The Relaxations of Congressional Folk  
In that period of social activity it was no uncommon thing for society women to find themselves completely exhausted ere bedtime arrived. Often so tired was I that I have declared I couldn’t have wiggled an antennae had I numbered anything so absurd and minute among my members! For my quicker recuperation, after a day spent in the making of calls, or in entertainment, with, it may be, an hour or two in the Senate gallery, in preparation for the evening’s pleasure, my invaluable maid, Emily (for whom my husband paid $1,600), was wont to get out my “shocking-box” (for so she termed the electrical apparatus upon which I often depended), and, to a full charge of the magical current and a half-hour’s nap before dinner, I was indebted for many a happy evening.
Amid the round of dinners, and dances, and receptions, to which Congressional circles are necessarily compelled, the pleasures of the theatre were only occasionally to be enjoyed. Nor were the great artists of that day always to be heard at the capital, and resident theatre and musiclovers not infrequently made excursions to Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York, in order to hear to advantage some particularly noted star. Before our advent in the capital it had been my good fortune, while travelling in the North, to hear Grisi and Mario, the lovely Bozio, and Jenny Lind, the incomparable Swede, whose concerts at Castle Garden were such epoch-marking events to musiclovers in America. I remember that one estimate of the audience present on the occasion of my hearing the last-named 102cantatrice was placed at ten thousand. Whether or not this number was approximately correct I do not know, but seats and aisles in the great hall were densely packed, and gentlemen in evening dress came with camp-stools under their arms, in the hope of finding an opportunity to place them, during a lull in the programme, where they might rest for a moment.
The wild enthusiasm of the vast crowds, the simplicity of the singer who elicited it, have been recorded by many an abler pen. Suffice to say that none have borne, I think, for a longer time, a clearer remembrance of that triumphant evening. When, at the end of the programme the fair, modest songstress came out, music in hand, to win her crowning triumph in the rendering of a familiar melody, the beauty of her marvellous art rose superior to the amusement which her broken English might have aroused, and men and women wept freely and unashamed as she sang.
“Mid bleasures and balaces,
Do we may roam,” etc.
It was by way of a flight from the capital that Senator Clay and I and a few congenial friends were enabled to hear Parepa Rosa and Forrest; and Julia Dean, in “Ingomar,” drew us to the metropolis, as did Agnes Robertson, who set the town wild in the “Siege of Sebastopol.”
 
JENNY LIND
 
From a photograph made about 1851
103I remember very well my first impression of Broadway, which designation seemed to me a downright misnomer; for its narrowness, after the great width of Pennsylvania Avenue, was at once striking and absurd to the visitor from the capital. Upon one of my visits to New York my attention was caught by a most unusual sight. It was an immense equipage, glowing and gaudy under the sun as one of Mrs. Jarley’s vans. It was drawn by six prancing steeds, all gaily caparisoned, while in the huge structure (a young house, “all but”——) were women in gaudy costumes. A band of musicians were concealed within, and these gave out some lively melodies as the vehicle dashed gaily by the Astor House (then the popular up-town hotel), attracting general attention as it passed. Thinking a circus had come to town, I made inquiry, when I learned to my amusement that the gorgeous cavalcade was but an ingenious advertisement of the new Sewing Machine!
Charlotte Cushman, giving her unapproachable “Meg Merrilies” in Washington, stirred the city to its depths. Her histrionism was splendid, and her conversation in private proved no less remarkable and delightful. “I could listen to her all day,” wrote a friend in a brief note. “I envy her her genius, and would willingly take her ugliness for it! What is beauty compared with such genius!”
A most amusing metrical farce, “Pocahontas,” was given during the winter of ’7–58, which set all Washington a-laughing. In the cast were Mrs. Gilbert, and Brougham, the comedian and author. Two of the ridiculous couplets come back to me, and, as if it were yesterday, revive the amusing scenes in which they were spoken.
Mrs. Gilbert’s r?le was that of a Yankee schoolma’am, whose continual effort it was to make her naughty young Indian charges behave themselves. “Young ladies!” she cried, with that inimitable austerity behind which one always feels the actress’s consciousness of the “fun of the thing” which she is dissembling,
“Young Ladies! Stand with your feet right square!
Miss Pocahontas! just look at your hair!”
and as she wandered off, a top-knot of feathers waving over her head, her wand, with which she had been drilling her dusky maidens, held firmly in hand, she cut a pigeonwing 104that brought forth a perfect shout of laughter from the audience.
This troupe appeared just after the Brooks-Sumner encounter, of which the capital talked still excitedly, and the comedian did not hesitate to introduce a mild local allusion which was generally understood. Breaking in upon her as Pocahontas wept, between ear-splitting cries of woe at the bier of Captain Smith, he called out impatiently,
“What’s all this noise? Be done! Be done!
D’you think you are in Washington?”
Mr. Thackeray’s lecture on poetry was a red-letter occasion, and the simplicity of that great man of letters as he recited “Lord Lovel” and “Barbara Allen” was long afterward a criterion by which others were judged. Notable soloists now and then appeared at the capital, among them Ap Thomas, the great Welsh harpist, and Bochsa, as great a performer, whose concerts gained so much in interest by the singing of the romantic French woman, Mme. Anna Bishop. Her rendering of “On the Banks of the Gaudalquiver” made her a great favourite and gave the song a vogue. That musical prodigy, Blind Tom, also made his appearance in ante-bellum Washington, and I was one of several ladies of the capital invited by Miss Lane to hear him play at the White House. Among the guests on that occasion were Miss Phillips of Alabama and her cousin Miss Cohen of South Carolina, who were brilliant amateur players with a local reputation. They were the daughter and niece, respectively, of Mrs. Eugenia Phillips, who, less than two years afterward, was imprisoned by the Federal authorities for alleged assistance to the newly formed Confederate Government.
At the invitation of Miss Lane, the Misses Phillips and Cohen took their places at the piano and performed a 105brilliant and intricate duet, during which Blind Tom’s face twitched with what, it must be confessed, were horrible grimaces. He was evidently greatly excited by the music he was listening to, and was eager to reproduce it. As the piece was concluded, he shuffled about nervously. Seeing his excitement, one of the pianistes volunteered to play with him and took her seat at the instrument. Desiring to test him, however, in the second rendering, the lady cleverly, as she supposed, elided a page of the composition; when, drawing himself back angrily, this remarkable idiot exclaimed indignantly, “You cheat me! You cheat me!”
While a visit to the dentist, be he never so famous, may hardly be regarded as among the recreations of Congressional folk, yet a trip to Dr. Maynard, the fashionable operator of that day, was certainly among the luxuries of the time; as costly, for example, as a trip to New York, to hear sweet Jenny Lind. Dr. Maynard was distinctively one of Washington’s famous characters. He was not only the expert dentist of his day, being as great an element in life at the capital as was Dr. Evans in Paris, but he was also the inventor of the world-renowned three-barrelled rifle known as the Maynard. His office was like an arsenal, every inch of wall-space being taken up with glittering arms.
A peculiarity of Dr. Maynard was his dislike for the odour of the geranium, from which he shrank as from some deadly poison. Upon the occasion of one necessary visit to him, unaware of this eccentricity, I wore a sprig of that blossom upon my corsage. As I entered the office the doctor detected it.
“Pardon me, Mrs. Clay,” he said at once, “I must ask you to remove that geranium!” I was astonished, but of course the offending flower was at once detached and discarded; but so sensitive were the olfactories of the doctor, that before he could begin his operating, I was 106obliged to bury the spot on which the blossom had lain under several folds of napkin.
Dr. Maynard was exceedingly fond of sleight of hand, and on one occasion bought for his children an outfit which Heller had owned. In after years the Czar of Russia made tempting offers to this celebrated dentist, with a view to inducing him to take up his residence in St. Petersburg, but his Imperial allurements were unavailing, and Dr. Maynard returned again to his own orbit.
A feature of weekly recurrence, and one to which all Washington and every visitor thronged, was the concert of the Marine Band, given within the White House grounds on the green slope back of the Executive Mansion overlooking the Potomac. Strolling among the multitude, I remember often to have seen Miss Cutts, in the simplest of white muslin gowns, but conspicuous for her beauty wherever she passed. Here military uniforms glistened or glowed, as the case might be, among a crowd of black-coated sight-seers, and one was likely to meet with the President or his Cabinet, mingling democratically with the crowd of smiling citizens.
At one of these concerts a provincial visitor was observed to linger in the vicinity of the President, whom it was obvious he recognised. Presently, in an accession of sudden courage, he approached Mr. Pierce, and, uncovering his head respectfully, said, “Mr. President, can’t I go through your fine house? I’ve heard so much about it that I’d give a great deal to see it.”
“Why, my dear sir!” responded the President, kindly, “that is not my house. It’s the people’s house. You shall certainly go through it if you wish!” and, calling an attendant, he instructed him to take the grateful stranger through the White House.
The recounting of that episode revives the recollection of another which took place in the time of President Buchanan, and which was the subject of discussion for 107full many a day after its occurrence. It was on the occasion of an annual visit of the redmen, always a rather exciting event in the capital.
The delegations which came to Washington in the winters of ’4–58 numbered several hundred. They camped in a square in the Barracks, where, with almost naked bodies, scalps at belt and tomahawks in hand, they were viewed daily by crowds of curious folk as they beat their monotonous drums, danced, or threw their tomahawks dexterously in air. Here and there one redskin, more fortunate than the rest, was wrapped in a gaudy blanket, and many were decked out with large earrings and huge feather-duster head-dresses. A single chain only separated the savages from the assembled spectators, who were often thrown into somewhat of a panic by the sullen or belligerent behaviour of the former. When in this mood, the s............