1 The kindly Mrs. Fish, taking Mrs. Logan with her, rebuked the snobbery by calling on the girl at her simple home on Indiana Avenue; 1 but society was to see little of her, and the gossips had it that her venerable husband was 'not anxious for her to fare forth in the scanty costumes of society.' 2 But the fashionable world, moving at a hectic pace, had little time to ponder the problem of the auburn-haired beauty. The leaders found the days all too short. Noon found them making the rounds of calls, and they turned homeward only with the set of sun to change hastily from calling dress to evening toilette for dinner and then the round of gaslight receptions and dances that often extended toward the dawn.3 The end of the season left them haggard, and it was observed toward the close that 'those who once could dance all night pant after the first round.' Driving madly on calls from house to house, dressing for Senate field days as for the opera, midday found them at elaborate luncheons -and such luncheons! 'Oysters on the shell... clear soup... sweetbreads and French peas... Roman punch... chicken cutlets. . . birds... chicken salad... ices, jelly, charlottes, candied preserves, cake, fruit, candy, tea, coffee, and four kinds of wines' - such a luncheon at Mrs. Creswell's.5 But it was when the gaslights were on that society took possession of the town, loiterers crowding the streets before the houses of the receptions-noise and commotion, horses stamping, doors slamming, drivers shouting until midnight. Beautifully gowned women poured through the doors, laboriously fought their way to the dressing-room, squeezed themselves upstairs at a snail's pace,7 where pretty unmarried girls were in the receiving line. Then the peacock promenade, the sixty-five-inch trains dragging the floor, bright, flirtatious eyes peering over the enormous fans then in vogue. And then the dancing, eating, drinking, and more flirting - monstrous flirting. For had not Mrs. Schurz on leaving one 1 Mrs. Logan, 269-70. 2 New York World, quoted from Indianapolis News, March 26, 1876. New York Herald, February 28, 1869. 5 Mrs. Blaine, Letters, 1, 79. 7 A reception at Mrs. Belknap's, ibid., February 21, 1870. 8 New York World, January 14, 23, 1870. 9 Ibid., March 1, 1873. 8 reception observed 'Monsieur Mori standing motionless, his arm tight around a young lady's waist? Imagine it!' 1 Society reporters were amazed at the extravagance in dress, the jewelry, the increasing elegance of the equipages, the epicurean dinners, the spirit of abandon, so out of keeping with so many official salaries. Let us attend a composite reception and get a closer view of the women who dominated these gay scenes when there was so much suffering in the South. Let us make it a reception at Kate Chase Sprague's - none less. IV This amazing woman, surpassed by none in history in the imperial sway she held over men's imaginations, suggested in her career the brilliant daughter of Burr. She had been the mistress of her father's household at an age when many girls still find amusement with their dolls. The public men she thus met at the table of Chase had greatly stimulated her intellectual growth, and the atmosphere of politics had early become part of herself. While still in her teens, she was one of the most astute politicians in Ohio. The father, idolizing her from birth, had written in his diary the night she came: 'The babe is pronounced pretty. I think it quite otherwise.' 2 When she was four, he was praying with her after correcting her. At five, she was listening to the reading of the Book of Job and seeming pleased - 'probably with the solemn rhythm' and the father was praying with her again. At that age she was reading poetry to her father along with the Bible." When Chase entered the Cabinet, she took the social scepter from older hands, and at twenty-one she was the belle of the town. Her extraordinary beauty, grace, charm, her brilliant repartee, made her the darling of the diplomatic corps, her suitors were legion, her triumph complete. Even as her father was writing that 'her good sense' would 'keep her aloof from politics,'' she was deep in political intrigue, and Lincoln was paying homage to her judgment. Ambitious, brilliant, her imagination pictured her father President, and herself presiding at the White House. 2 Warden, 290. 3 Ibid., 301. Mrs. Logan, 300. 1 Mrs. Blaine, Letters, 1, 90-91. 1 Ibid., 302. 5 Ibid., 302-33. 7 Chase to Mrs. Bailey Warden, 581. That her marriage at twenty-four to Senator Sprague, whose fortune was great, was dictated by ambition for her father seems probable. At that time she was the most dashing young woman in the country, the most popular in official society since Dolly Madison. Her wedding had been a social event, her trousseau that of a princess, her guests the most notable in the land, and Lincoln had claimed the privilege of a kiss. In less than a year, she was the acknowledged arbiter of the most exclusive society.1 Reveling in her millions, astonishing by her splendor, importing her gowns from Paris, she dazzled the drawing-rooms with her jewels, and in 1865 created a sensation by wearing a huge diamond on top of her bonnet. And yet she dimmed the splendor of her raiment and outshone the brilliance of her jewels. The correspondent of the 'Chicago News' thought her the only woman with a vast number of gowns and jewels who rose superior to them all. 'Not a gown, not a chain, not an ornament ever attracted attention except in so much as it shared her beauty. . . . She had more the air of a great lady than any woman I ever saw. She could make all the Astors look like fishwomen beside her.' And yet a shadow fell upon her marriage early, her husband's inebriety humiliating her at social functions, but without disturbing the perfect poise of this radiant creature in pink satin, point lace, and diamonds. If romance died, ambition did not falter. Her position was in no sense endangered. She had her house at Narragansett, with eighty rooms magnificently furnished, and filled with works of art; her father's beautiful place at ‘Edgewood,' on an eminence near the capital, had its forty servants; and in town her drawing-room more nearly resembled that of Madame de Staël than any ever seen in Washington. Statesmen, jurists, politicians, artists, diplomats mingled there with the cleverest and most charming women. There fashion and politics fraternized, and even the flirtations were political. Ever and anon she would arrange a parlor lecture—as for Julia Ward Howe. Her dinners were regal in magnificence. She controlled her household and servants with an iron hand in velvet gloves, and her French cook was a dignitary in the minds of those who sat at her table. Sometimes, in warm 1 New York Herald, July 8, 1865. 3 Warden, 566. 2 New York World, February 20, 1870. 4 Mrs. Logan, 239. weather, her dinners would be spread in the garden behind the house, and the gossips were thrilled when at one of her dinners a floral ornament costing a thousand dollars decorated the table, and was contributed to Grant's second inaugural ball.1 Wherever this enchantress went, she dominated the scene and figured most conspicuously in the descriptions of the event. Did Madame de Catacazy give a dinner? Mrs. Sprague was there 'in pale blue silk, with an overdress of pale pink silk, the two colors harmoniously blending to produce beautiful combinations. Her ornaments were turquoises and diamonds. She wore a tiara of these stones.' 2 Did she attend a dancing party at Mrs. Fish's? She was there 'wearing a rose pink silk with train and silvery flounce brocaded; her ornaments pearls and diamonds, and two sprays of these jewels were fastened in her hair.' 3 Always she was the center of the picture. Men hovered about her and, while there was no gossip, except in the case of Roscoe Conkling, she was courted as much as married woman as when maid. The birth of her first baby was a national event, every woman in the country reading descriptions of the layette; and when the child began to talk, its amusing sayings were passed from mouth to mouth. And yet, always the grand lady, she was a little aloof, haughty, frankly bored by commonplace people. She may at times have been the Marie Antoinette of the Little Trianon, but she was always imperial. When Grant appeared in Washington to be lionized after his military triumphs, and society was obsequious, she laid down the law on precedence and the General called on her father first. There was magic as well as majesty in her pointed finger.4 Such was the fascinating lady we are about to meet. V The house is crowded, and as we note members of the Cabinet, candidates for President, Senators and diplomats, and foremost journalists, such as Ben: Perley Poore and Donn Piatt, it seems a mobilization of all that is distinguished in our public life. The diplomatic corps - not one is missing. The Senate? It seems to 1 New York World, March 5, 1873. * Ibid., April 23, 1871. 2 Ibid., March 20, 1870. 4 Badeau, 173. have adjourned, en masse, to her drawing-room. Numberless wax candles with the gaslights make as much brilliancy as possible. On stands and tables, the most gorgeous flowers. Somewhere music. And there, standing beside her father, Kate Chase Sprague, 'dressed magnificently and yet so perfectly that the dress seems rather part of herself than an outside ornament.' Her hair is arranged with the usual simplicity, but across the front she wears a bandeau of turquoises and diamonds, and back of it feathers and flowers.1 Her form is beautifully symmetrical, just plump enough for her height, the lines of bust and waist perfect, her hands and feet noticeably small. Her face is oval, and the texture of her skin smooth and firm. Her forehead is low and wide, and slender arched eyebrows set off the eyes, difficult to describe because of something mysteriously subtle and hidden among the thick dark drooping lashes, and 'they have always the look as if they had been crying hard without the redness - the most fetching eyes on earth.' There is a slight saucy tilt to the nose, and the lips are very red and full, with fascinating tints at the corners. The hair, richly golden. The form and features of the most devastating and provocative of women. Perhaps the most expressive feature is the deep brown eyes that seem brooding in the shade of the veiling lashes. Her magnetism pervades the room. Maybe it is the mind behind the beauty that makes her stand out so regally among all the pretty women about her. 'When she is talking to you, you feel that you are the very person she wanted to meet,' thought Hugh McCulloch, and that was a secret of her popularity. She draws out the most reticent like strong wine; even the dull shine momentarily under her mysterious gaze. After all, it is not the mere physical beauty that makes her 'the enchantress,' but the distinctive intellectual charm of her manner, the proud poise of her exquisite head. We pass on into the library for punch, or up to the little room on the second floor for coffee. After a while, we shall file out into the grounds for supper in a pavilion, floored and covered with linen damask. Meanwhile, we have time to gossip a bit about other interesting women who socially reflected the political spirit of the times. 1 Description of one of Mrs. Sprague's receptions, New York World, April 28, 1872. 2 New York World, April 28, 1872. |