The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 3Newell, R. H. (Robert Henry)
History
The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 3
Newell, R. H. (Robert Henry)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
Drawing an inference from this little circumstance of Executive
conversation, my boy, it strikes me that it would add considerably to
the importance of some of our large-sized local revolutionists, if they
could overturn the present ignorant Administration, and establish in
its place a ---- Directory.
Yours, double-entendrely,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER XCVI.
DEVOTED PRINCIPALLY TO SOCIAL MATTERS, AND THE BENIGNANT BEARING OF
V. GAMMON AT A DIPLOMATIC SOIREE.
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 3d, 1863.
Social life at our National Capital, my boy, as far as the native
element is concerned, has not been refined by the war; and even at the
White House it is scarcely possible to collect an assemblage of persons
sufficiently genteel by education to speak familiarly of European
noblemen of their acquaintance. At the last dinner given by the
Secretary of State, there were actually three Western persons of much
cheek-bones, who dissented from the very proper idea that Earl Russel's
Carlton-house sherry is superior to anything we have in this country;
and my disgust intensified to hopeless scorn, when an Eastern chap in a
nankeen vest was brazen enough to confess that he could not tell how
many pieces the Emperor of the French had in the wash on the last week
of Lent. At other social gatherings in Washington I have noticed the
same evidences of growing vulgarity; and I greatly fear, my boy,--I
greatly fear that a knowledge of Europe will yet be more prevalent
amongst Europeans than Americans. O my country, my native land! has it
indeed come to this at last? In thy loftiest social circles shall we no
more behold that beautiful flesh-colored being in lavender gloves and
dress-coat whose etherealized individuality broke rapturously forth in
the thrilling words, "When I was in Paris last summer"? Are we no more
to palpitate with ecstasy at the tones of that voice which was wont to
trill forth in liquid music from a curl-crested fountain of white
shoulders, saying: "Don't you remember, Mr. Thompsion, how the Guke of
Leeds larfed that day, at the Reception, when I told him that we
American ladies thought it was vulgar to say 'garters' out loud?" Alas!
my boy, our aristocracy is fading away like an abused exotic, and it is
not oftener than once in a season that the frequenter of our Republican
Court witnesses one incident to make him recognize the polished people
he once knew. About two months ago, at an evening party given by Mrs.
Senator ----, I did witness a social incident, showing that there is
still hope for the Republic. An interesting young mother, of not more
than sixty-two summers, attired in a babywaist and graduated flounces,
was standing near one of the doors of the music-room conversing with me
upon the moral character of her dearest female friend, when her gushing
daughter, a nymph not more than six pianos old, came pressing to her
side, and whispered behind her fan,--
"Mamma _cheri_, may I donse with young Waddle?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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