Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth CenturyPeacock, Virginia Tatnall
History
Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century
Peacock, Virginia Tatnall
Women -- United States -- Biography
The interest which Miss Leiter's remarkable career had inspired
intensified with the announcement of her approaching marriage. Her home
was besieged by newspaper correspondents representing all sections of
the country, showing how widely she was known.
The 22d of April--the date selected for her wedding--was an ideal
spring day. At an early hour in the morning people began to gather
around St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, where the ceremony
was to be performed at half-past eleven o'clock, with a hope of
catching a glimpse of the fair and famous bride. By eleven o'clock the
streets and sidewalks and Lafayette Square were solidly banked with
spectators, and it was with difficulty that a passage-way was kept
open for the carriages of those who had been invited to witness the
ceremony. Women cried out that they were being crushed, and others
fainted, yet the crowd continued to increase till the moment of the
bride's arrival.
St. John's Church, one of the oldest in Washington, is constructed
without a central aisle, so that bridal parties enter by one side aisle
and return by the other. Thither have wended their way many couples
that have passed into fame and history. At its altar, a little more
than six years before Miss Leiter pronounced her marriage vows, another
American girl, Miss Mary Endicott, of Massachusetts, whose father was
at the time Secretary of War, gave her hand to a distinguished son of
Great Britain, Hon. Joseph Chamberlain.
The ceremonies at both of these marriages were exquisitely simple.
Bishop Talbott, of Wyoming, officiated at that of Miss Leiter and
Mr. Curzon, assisted by Rev. Dr. Mackay Smith, the pastor of the
church. Lord Lamington acted as best man for Mr. Curzon, and Miss
Leiter was attended by her two sisters. She was singularly pale, and,
enveloped in the whiteness of her bridal veil and gown, the Easter
lilies that adorned the altar and chancel seemed not more fair than
she. Her slender figure looked its full height, which is the same as
her father's,--five feet seven inches. Her face, whose every feature
is indicative of character and perhaps too serious when in repose,
but wholly charming when lighted by a smile which expresses so much
intelligence and sympathy, bore evidence of the recollection of her
thoughts. It was, as it is to-day, a face of unusual beauty, oval in
shape, with dark-gray eyes, straight black brows, a sweet, sensitive
mouth, a prettily shaped nose, and a low forehead with fine black hair
brushed simply away from it and emphasizing its whiteness.
On her wedding-day she solved with her usual good sense a problem that
has confronted many brides since gloves first came to be considered a
requisite of their costume, as to how under such circumstances a ring
may be gracefully assumed. She entered and left the church with hands
uncovered and unadorned save by her engagement-ring with its superb
setting, a ruby and two diamonds, and the gold band which supplemented
it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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