Cabinet Ladies Take Part In Assisting Mrs. Grant

Washington, February 5, 1870.

A stranger attending a Presidential levee for the first time at the capital has an opportunity to drain the cup of Washington society to its very dregs. Card receptions, such as are held at the homes of the Cabinet, Chief Justice Chase, and General Sherman, in a certain sense are veiled under the sacred seal of hospitality, and the newspaper correspondent dare not, cannot, without violating all delicacy and good taste, make a pen picture of the men and women whom the dear people at home like to know all about. A Presidential levee is altogether a different affair. It is public. It belongs to the people. When we go to the Executive Mansion we go to our own house. Our sacred feet press our own tufted Wiltons. We recline on our own satin and ebony. We are received graciously by our own well-dressed servants, and the people have a right to know, through the columns of The Press, the exact state of the situation. Whoever goes to a levee at the mansion becomes public property, and has no more right to complain because he has been caught in the net of a newspaper correspondent than the fish who has swallowed the hook of an honest fisherman. The time has been when a levee at the White House was like a social gathering in a modest village. The President not only shook hands with his guest, but also asked him to take a chair and inquired about the state of the crops “Down East.” The most precious republican simplicity has taken its departure with the Jeffersons and the Madisons; or rather it has necessarily been cast off with all the other swaddling-clothes of an infant Republic. A perfect river of human life pours through the Executive Mansion. Human beings are packed together just as solid as sardines in a box, whilst the President and Mrs. Grant are obliged to take each separate atom by the hand. After two hours of this kind of work, its ravage begins to show its effect upon the person of the Chief Magistrate. His eyes begin to have a far-off look, great drops of perspiration stand on his forehead, and his thin, quivering nostrils rise and sink, like the gills of a darling dolphin when taken out of the water. Sometimes the President gasps; but this is usually thought to be a handsomely suppressed yawn, and no matter how much he may desire to bring in his superb knowledge of military tactics, so far as it is known he has never been guilty of a flank movement; he has only appeared as if he would like to shoulder arms.

Mrs. Grant stands a little way from the President—“fair, fat and forty.” She appears in grace and manner just as any other sensible woman would who had been lifted from the ranks of the people to such an exalted position. It is true she shows the people her comely neck and shoulders, and, notwithstanding the wintry weather, makes no attempt to cover her shapely arms; but her gracious condescension is appreciated, and the exhibition is free to all.

Who are the people who file past the President? Titled men and women of foreign countries; a large part of the community which romance would call the “republican court;” and the mighty power sometimes called the sovereign people. Now it happens, as the stream flows onward through the Executive rooms, that particles of humanity are lodged in the same apartments that are honored with the presence of the President and his wife.

The most distinguished guests remain permanently in the room of power. The picture is made up of the Presidential party in the foreground, and back of them stand the Army, Navy, and Cabinet, as well as the Vice-President of the United States. Of all the public men in the nation few or none stand so near the national heart as Schuyler Colfax, and the reason assigned is because he has got a mind like an elephant’s trunk. It picks up anything, from the largest man to the smallest woman, and his heart is big enough to give them all standing room. If he is introduced to a manufacturer he knows what kind of articles the man sends to market. If a literary woman is presented to him she finds that she has been registered in exactly the right place in his mind. He knows whether she writes about fashion, or, alas! alas! reports women conventions. Schuyler Colfax knows everything that is published in the newspapers. There is no room in his mind for lumber. It is full of working material, and he is the fairest specimen of progressive Young America to be found on the continent.

Miss Nellie Grant is a prominent feature of the levees and receptions at the White House. She is just exactly at the age when the feathers of her wings are not quite well enough grown to admit of her flying as a woman, and yet they are far enough advanced to spoil her attractions as a child. Her costume is of the rarest and costliest kind, and she conducts herself as becomes the only daughter of a President.

An elegant woman is seen standing in the background, slender almost to fragility, arrayed in a trailing robe of black velvet. Her powdered head and Greek profile take you back to the days of Louis XIV, and you feel that Madame Pompadour or some other beauty of that period has stepped out of her picture frame and stands flesh and blood before you. This woman is Mrs. Cresswell, the accomplished wife of the Postmaster-General.

In the shadow of the crimson curtains stand the Marquis and Madame de Chambrun. The marquis is an attache of the French legation; the madame is the granddaughter of General Lafayette, and one of the most attractive women in Washington. Nature meant to make her a blonde, but forgot herself and kept on with the bleaching process. One cannot help in contemplation wondering whether her soul is as white and transparent as the casket. She inherits her grandfather’s love for republican principles. The madame has been only a short time in the country, but the marquis has been here, more or less, for quite a number of years. It is said that he is writing a history of our Republic. He has always been connected with the European press, and ranks high as a literary man at home.

Just beyond the marquis in the offing might have been seen Admiral Goldsborough, heavy and ponderous as one of his own war vessels, and carrying nobody knows how many guns. He wheezed and puffed as if there was something the matter with his machinery, but all persons present seemed unaware of danger, and no sign of an explosion or accident took place. Mrs. Goldsborough accompanied her stately husband, apparently a fitting consort in time of war or peace.

“Ad Interim” Thomas was there in the brightest of military buttons and army blue. He looked as harmless as one of the wooden guns at Manassas, and it was impossible to believe that he was the same “Ad Interim” that once shook the Republic from center to circumference. A fine looking woman clung to his arm, but whether it was Mrs. “Ad Interim,” or another the writer failed to discover.

A handsome Virginia member of Congress was there who looked as if he carried the regal blood of that proud Commonwealth in his veins. He had the courtly bearing which history attributes to the Randolphs, but, fearful that he might be a carpetbagger, his name was not ascertained.

Secretary Boutwell was present, accompanied by his daughter, a good, sensible-looking New England girl, who bears the same relation to the picture made of her in Harper’s Bazaar that any small circle does to a large one. She is her father’s hope and her mother’s joy, but she is not Secretary of the Treasury.

The Marine Band discoursed some very bad music, considering what is expected of what ought to be the most perfect musical organization in the country. The Marine Band has sadly deteriorated of late, and it would be well for the people in power to make excellence in this, as well as all other things, a distinction of national favor.

Olivia.