this, and this only, of all the pageant that made a living and lasting impression upon the minds of the people. Pondering upon the associations connected with these relics and portraits of the Revolutionary time, and rereading the histories connected with them, an impulse was given which is now thrilling our people to the extremest bounds of our country, and which will result in our taking proper steps to acquire and preserve all the localities connected with the struggle for our independence.

I was keenly interested in the celebration. I knew the president, Mr. Henry Marquand, and took upon myself the duty of collecting portraits from Virginia—of Patrick Henry, members of the Washington family, Nelly Custis, Frances Bland, and others. I cherish an engraved resolution of thanks adopted by the committee, stating that such thanks were "especially due" for my "valuable cooperation in the work of the Loan Exhibition of portraits."

The influence of the feeling inspired at the time of the Centennial at once expressed itself in the formation of the societies of patriotic men and women now so 421numerous in this country. I assisted in the foundation of these societies—the Preservation of the Virginia Antiquities, the association owning Jamestown; the Mary Washington Memorial Association; the Daughters of the American Revolution; and the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America. The duty of organizing a chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution was assigned to me, and I named it "The New York City Chapter." Mrs. Vincenzo Botta was my first member, and Mrs. Martha Lamb, honorary life member. I was much in conference with Mrs. Martha Lamb when she was helping to organize the Colonial Dames—and I was early, heart and soul, interested in the Daughters of the American Revolution. Of Jamestown and the noble society which owns it—everybody knows. I managed a great ball at the White Sulphur Springs to help build a monument over Mary Washington's grave. The governors of New York and of Virginia each sent flags—from the state of my birth and the state of my adoption. General Lee conducted the Mary Washington of the hour. The Virginia beauties wore their great grandmother's gowns of quilted pettic............