THE TOAST OF THE GALLANTS OF HER DAY
Of the "Mistress Mary Ball's" personal appearance we know nothing,
unless we can guide our imaginations by the recollections of old
Fredericksburg neighbors who knew her after she had passed middle
age. Washington Irving says she was a beauty and a belle. He had
only one source of information, George Washington Parke Custis, the
sole eye-witness who wrote of her personal appearance in middle
life. Sparks, Lossing, and all the rest who have described her, had
no other. Parson Weems, of course, had something to say; but we do
not know that he ever saw her. Any pen-portrait made of her to-day
can boast only an outline of truth. Probability and imagination must
fill in the picture. It is _certain_ that she was "finely formed,
her features pleasing, yet strongly marked." That is all! Has not
some one said "her eyes were blue"? Well, then, fair hair and fair
complexion would match the blue eyes. She was purely English. Her
mother was probably born in England, her grandmother and grandfather
were certainly born and reared there. Her type was that of an
athletic, healthy Englishwoman, to whom an upright carriage and much
out-of-door life gave a certain style. I, for one, am assured that
she was handsome and distingué,--a superb woman in every particular.
She possessed a pure, high spirit, and
"Every spirit as it is most pure
And hath in it the more of heavenly light--
So it the fairer bodie doth procure
To habit in."
[Illustration: OLD YEOCOMICO CHURCH.]
Imagination and probability join hands in picturing her on
horseback. She was a fearless and expert horsewoman. At thirteen
years of age she had owned her own mount, her own plush saddle.
Now, at twenty, we find her in "habit, hat, and feather" at home
on her own dapple-gray, her brother-in-law's gift--she was too
good a horsewoman for mad gallops--"pacing" through the lanes in
Westmoreland to and fro from Bonum Creek to Sandy Point, or to
Yeocomico church, or to superintend her own fields. Her English
habit is of scarlet cloth, long and flowing as to the skirt and
tightly fitted as to the bodice. Her hat is of beaver, and hat and
floating plume alike are black.
This is a pleasing picture of the mother of our adored Washington,
and it is as true a picture as we have authority for drawing. It
would have helped much if we could have accepted any one of the
portraits claiming to be genuine, although no one of them expresses
the type which we may reasonably suppose to have been hers. Her
own descendants and the wisest historians declare she left no
portrait. A picture, claiming to be such, hangs to-day in Lancaster
court-house--one that was genuine was burned in the home of her
early married life. Handsome and stately she certainly was. Nor
can we suppose from the character developed in her early maternal
life, that she mingled to any extent in the gayeties of her time.
In no letter, no record of any kind, is her name mentioned until
her marriage. She was doubtless always grave, always thoughtful,
concerning herself much with her religious duties, industrious
in womanly occupations, reverently attentive to the services at
Yeocomico church, of which the Eskridge family were members.
We may be sure she was instructed in dancing--the universal
accomplishment of the time. The saintly blind preacher, James
Waddell, had his daughters, to the great scandal of his Presbyterian
followers, taught to dance; his defence being that "no parent has
a right to make his children unfit for polite society." Members of
the Lee, Corbyn, and other influential families of her neighborhood
urged the building of a "Banquetting House"--a rustic casino--in
Pickatown's Field in Westmoreland, according to contracts made
years before, "to make an Honourable treatment fit to entertain
the undertakers thereof, their wives, mistresses (sweethearts) and
friends, yearly and every year;" and the "yearly and every year"
was likely to be construed, as the merry colonists knew well how
to construe all opportunities for pleasure. For despite Francis
Makemie, James Waddell, and the truly evangelical priests of the
Established Church--of whom there were still some--the times went
merrily in old Virginia; and the waters of the York had cooled long
ago the fevered blood of the first martyr to freedom; and Benjamin
Franklin was composing ballads upon "Blackbeard, the pyrate," to
say nothing of rollicking rhymes fit no longer for ears polite; and
Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee, and George Washington were yet
unborn.
The veil of obscurity which hangs over the unmarried life of Mary
Ball will never be lifted. The evidence is all in, the testimony
all taken. It is certain that she could hardly escape the social
round in the gay society of Westmoreland, and quite as certain that
she was not a prominent part of it. When the gardener desires the
perfecting of some flower, to bloom but once in a twelve-month, he
keeps it secluded in some cool, dark spot--only when well rooted
bringing it forth into the sunlight. Thus the mind and character
grow best in quiet and seclusion, becoming serene, strong, and
superior to petty passions. When Mary Ball's hour was come, when
her high vocation was pressed upon her, she was rooted and grounded
in all things requisite for her exalted but difficult lot.
The years of which we have no record included the formative period
of her life. They were dark years in the religious history of the
colony. She could have small help from the clerical guides of
the day. Even at the best, a church service was mainly a social
function,--prayers hurriedly read, perfunctory sermon of short
duration, followed by a social half-hour for the purpose of giving
and accepting invitations to dinner. The dinner ended with the
inevitable punch bowl, over which the clergyman was often the first
to become incapable of pursuing his journey home. It had not been
so very long since a rector of the Wicomoco church had reached the
limit of irreverence. While administering the Communion of the
Lord's Supper, upon tasting the bread, he had cried out to the
church warden, "George, this bread is not fit for a dog."[4]
[4] Foote's "Sketches of Virginia."
A more unwilling witness against the clergy than good Bishop Meade
can hardly be imagined. He tells of one who was for years the
president of a jockey club; of another who was an habitué of the
bar of a country tavern, often seen reeling to and fro with a bowl
of "toddy" in his hands, challenging the passers-by to "come in
and have a drink"; of still another who indulged in a fisticuff
with some of his vestrymen, floored them, and next Sunday preached
a sermon from Nehemiah, "And I contended with them and cursed them
and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair!" (Let us
hope they were "Gentlemen" and therefore wore the wigs fashionable
in their day. "Plucked off" seems to imply as much.) One of these
recreant rectors fought a duel within the grounds of his own church;
all of them, according to a report made to the Bishop of London,
were either "slothful and negligent" or "debauched and bent on all
manner of vices."
No one of the Established Church ever _gave_ his services. They were
paid for by the piece or dozen like any other merchantable article.
In St. Stephen's parish the vestry book, in 1712, records the price
of sermons, for instance, to "Rev. John Bell for eight sermons 450
pounds of tobacco apiece." The Rev. Mr. Lechardy rated his eloquence
at a lower figure, "for two sermons 600 pounds of tobacco," etc.
Notwithstanding the velvet and lace, the powder, perfume, and
high-flown compliments of "the gallants of the early eighteenth
century" license of speech was universal. Colonel Byrd, the courtly
master of Westover, wrote letters too gross for the pages of a
reputable magazine. Swearing among women was as common as in the
"spacious times of great Elizabeth." From all this, no tutelage and
government, however careful, could insure escape. In spite of all
this and more, Mary Ball acquired the refinement and moderation of
speech by which she was characterized.