Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-05-13
Life i'm Washington.

A correspondent of the Jackson MIssiss,p-
pian, who has been writing most charming
letters to that paper during the past winter
thus refers to the close of the gay season at
the Capitol, which has been the most brilliant
for many years:
! "But these enjoyments are over, and now
come the drawbacks. Pecuniary cares in
| trude into the minds of many who remember
with shudder that the lend of the season"
is assigned as the time of payment Our
bellies become perplexed by thousand vague
presentments. Every single knock at the
door seems annunciatOry of some triRmg ball,
some small account. They have preternatural
warnings of lists of unpaid items for ribbons,
needles perfumery, and all the contemplate
nothings of lady's department.; and then
standing bills,-but it is needless to antici-
pate. The sentence of Not at Home is framed
at this season, in contradiction to the usual
| terms, and runs exclusion except on business.
Political dinner-giveTs now know to a frac-
ton the value of Hook, and the cost of
private dishes On coming in, they find
wafered letters lying on hall tables bearing
their superscription hourished in all the suspi-
cious perfection of the clerkly art. When
they venture to unfold the dreaded page, il is
to behold those tremendous perpendicular
columns, marshalled up in fatal arrays and
dated with accurate and insulting minuteness,
which shows more terrible to the eve, than
the columns of the British forces did to the
imperial fugitive Of Waterloo. Gautier resents
with Indignation the slightest scrutiny exer-
cised on the part of the unhappy gver, in
the contents of these long narrow slips of
paper which contain register Of the appe-
tites of the Honorable Members"
At post-hour the Post-man brings pile of
brown enveloped letters. which, upon opening,
they find to be very unsatisfactory fac-simles
of the other missves containing expressions
of gratitude for past favors, with ''small
account, which they conceive it must be
agreeable To look over and settle at this time
The united enormity of these debts render a
chapter on finance highly necessary.
At the close of "the season. the pauperism
of high life is often perceptible here; and the
woes of luxury are by no means less acute
than those of humber life. There is a SEN
timent of personal shame connected with the
restitution of the rich. 1t is such a manifest
self-accusation to plead poverty in excuse for
the delayed payment of bill, that the voice
faltcrs in making the aVowal-''incouvenie
at the present time;' disappointment in nv
rents;" unexpected calls on my money!
are excuses pretty generally recognized as
lame apologies of unjustiiiable prodIgality.
To many of our bellies, this season has been
one long triumph, where all have offered adj
mration, and all have paid homage. And
yet, dear reader, her career, however dazzling,
her success however brilliant, has not been at
tanned without some uneasiness and some ex-
haustion. Even she has sometimes felt Lone
in the crowded drawingroom, and startled ut
the supernatural finger on the wall. What
has she found night after night, in the over
lighted, over heated rooms, i'll those sitting
crowds to reward her for being elbowed, suf-
located and wearied! At the close of all, is
there not a void that no earthly good can fill?
All! if she is just To herself she will answer
there is void. A ''season in Washington
pleasant, but how evanescent; temple in the
clouds, dissolving in its own nothingness;
thing of vapor, bound by chain of gilded
watcr-drops."