in its closing years, entered any assemblage, small or great, private
or public, that her name did not pass from mouth to mouth till all
were aware of her presence. She was the glorious heroine of many a shy
girl's first ball, while the forlorn little maid whom it purported to
introduce to the social world clung timidly to the wall, with admiring
eyes, however paradoxical it may seem, upon the radiant being who
with apparent unconsciousness was carrying off all the honors of the
occasion. The remarkable popularity of Sallie Ward has been compared to
that of a feudal princess in her hereditary domain. It was confined to
no class, but entered into all grades of society, parents in all walks
of life naming their children after her, and children in turn naming
their pets after her. Many a product of the far-famed stock-farms of
the blue-grass State was likewise honored with a name that came to be a
synonyme for all excellence. "It is a perfect Sallie Ward," or, "I've
a regular Sallie Ward," was the proud boast of many a man who owned
anything whatsoever that he esteemed of superlative quality.
A mother once putting her little girl to bed related to her as a
lullaby the story of the creation of the world, pointing out its
beauties and blessings as they came from the hand of God.
"He made the sun that shines in the day," said the mother, "and the
moon and the stars that we see in the night, and all the flowers that
beautify the world, and the birds that gladden it with their sweet
song."
"And mother, don't forget," interrupted the child. "He made Sallie
Ward, too."
When the governor of Kentucky, at the outbreak of the Mexican War,
was called upon to furnish a regiment of infantry, both the Louisville
Legion and the Louisville Guard, among whose officers and men were
enrolled many names of which the State was justly proud, volunteered
for service. Sallie Ward was selected to present the flags to both
companies, and the enthusiasm of the people, when on the bright May
morning of their departure the Legion passed in review before her
home, testified to the concurrence of the entire city in the choice.
There was a prolonged shout of rapture from the throng of spectators
as many eyes dim with weeping beheld the already familiar form of
Sallie Ward standing beneath the silken folds of her country's flag.
Their cheers redoubled as she presented it to the standard-bearer, and
they continued to ring in her ears as she waved her own farewell to
the embryo heroes, many of whom carried away that last picture of her
standing in the sunshine of that bright morning to be an inspiration in
a darker hour. She drove to Portland to present the flag to the Guards,
who embarked from that point. As they marched by the open carriage in
which she sat at the conclusion of the ceremony of the presentation,
every man saluted her, and she afterwards declared that it was the
proudest moment in a life of many triumphs.
Her father's wealth not only enabled him to maintain one of the most
elaborate establishments in Louisville, but in the summer to transport
his numerous family, accompanied by men- and maid-servants, in
travelling-carriages to the White Sulphur Springs, where his daughters
were successively belles. A portion of each winter, including the
season of the Mardi Gras, was spent in New Orleans, for though the
facilities for travelling that exist to-day were not known at that
time, a man blessed with the worldly goods that Mr. Ward possessed
could not only permit his family to make frequent journeys, but to make
them also under most comfortable and agreeable circumstances.
In this way the fame of Sallie Ward was well established at the South
when, before she had reached her twentieth year, she married Bigelow
Lawrence, of Boston, and entered upon her brief career at the North.
The man who thus won her from many Southern rivals was many years her
senior, and it was to a woman of her temperament a most unfortunate
alliance. He was the son of the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, who had been our
minister to England, and was himself a man of wealth and distinction
and an exquisite gentleman of the severe Boston school, whose ethics
were wholly at variance with that spirit of liberality which was all
Sallie Ward had hitherto known. Developed in an atmosphere of almost
passionate admiration, love and appreciation had become as necessary
to her being as light and air. Transplanted in the very effulgence
of her bloom to a frigid temperature of critical and unsympathetic
surroundings, all her spontaneous grace congealed into acts of
deliberate effrontery. Bewildered by a chill she had never before felt,
too young and inexperienced in the ways of the world beyond those of
her own genial climate, where she had been a law unto herself, to
realize aught of the value of mutual concessions, she struck blindly
against the cold conventionality in which she felt herself encaged. It
was a strange and almost cruel fate that put her in the bosom of the
Lawrence family, and occasioned as much suffering to her Southern heart
as to their Northern sensibilities.
At a ball given in Boston about the time Mrs. Bloomer was seeking to
introduce her reform in woman's dress, and while the subject was being
widely discussed. Sallie Ward, then the wife of Bigelow Lawrence,
appeared in a costume designed on the Bloomer pattern. Socially
conservative Boston was agog, and Lawrence achieved through his wife an
unenviable notoriety. Another of her proclivities wrought additional
sensation and consequently further havoc in his social status.
Notwithstanding the natural beauty of her complexion, it was whispered
even in Louisville that she sought with more or less artistic skill to
further embellish it. One day when the artifice was unusually apparent,
as she passed a group of laboring men, one exclaimed, audibly, "By God,
painted!" Nothing daunted and without changing color, the story runs,
she said, quietly, "Yes, painted by God," and passed on.
Her mother, realizing the unhappy condition of her life with Mr.
Lawrence, took her home, and within a year she applied to the
Legislature of Kentucky for a divorce, which was granted on the ground
of incompatibility of temper. She took her maiden name and lived for
several years in retirement.
Her first reappearance in that world of gayety and social emulation
which was her natural element was at a ball given in Louisville, and
where at midnight, though everybody knew she was in the house, she
had not yet made her appearance. Shortly after twelve o'clock the
music suddenly ceased; in an instant silence fell upon the ball-room;
some one whispered "Sallie Ward," and every one pressed towards the
stairway. She was, indeed, a vision of radiant loveliness that held
every man and woman spellbound as she descended its winding length.
She was enveloped in white tulle, which seemed to float about her
like a cloud, a jewelled pin catching the meshes of a filmy veil and
holding it imprisoned in her brown hair. One arm covered with jewelled
bracelets was extended, the hand resting in that of the man who had the
honor of leading her. So light and floating was the effect she produced
that the tips of her white slippers seemed scarcely to touch the steps.
She was at all times supreme and irresistible without resorting to
extraordinary effects, which she frequently did, for she was not
lacking in that vanity which is "the cordial drop," said John Adams,
"that makes the bitter cup of life go down," though an existence filled
with so many sweets as was hers could have needed no such stimulus.
At a fancy-dress ball given in her honor at Lexington, she created an
unparalleled sensation by changing her costume four times in the course
of the evening, reaching the climax as an houri.
Her second marriage was to Dr. Hunt, of New Orleans, where she was
already well known. The city, with its contingent of wealthy Spanish
and French planters, contained many homes whose palatial splendors
exceeded those of the most pretentious establishments of other
localities. The new home in which Sallie Ward came to preside was on
a scale of magnificence that fully gratified her luxurious tastes and
love of the beautiful. Its rich adornment of tapestries, statuary, and
Parisian furnishings, its marble court, with its glistening fountains
and wealth of tropical bloom, formed an exquisite background for her
artistic individuality and prodigal temperament. Its hospitalities were
munificent and the legend of the magnificence of its dinner-parties,
during which the orchestra from the French opera filled the court-yard
and dining-room with its melodies, was the marvel of a people
accustomed to entertaining with all the luxurious accompaniments
of a most artistic civilization; and into all of whose forms of a
ceremonious existence there entered a perfect harmony that was a second
nature to them.
The years of her residence in New Orleans represent the most brilliant
period of Sallie Ward's life, when her surroundings, combined with her
natural gifts, gave her easily that leading position which she filled
so graciously and with so much happiness to herself. Her only child,
Mr. John Hunt, of New York, was born of this marriage.
After her husband's death she returned to Louisville, and there for
some years devoted herself to rearing and educating her son. She was
subsequently twice married, the first time, after nearly fifteen years
of widowhood, to Mr. Vene P. Armstrong, and the second time to Mr.
George F. Downs, both of Kentucky. She retained till the end of her
life, which closed in the summer of 1898, all her remarkable powers of
attraction.
Surrounded always with the pomp and vanity of life, and deeply imbued
with the maxims of a worldly philosophy, she yet preserved intact an
unselfish heart that not only prompted her to many deeds of noble
philanthropy, but to countless little acts of kindness graciously
performed that beautified lives less fortunate than her own. With her
quick bright mind and gift for clever repartee, she sent many a ripple
of irresistible drollery over the current of the life that encircled
her, and sped many a shaft of stinging wit into the armor of a hollow
conventionality. "How lovely of you to say that! but then you always
say such sweet things of everybody," was the meaningless flattery in
the response of a woman to whom she had spoken in heartfelt praise of
another woman. "Did you ever hear, madam," retorted Mrs. Downs, "that I
had said anything sweet of you?"
She never could have attracted and held the universal homage that was
undoubtedly hers had there not radiated from her a power quite beyond
that bestowed by the material possessions of the world,--the potency
of a vivid and lovable personality. Had she been a man, she would have
been capable of such acts of gallantry and daring as characterized
"mad" Anthony Wayne or General Custer. As she was a woman, with her
field restricted to the social world, from whose stand-point she must
necessarily, therefore, be judged, her singular genius was productive
of many extraordinary achievements, through all of which there was a
very audible appeal for the love that never failed her, but which was
given to her in such measure as perhaps to no other woman ever born in
America.
HARRIET LANE
(MRS. HENRY ELLIOTT JOHNSTON)
Of the men who have filled the Presidential chair of the United States,
about none as about James Buchanan has romance hung that halo which in
his case tends but to throw into bolder relief the substantial side
of his character. Men of more dash, of more picturesque individuality
have filled that high office than was he who rose to it through the
gradations of a long legislative career.
When he entered Congress, though he was but twenty-nine years old,
the chapter of sentiment had already closed for him, and it was never
reopened during a long life, the greater part of which was passed in
the gaze of a scrutinizing public. This fact alone is sufficient to
render him unique in the estimation of a people who have a primitive
love for the story where all ends happily.
There was nothing in Buchanan's appearance nor in his attitude towards
life in general that suggested the tragic episode of his youth. It
is only in retrospect that we realize the glamour it cast over his
subsequent years. Nature reacts through various channels, and in him
she sought her outlet in an unabating mental activity. He was a student
all his life.
To the world he was a man of somewhat grave appearance, a typical
anglo-saxon, immaculate in his dress, conservative in his speech,
and yet with a grace and dignity of manner that added much to the
distinction with which he represented his country at the court of
Russia in 1832, and again twenty-one years later at the court of St.
James.
His attitude towards women was that of chivalric regard, and the
close relationship he bore to one of the most beautiful women of her
period, being both her uncle and guardian, displays one of the most
interesting sides of his character. Much of the charm that attaches to
the history of the more conspicuous years of his public career emanates
from Harriet Lane. No woman has ever presided in the White House who
roused so universal an interest, unless it was Mrs. Cleveland, as did
Buchanan's niece.
Her countrymen honored her in every conceivable way, and her name was a
household word. Vessels of war and of peace bore it to foreign shores.
Clubs, streets, houses, and even articles of dress were named after her.
There was a majestic isolation about both Harriet Lane and James
Buchanan. Death had stripped them both,--Buchanan in his youth of
the woman who might have rounded out his life, and Harriet Lane, one
by one, of mother, father, sister, and brothers. She came into the
White House bearing the burden of personal loss in the recent death of
her only sister. As she came out of it the travail of coming war had
already cast its shadow upon the nation.
Yet, socially, the White House was never so brilliant as it was during
the administration of Buchanan. "The White House," said Jefferson
Davis, referring later to his last days in Washington, "under the
administration of Buchanan approached more nearly to my idea of a
republican court than the President's house had ever done before, or
since the days of Washington."
A picture that the people seemed never to tire of looking upon was
of the grave bachelor-President with his beautiful niece beside him
doing the honors of the nation. She was at the climax of her glorious
womanhood during the period she passed in the White House. Contact with
the world, together with her recent touch of sorrow, had worn away the
angles of her youthful exuberance. She had attained a golden maturity,
and with a perfection of physical development she united a dignity
and a confidence in herself restful to behold. "Every motion," Mary
Clemmer wrote of her at that time, "was instinct with life, health, and
intelligence. Her head and features were cast in noble mould, and her
form, which at rest had something of the massive majesty of a marble
pillar, in motion was instinct alike with power and grace."
She had a warmth of coloring that further bore out the idea of abundant
health. Her hair was of a golden-brown hue, and worn always with that
absolute simplicity which best became her well-shaped head. Her eyes
were of a deep violet and her mouth was faultlessly beautiful, with its
full red lips and upward curve.
She was as discreet, said one of her admiring critics, as she was
beautiful, and her uncle's confidence in her was without bounds.
Even as a little child, when falling far short in many respects of
his somewhat austere ideals of propriety, she had inspired in him a
reverence for her absolute truthfulness. "She never told a lie," he
once said, in speaking of her childhood; "she had a soul above deceit
or fraud. She was too proud for it."
She came into Buchanan's life like a breath of wind from the
mountain-side, fresh, sweet, and wild. Buchanan was distraught. His
bachelor habitat was in confusion. He was a man of theories and ideals.
This bit of youthful life that had elected to invade the quiet of his
days was a being of impulse, however generous, of exuberant health and
spirits. A sense of his superiority, however, penetrating her youthful
intelligence, gave him that influence over her that was productive of
such satisfactory results as she grew to womanhood.
[Illustration: Harriet Lane
(Mrs. Henry Elliott Johnston)
From photograph by Julius Ulke]
Through her father, Elliot Lane, whose family had emigrated to Virginia
during the war of the American Revolution, she was of English descent.
From the north of Ireland, about the same time, also had come her
maternal grandfather, James Buchanan. He married Elizabeth Spear, the
daughter of a farmer, and settled in Franklin County, Pennsylvania,
then and for some years later central ground and the great highway
between the East and the West. James Buchanan, afterwards President of
his country, and Jane, the mother of Harriet Lane, were the first
two children born of this marriage.
Harriet Lane, the youngest of four children, became an orphan in
her tenth year. She attached herself voluntarily to her already
distinguished uncle, who was at the time in the United States Senate,
having but recently returned from Russia, where he had negotiated our
first commercial treaty with that country.
Somewhat abashed though duly touched by the honor conferred upon him
by his ardent little kinswoman, he undertook the novel responsibility
of her upbringing with such misgivings as he had never been conscious
of when accepting the various high honors bestowed upon him by his
country. She quitted the home in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, where she
was born, and her uncle's home, Wheatland, became thenceforth hers. It
was a roomy old brick house with ample grounds, on East King Street, in
Lancaster, one of the old colonial towns of Pennsylvania.
It has been said, in no matter how many places we may live, there
is only one that is home to us. Wheatland was that to Harriet Lane,
though she was destined to see much of the world and to spend years
at a time away from its tranquil seclusion. Its improvement and
adornment were ever matters of keen interest to her. There she first
attracted an admiration which gradually extended over her own country
and England, for the fame of Harriet Lane was international. There
she had possession of her uncle, it being their custom to spend their
mornings together, usually in reading the newspapers, she incidentally
absorbing his statesmanlike view of the political questions of the day.
Buchanan frequently entertained at Wheatland both his political friends
and those he had made through his diplomatic relations. His niece was
a truly bewitching hostess on these occasions, to which there often
attached much that was brilliant.
The first attempt at training after she passed under her uncle's care
was not a happy one in the estimation of his young ward. Being obliged
to go to Washington for the session of Congress, he closed his home at
Lancaster and transferred his _ménage_ to the capital, for Buchanan
always set up his household gods wherever he tarried for any length
of time, his housekeeper, Miss Hetty Parker, who served him in that
capacity for forty years, going with him from place to place. Harriet
was left in Lancaster, in the home of some venerable spinsters of her
uncle's acquaintance, who had pronounced ideas on the moral gait to be
maintained by the rising generation. From her own accounts, given in
letters to her uncle, she seems to have been frequently disciplined
by means of her healthy young appetite. There were melodramatic
occasions when she went without sugar in her tea, and was compelled
to practise various similar mortifications of the flesh for which
no small girl has a natural bent. After she was removed from these
uncongenial surroundings she lived for some time in dread of an adverse
circumstance that might return her to them. Her uncle, on whom neither
the pathos nor the humor of the situation was lost, more than once
suggested quizzically in his letters to her that she might like to go
back to the old ladies.
When they were separated he wrote to her every day, at first from
conscientious motives of the duty he owed to her, and later because of
the pleasure he derived from this frequent interchange of thought and
sympathy. When she was twelve years old he sent her with her sister,
Mary, to boarding-school at Charlestown, West Virginia.
"Had Mary written to me that you were a good girl and had behaved
yourself entirely well, I should have visited you during the Christmas
holidays," he said, in the course of a letter written to her shortly
after her initiation into boarding-school life.
In 1845 Buchanan became Secretary of State under President Polk. "My
labors are great," he wrote to Harriet, shortly after entering upon
the duties of his new office, "but they do not '_way_' me down, as
you write the word. Now I would say '_weigh_,' but doctors may differ
on this point." Further on in the same letter he continues thus:
"Your friends, Mrs. Bancroft [wife of the Secretary of War] and the
Pleasantons often inquire for you. They have given you somewhat of a
name here, and Mrs. Polk and Miss Rucker, her niece, have several times
urged me to permit you to come and pass some time with them. I have
been as deaf as the adder to their request, knowing, to use a word of
your grandmother, that you are too 'outsetting' already. There is a
time for all things under the sun, as the wise man says, and your time
will yet come." Again, he sends love from Miss Hetty, his housekeeper,
and a message to the effect that she would be glad to see Harriet in
Washington. "I fear she might be twice glad," added Buchanan, "once on
your arrival and still more so on your departure."
It was Buchanan's custom to spend his summers or a portion of them at
Bedford Springs, taking his nieces with him. To the younger it has ever
been a place of happy memories. There, when she was still quite a young
girl, she met the man, then also full of all the enthusiasm of youth,
to whom, after exacting a prolonged devotion, she finally surrendered
herself.
In one of her uncle's letters written to her in the summer of 1846
he tells her he will not be able to go to Bedford before the 10th of
August, "when the season will be over and it will be too late for Mary
to enact the character of belle; and you," he continued, "are quite too
young to make the attempt."
He placed her, the autumn of that year, in the Visitation Convent,
in Georgetown, whence she was graduated three years later with much
distinction. She passed one Sunday in every month during these three
years at her uncle's home on F Street, there catching her first glimpse
of that world of which she was later to form a part. Her uncle was
still Secretary of State, and his home was frequented by the most
illustrious men who made up the public life of that day. There Harriet,
looking upon herself as a full-fledged young lady, spent the first
winter after her liberation from school duties. The following year,
however, she passed quietly among her relatives in Pennsylvania, which
was more in accord with her uncle's wishes, for she was still very
young. The decision to do so was entirely voluntary on her part, which
pleased Buchanan greatly, for he realized fully what a fascination
the gay life of the capital held for a young girl in her high social
position. He wrote her a letter full of praise for controlling what
he knew to be her inclination and remaining at home. "This act of
self-restraint has raised you in my estimation," he wrote, and then
went on to relate frankly how gay the city was, and concluded by
assuring her that Mr. John Sullivan, an Irish gentleman famous for his
dinners, would be inconsolable when he learned that she was not to be
there that winter.
It is supposed that no American woman ever had more offers of marriage
than Harriet Lane, and it is evident, from a letter written her by
her uncle about this time, that suitors had already begun to present
themselves. "I wish now to give you a caution," he wrote: "never allow
your affections to become interested, or engage yourself to any person,
without my previous advice. You ought never to marry any person who is
not able to afford you a decent and immediate support. In my experience
I have witnessed the long years of patient misery and dependence which
fine women have endured from rushing precipitately into matrimonial
connections without sufficient reflection. Look ahead and consider the
future, and act wisely in this particular."
With the incoming of Taylor's administration Buchanan retired to
Wheatland, spending the ensuing four years there with occasional
sallies to Washington and his summers as usual at Bedford Springs.
Harriet Lane was already a belle of far more than local repute when
in 1852, her uncle having been appointed minister to England, she
accompanied him thither.