Mr. Fillmore was a fine type of the kind of man Americans love to raise
to the highest office in their gift. He had not been a mill boy, nor
lived in a log-cabin, nor split rails (which was to his discredit),
but he had been an apprentice to a wool-carder in Livingston County,
New York. Afterward he had worked in a lawyer's office all day and
studied at night. He had had no patron. He was essentially a self-made
man. When, by the death of President Taylor, he became President of
the United States, he fitted into the place as if he had made himself
expressly for it.
According to Ampère, who observed us so narrowly in 1852, "M. Fillmore
avait un cachet de simplicité digne et bienveillante, qui me semble
faire de lui le type de ce que doit être un président Américain."
But nobody said any of those fine things about dear Mrs. Fillmore. The
_cachet de simplicité_ she certainly possessed, but she wore it with
a difference. In a President it was admirable, in a beautiful woman it
would have been adorable. It stamped plain, unhandsome, ungraceful Mrs.
Fillmore as ordinary, commonplace. She was the soul of kindness. "She
has no manner," said a woman of fashion. "She is absolutely simple. It
is not good form to be so motherly to her guests. Why, what do you think
she said to me at the last levee? 'You look pale and ill, my dear! Pray
find a seat.' Think of that! Haven't I a right to look pale and ill, I
wonder!"
"She meant to be kind," I ventured. "Should she have permitted you to
faint on the floor?"
"Kind, indeed! It was her duty, if she thought me 'gone off in my
looks,' to tell me how _well_ I was looking! I should have been all
right after that. As it was, I came straight home and went to bed."
I fairly revelled in the music I could now hear. From a famous musician,
Mr. Palmer, I took lessons again. He was a notable character—a splendid
musician, and a welcome guest at Mr. Corcoran's and other houses, where
he amused the company with tricks of legerdemain. He afterward became
the celebrated "Heller," the prince of legerdemain and clairvoyance.
The elder Booth, Hackett, and Anna Cora Mowatt introduced me to the
fascinations of the stage. Nothing to my mind had ever been, could ever
be, finer than their Hamlet, Falstaff, and Parthenia. The Armstrongs
gave me _carte blanche_ to their box at the theatre, and I saw
everything. I wonder if any one at the present day remembers the Ravel
brothers and their matchless pantomimes! Mrs. Baird made a party, taking
little Lucy to see "Jocko." Not a word was spoken in the play; not an
eye was dry in the house.
One evening an agreeable Frenchman whom we knew joined us in our box,
and seeking an opportunity, whispered to me, "Madame, will you grant me
a favor? There—in the parquette, second from the front, _voyez-vous?_
A lady _en chapeau bleu_?"
"Yes, yes, I see! Who is she?"
"Madame" (tragically), "that _demoiselle_ with the young man is
_fiancée_ to my friend!"
"And you are perhaps jealous!"
"Ah, _mais non_, Madame! I have this moment said to my friend,
'_Regardez votre fiancée_.' He has responded, '_C'est vrai!_ It is
custom of this country.'"
"And what then?" I asked.
"Oh!" shrugging his shoulders in scorn not to be expressed in words, "I
say, '_Eh bien, Emil_. If _you_ satisfy, _I_ very well satisfy!' But,
pardon, Madame, is it _convenable_ in this country for _demoiselle_ to
appear at theatre with young gentleman without chaperon?"
I found refuge in ignorance: "I am sure I cannot say. You see I am from
Virginia. I haven't been long in Washington, and customs here may differ
from manners in my home."
I was a proud woman when Mr. Pierce sent for my young editor to read
with him his inaugural address. These were mighty political secrets,
not to be shared with Miss Dick, and thus published to her little
boarding-house world. I felt that I belonged, not to that nor to any
other small world. I belonged to the nation; and strange to say, that
impression (or must I say delusion?) never left me in my darkest, most
obscure days.
Mr. Pierce liked my young editor. We adored _him_! Only since we
lost him have we learned of his many mistakes, vacillation, weakness,
unpopularity; nothing of these appeared in 1852. He had been a fine
politician, had served his country "with bravery and credit," enlisting
as a private in the Mexican War. "His integrity was above suspicion,
and he was deeply religious." It is quite certain he did not desire the
nomination. There was nobody in his family to exult over his promotion,
no son, no daughter to blossom with new beauty because of the splendid
stem on which she grew. Only a sick, broken-hearted wife, too feeble to
endure the exactions of social life, too sad to take part in anything
outside her own room. She did not even attempt it. It was at once
understood that our republican court was such only in name. In name only
did Mrs. Pierce appear in its annals. I never saw her. I never saw any
one who had seen her. We thought of her as a Mater Dolorosa, shrouded
in deepest mourning, and we gave her a sacred place in our hearts.
I cannot close my records of this, my earliest experience of Washington
life, without remembering with gratitude all I owe to the friendship
and wisdom of the discreet, cultured women who felt an early interest in
me, guiding and instructing me. Mrs. Spenser Baird, Mrs. Garnett(_née_
Wise), lovely Annie Wise, and Maria Heth, these were my intimate
friends. Mrs. Garnett, a lovely Christian woman, watched me closely
and restrained me in my natural desire for beautiful raiment. I once
confessed to her, almost with tears, that Léonide Delarue had beguiled
me into giving forty dollars for a bonnet, whereupon she produced
pencil and paper and proved that the material (exclusive of a bit of
superfluous point-lace) could be obtained for ten dollars. The young
English queen, it was said, could make her own bonnets. But I could
not succeed as a milliner. I had some talent, but not in that line.
However, that I might please and surprise Mrs. Garnett and also imitate
the Queen, when the time came for me to indulge myself in a winter
bonnet (we did not call them hats—they weren't hats!), I essayed the
"creation" of one with velvet, satin, and feathers galore. It was a
dreadful failure! I took it to Madame Delarue's and begged her to tell
me what ailed it.
"_Mon Dieu!_" she exclaimed, throwing up her hands in despair,
"_pesante_."
I gave away my "creation" to somebody in my service—anybody who would
condescend to accept it. Mrs. Garnett felt I could hardly afford to try
again. She knew, however, how important to me as a young politician's
wife would be the virtue of economy. It is not written in the stars
that an honest politician can ever be rich. A great evening reception
was to be given by some magnate at which my young editor consented to
be present. He secretly visited Harper's fine store and brought home a
lovely "bertha" for me made of three rows of point-lace. I gasped! But
I was prudent. I accepted it with apparent pleasure, went to Harper's,
found it had been charged, and effected its return. But here was a
dilemma. I was to attend the reception. I was to wear evening dress and
a beautiful "bertha."
"Have you not imitation lace?" I inquired.
Harper had,—and the imitation was good,—the price of plenty of it ten
dollars. I guiltily made the exchange, took a searching look at my
model, and perfectly copied it.
That evening, brave in my counterfeit presentment I stood under a blaze
of light with my intimates, Mrs. Clay, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and others
around me. My editor approached and was complimented upon my appearance.
"Ah, but," he said, in the pride of his young heart, "if I can only keep
it up! Why, Mrs. Clay, that bit of lace cost me hundreds of dollars!" I
caught the wondering eyes of my fully instructed friends, gave them an
imploring glance—and when the boastful young fellow departed, told them
my story. They said I was a very silly woman.
* * * * *
Mr. Fillmore's tastes had been sufficiently ripened to enable him to
gather around him men of literary taste and attainment. John P. Kennedy,
a man of elegant accomplishments, was Secretary of the Navy. Washington
Irving was often Mr. Kennedy's guest. We knew these men, and among them
none was brighter, wittier, or more genial than G. P. R. James, the
English novelist whose star rose and set before 1860. He was the most
prolific of writers, "Like an endless chain of buckets in a well," said
one; "as fast as one is emptied, up comes another."
We were very fond of Mr. James. One day he dashed in, much excited:—
"Have you seen the _Intelligencer_? By George, it's all true! Six times
has my hero, a 'solitary horseman,' emerged from a wood! My word! I
was totally unconscious of it! Fancy it! Six times! Well, it's all up
with that fellow. He has got to dismount and enter on foot—a beggar, or
burglar, or pedler, or at best a mendicant friar."
"But," suggested one, "he might drive, mightn't he?"
"Impossible!" said Mr. James. "Imagine a hero in a gig or a curricle!"
"Perhaps," said one, "the word 'solitary' has given offence. Americans
dislike exclusiveness. They are sensitive, you see, and look out for
snobs."
He made himself very merry over it; but the solitary horseman appeared
no more in the few novels he was yet to write.
One day, after a pleasant visit from Mr. James and his wife, I
accompanied them at parting to the front door, and found some difficulty
in turning the bolt. He offered to assist, but I said no—he was not
supposed to understand the mystery of an American front door.
Having occasion a few minutes afterward to open the door for another
departing guest, there on his knees outside was Mr. James, who
laughingly explained that he had left his wife at the corner, and had
come back to investigate that mystery. "Perhaps you will tell me," he
added, and was much amused to learn that the American door opened of
itself to an incoming guest, but positively refused, without coaxing,
to let him out. "By George, that's fine!" he said, "that'll please the
critics in my next." I never knew whether it was admitted, for I must
confess that, even with the stimulus of his presence, his books were
dreary reading to my uninstructed taste.
A very lovely and charming actress was prominent in Washington society
at this time,—the daughter of an old New York family, Anna Cora (Ogden)
Mowatt. She was especially interesting to Virginians, for she had
captivated Foushee Ritchie, soon afterward my husband's partner on the
editorship of the _Richmond Enquirer_. Mr. Ritchie, a confirmed old
bachelor, had been fascinated by Mrs. Mowatt's Parthenia (in "Ingomar"),
and was now engaged to her. He proudly brought to me a pair of velvet
slippers she had embroidered for him, working around them as a border
a quotation from "Ingomar":—
"Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one."