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CHAPTER XIV.

THE LADIES OF THE WHITE HOUSE.

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ROM the earliest days of civilization, woman has figured prominently in society and governThe records of female influence in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, are peculiarly pleasing. And while this sort of literature is universally sought from many motives, the women most conspicuous in history are those that are renowned for virtue as well as beauty, though there are thousands of instances proving the last more potent than the first.

Modern experience discloses a severer state of female morality in foreign governments. Queen Victoria, ex-Empress Eugenie, the beautiful Queen of Italy, the new Queen of Spain, the wife of the President of France (Madame Grevy), the equestrienne Queen of Austria, the venerable Empress. of Germany, and the Crown Princess, the daughter of Victoria-are types of a better era and a higher culture.

When we turn to our own country, nothing is more creditable to republican institutions than the ladies of our early and recent Chief Magistrates. From Colonial days, from Mrs. Martha Washington, from the brilliant entertainment in Washington's camp, near Middlebrook, in celebration of the anniversary of the American alliance with France, and the subscription balls in Philadelphia, down to her last appearance, when she retired to private life, she was accustomed to speak of her public days in New York and Philadelphia as her "lost days," preferring home comfort and seclusion to the dazzle and dress of public life.

It is stated that the wife of John Hancock, the great Boston patriot, who was noted for his genial home, open house, and sumptuous table, was a woman almost as full of energy as her husband, and an amusing story is told of Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Hancock, who were very intimate friends. Mrs. Washington would say to Mrs. Hancock: "There is a difference in our stations; your husband is in the cabinet, but mine is on the battlefield." As showing the habits of those days, so different from our own, and forming such a contrast to the plain dignity and quiet elegance of General Hancock and his family at Governor's Island, it is related that the first Mrs. Hancock's wedding fan was from Paris, made of white kid, painted with appropriate designs. Fan-mounting was then done in this country by ladies. The

christening suit of her baby came from England, and was of embroidered linen, and stomacher of muslin and brocaded lace.

After John Hancock's death, she was one of the wonders of the age, and as his widow was visited, until the close of her life, by distinguished persons from foreign countries, as well as her own.

An amusing incident is told of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. As the Governor, Hancock, was one day driving out with his wife, he met Sam. Adams walking, with the Sheriff beside him. Hancock asked, "Why, what is the matter?" Adams replied, "I am going to jail, as I cannot satisfy the demands of my creditors." The Governor settled the demands and bade the Sheriff leave his prisoner. Many a time was his purse opened for Sam. Adams' benefit under similar circumstances, and many a time did he help the poor and the needy.

The Boston Mrs. Hancock was acknowledged to possess rare beauty, a courtly manner, a high-toned spirit, fine powers of conversation, dressed with care and very dignified. She was one of the Quincys.

But notwithstanding the hyper-criticisms of the Mawworms of the day, the fact is growing clearer that the American women are becoming more interested in public affairs every hour; and it is pleasant to be reminded, that the wives of the two chief candidates for President in 1880 are espe

cially cultivated and sensible. The modern newspaper reporter has become a sort of Christopher Columbus, ever looking for new characters, as the world-seeking Genoese sought for new lands. Nothing escapes these ubiquitous inquirers. Presidential aspirants are examined with as merciless a severity as if they were candidates for pope, while all their sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts, and notably their wives, are subjected to a similar inventory. It was not so in the olden time, save as to the men. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Jackson, Lincoln, and Grant, were very thoroughly overhauled, privately and publicly; but the ladies of the White House, with two or three exceptions, have passed the ordeal of public life tranquilly and easily.

Strickland's "Queens of England" is rather the polished adulation of a courtier; but in this country, the writer who undertakes to characterize the wives of the Presidents has little material to work upon, and generally little pay.

The best book on the Presidents' wives is that of Mrs. Laura Carter Holloway, published in 1870; and to that, with other materials at my command, I refer for a running commentary upon the galaxy of gentlewomen who have periodically played in the four or eight years drama, and sometimes for a shorter interval, in what the foreigner has amusingly called "the presidential palace of the republicans."

Having known most of the ladies, and many of their associates, who have figured in and flitted out of the White House since 1840, a brief reference to the long procession since Mrs. Martha Washington, in 1789, by way of introduction to the accom.plished woman who will, I believe, succeed Mrs. Hayes on the 4th of March, 1881, will be a pleasing exception to the heavier parts of this volume. Women in society are a later growth than women in political power, just as kings and queens are older than the best of our inventions and discoveries in science and in art. And when we remember that even Shakespeare's plays were for many years enacted by boys, we may, perhaps, make some allowance for the accomplished woman, who, in a recent popular magazine, takes up the cudgels against her sex, and, at least to her own satisfaction, proves that all the great things in our civilization have been produced by men, and that the best and most distinguished women of the present day are simply the proofs and products of a superior masculine system. We can not look for such high culture, and inbred greatness, in the wives of our American chief magistrates as are found scattered through the royal houses of the Old World, and for an obvious Our Presidents do not inherit their titles, and their places. They are never trained for high offices. In the average, the chief magistrate is an accident; there is no incident of a cradled ruler,

reason.