The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper CorrespondentBriggs, Emily Edson
History
The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper Correspondent
Briggs, Emily Edson
United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1933; Washington (D.C.) -- History
It was refreshing, at last, to see the soldierly form of General
Sherman advancing to the witness stand. There are some handsomer
men in the Senate chamber at this moment, but none of finer or
more exquisite workmanship. The high forehead and eagle eyes; the
thin, quivering nostril, and square manly shoulders; the muscles of
wire-drawn steel. Like an exquisite stringed instrument, he must be
kept up to concert pitch, and then follows such ravishing melody; but
out of tune, or with a string broken, horrible discord would be sure
to follow. He may be the best of husbands and fathers, but it is very
plain that Nature was intent upon fashioning a good soldier, a leader
amongst men, and in this particular instance she had made no mistake.
Reader, let your mind’s eye wander to the galleries. At the right of
the diplomatic seats sits a woman reminding us of an English duchess.
She is not delicate or sylph-like; on the contrary, nothing shall be
said about avoirdupois. She is elegant and distinguished looking. Her
black, flowing drapery is moire antique; a costly camel’s-hair shawl
is thrown carelessly back from her shoulders, and lilac plumes dance
and flutter with every turn of her head; amethysts and diamonds hang
suspended from her ears, and her left hand sparkles with the weight
of a moderate fortune. Would you know her title? It is the same whose
name flew all over the country in connection with the Prince of Wales
at the time the Gothamites feasted the Prince and provided him with
a partner also. It will be remembered that on that most important
evening the floor fell into the cellar, and there are people of
to-day who are no wiser than to say, “No wonder! No wonder!” In the
sky of wealth and fashion in Washington, this queenly woman is a
flaming star of the first magnitude; or, more properly speaking, she
is the Pleiades, Hyades, and possibly the “big dipper” also.
And now, reader, you are to know about the wife of a Senator who is
not in her coveted seat to-day, for the reason that she has given to
one of her husband’s constituents her ticket, and, therefore, like
the humblest amongst us, has to remain at home. Would you know this
pure type of womanhood, who says with her own lips, “We owe more
to our constituents than to ourselves”? Would you know the woman
whose sincere pity goes unchallenged amidst all this frivolity and
wickedness, and whose unostentatious charity would be as refreshing
and as broadcast as the evening dew if the source of supply was as
unfailing as her own generous heart? Scarcely a public institution
of charity exists in Washington without her name on the roll call
and she alone gathered the first thousand dollars that made the
“Newsboys’ Home” a success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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