Intimately identified with Mrs. Livingston was Mrs. Stevenson, to whom the years had been kind since the days when, as Sally Coles, she was a protégée of Dolly Madison.[87] At this time she was the wife of the Jacksonian Speaker of the House, soon to become the hostess of the American Legation in London, and to witness, in that rôle, the coronation of Victoria. Strikingly handsome, tall and commanding, she resembled her friend in an ineffable graciousness of manner and an extraordinary conversational ability. Among the most famous hostesses of the Jacksonian circle were Mrs. Louis McLane, “a gay, frank, communicative woman” whose “self-complacence is united with so much good humor in others that it is not offensive,” who gave popular weekly dinners and parties;[88] Mrs. Levi Woodbury, beautiful of form and feature, who resembled Dolly Madison in her suavity, ease of manner, and infinite tact, and presided over her many dinners and dances with dignity and grace, and made a practice of featuring the most dashing belles of Baltimore, Alexandria, and Georgetown;[89] and Mrs. John Forsyth, more conventional and retiring than the others, but yielding to none in culture and elegance, and having a certain advantage in her “group of graces.”[90] Among the hostesses of the Opposition, Mrs. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, a woman of grace and beauty, but lacking in the intellectual sparkle of Mrs. Livingston, maintained the most elegant establishment. But these were only the most brilliant leaders, for the Jacksonian period was one of hectic social activity, with foreign ministers and Cabinet members entertaining constantly and lavishly, and the official underlings desperately bent on a ruinous and riotous imitation. It was a day of much pretense and pose, of ceremonious intercourse, and it was not easy to determine from the swallow-tails and the buff waistcoats whether the wearer were a Senator or a clerk.[91] It was a conversational period, and seldom has the American capital contained at one time so many excellent talkers. Nor was the talk mere chat and gossip. Even the women, especially from the South, were clever conversationalists, able keenly to discuss the politics of the day and the measures of the hour.[92] Even the busiest and greatest party leaders had the time and inclination for calls on bright women when they could enjoy the Johnsonian luxury of having their talk out. We have a picture of Clay “sitting upright on the sofa, with a snuff box ever in his hand,” discoursing “for many hours in his even, soft, deliberative tone”; of Webster, “leaning back at his ease, telling stories, cracking jokes, shaking the sofa with burst after burst of laughter, or smoothly discoursing to the perfect felicity of the logical part of one’s constitution”; of Calhoun, the “cast iron man,” who “looked as if he had never been born,” no longer capable of mental relaxation, meeting men and haranguing them by the fireside as in the Senate; of Justice Story,