Chapter XVIII: 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?"

The maternal girl smiled grimly at the fragile suppliant, and asked:

"How much is his celery, _ma petite_?"

"Nine hundred, mamma, in the Third Auditor's."

"Then tell him, _mon ange_, that you are engaged for the next set, and wait until the thousand-dollar clerks come in. You know, _ma petite_, what the Count Pistachio said to you at Avignon about giving encouragement to anything less than four figures."

I could not avoid overhearing this conversation, my boy, for it was not held in whispers, and I thought to myself, as I eyed the fashionable pair, "The Republic still lives."

It is, however, with the foreign embassies at Washington, that the genuine aristocratic spirit still holds its normal own; and when I lately received an invitation from a certain convivial diplomatist of the Set to be one of a select party of distinguished gentlemen at his residence on a certain evening, I felt that there was still an available balm in Gilead. Arriving in the rooms shortly before ten o'clock, I found seven middle-aged gentlemen in cambric ruffles and scratch-wigs assembled around the wine-table, all pledging the health of the Venerable Gammon, who had come up from Mugville expressly to be present. There was the French Marquis Non Puebla, on a visit to this country to search for traces of one of the lost gravies of Apicius; Milord Gurgle, who had been deputed to convey to New York a pair of Southdown sheep, presented by the Zoological Gardens to Central Park; the Honorable Peter Pidger, who had once been to Europe to negotiate the sale of some railroad stock; the Ambassador in person; and three other respectable persons with no names, whose sole duty it was to indorse the Ambassador whenever he said anything about "dat signeeficant commencement of dees war at Bool Run." But the greatest of them all, my boy, was the Venerable Gammon, who smiled fatly as they drank his health, and emptied his own crystal with a soft benignity which seemed to consecrate that brand of liquor forever.

"My friends," says the Venerable Gammon, waving an unctuous hand around the board in a manner to confer blessings on the very nutcrackers,--"my friends, I accept the honor for my country, and not for myself. Your countries bask in the sunshine of a powerful peace, while mine grows weak in despotic war. But do not spit upon us, my friends; do not crush us. We will do whatever you want us to do. War," says the Venerable Gammon, beaming thoughtfully at the nearest wine-cooler,--"war may be called the temporary weakness of a young country like ours; and if we learn not to value peace more than war as we grow older, it will only be because we do not learn to value war less than peace as we advance to riper years."

Then all the respectable middle-aged gentlemen nudged each other to notice _that_; and the Honorable Peter Pidger observed, in an undertone, to Milord Gurgle, that if the Government was only guided by such wisdom as that, the country might yet hope for favor from Europe.

"Ah!" says the Ambassador, reflectively, "I cannot help to recollect dat signeeficant commencement of dees war at Bool Run."

Whereupon the three middle-aged gentlemen with no names nodded meaningly to each other, and murmured, in pitying chorus:

"Ah, yes indeed."

As I rode home to my hotel that night, my boy, and reflected upon the polished observations I had listened to, it seemed to me that Europe must indeed be superior to a weak young country like ours, and that Secretary Seward was but showing a proper respect for the dignity of monarchies in yielding gracefully to them whatever they asked, and establishing in American history its first creation of knighthood, under the title of Sir Render. The Sword of '76 would have refused the accolade; but that of '63 is of a milder temper.

On Wednesday, as I strolled lazily along the shore of Awlkuyet River, listlessly tossing pebbles into the placid stream, and paying no attention to any visible object save the severed branches of trees and broken fragments of artillery-wheels which occasionally barred my progress, a Mackerel picket suddenly touched me on the shoulder, and says he, in a whisper,--

"You mustn't be chucking stones into that air water, or you'll wake up the Captain which is asleep."

I glanced askance at him from under my vizor, and says I, "What Captain, my trooper?"

"Why," says he, "the Captain of the Blockade, over yonder."

I looked in the direction indicated by his finger, my boy, and beheld the sloop-of-war Morpheus at anchor near a small inlet leading to the river from the up-country.

"Why, my Union champion," says I, wonderingly, "I should like to know at what time the Captain makes it a practice to retire?"

"Ah!" says the Mackerel picket, leaning upon his musket, and looking dreamily over the water, "he's all the time retiring--he's been put upon the 'Retired' list."

Here was a man, my boy, an American, like you or me, brought up in a country where education is free to all, and yet he had no clearer idea of the functions of our Naval Retiring Board than such as happened to be suggested to his instinct by what he could see of the national blockade service!

Yours, amazedly,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.