The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-03-30
A Social Dynasty Ended.

A Social Dynasty Ended.
THE WOMEN WHO HAVE REIGNED DURING THE
EIGHT YEARS OF GRANTS ADMINISTRATIONS.
It seems difficult to realize that in an
other week new era will dawn upon
society in Washington as well as upon
the official life of the Capital. We have
for so many years been accustomed to
shake Grant by the hand that it will
seem strange to go through the same
ceremony with a new President. We
shall have to look about US and rub our
eyes to satisfy ourselves that we are not
dreaming, and we have for so long a
time been familiar with the looks
aud ways and style of dress of Mrs.
Grant that 1t will seem odd to have to
begin again, after lapse of eight years,
to take mental notes of new lady OF
the White House. Some Of US have left
the bloom of youth behind US in those
years, and we look back at the past as
through a cloud, and all the scenes in
life's drama in which we have played
appear shadowy and unreal to us, and
many of the actors who took part with
US have gone out into the silence; 9TH
ers of us have grown old, and the days
of youth seem strangely near, and we
recall more readily the incidents that
marked those years than events of more
recent date.
Eight years is a good while to look
back upon. Children have grown up
and been married in the White House
within those years, and other children
in their turn have come to them. Cabi-
nets have been made and unmade, The
beautiful wives of Secretaries have
stood, smiling and dazzling in their
jeweled beauty, to receive with the
Presidents wife, and the proud eLeqdnteS
of the nation have clasped the dainty
fingers of these ladies of the Cabinet,
and envied them their charms and their
power. Presto!-they have fallen from
their lofty place. The sovereign spell
of their beauty, or the wondrous fasci-
nation of their art, has no longer its
power to call men to, or to hurl them
from, positions of honor. They no
longer make ministers and appoint
treasury CLERKS. They have committed
the greatest of all offenses against So
ciety-they have been found out, and
the women of fashion, who sought them
in the days of their short-lived triumph,
clethe themselves in an impregnable
armor of virtue, and turn the stream OF
fashion from their doors. These former
ladies of the Cabinet may still give balls
and live in elegance and hob-nob with
diplomats, and pursue life of artifice
and intrigue, or they may, being more
unfortunate but less guilty, be con-
demned to life of quiet and simplicity,
lacking in friends as well as in purse,
They have, with many others, shared
the honors and lead the brilliant life
that has marked one of the gayest and
most corrupt administrations that we
have ever had. Did the tinseled pleas
ure pay? Was the game worth the can
die? To many, alas! in the retrospect OF
the past eight years does the tantalizing
question come.
Great changes, indeed, have marked
the course of those years. We recall
many OF them, as fancy pictures the
bright faces that we used to see in
Washington society, and the sweet
voices of friends float back to us from
the past and their faces appear through
the mists of the years. Again we See
foreign ladies of diplomatic rank, in
their velvets and gold and cold, mock
ing beauty-women who have lived
their brief dream of power and passed
on to be forgotten, while others have
come in to take their places, like them
to go out in their turn at the bidding OF
imperial will.
We see once more a fair face, with
Its weird beauty, its glowing coloring,
and its eyes out-dazzling the gems that
used to clasp the white throat unon
which the mildew of death has fallen
we see another face, more naughty and
not less fair, upon which the disapnoint-
ments of life and the loss of gold have
scanned the tell-tale marks. The Iadv
who, not many years ago, was the pride
Of Washington has concealed her cha
grin and her waning beauty beneath
the mask of artificial pleasure and arti-
hcial youth that so many of her conn
trywomen don amid the mocking paietv
OF Partisan life. Both of these women
held official position-the one as the
wife of Governor, the other as the
daughter of a man who filled a high
place in the nation, and this man. too.
has gone, like Sumner and Wilson. since
the long-aged time when Grant came
into power.
The Cabinet changes pass in review
before our dazzled brain, until thew
number so many that we can scarcelv
count them all. But one man remains
OF the list of names that was given to
tne public almest eight years ago as the
Cabinet OF President Grant. Only one
!ady OF that Cabinet still holds her try-
ing place. Wild social storms have
ragged around the Cabinet that Grant
has tinkered over time and again. some
times making it worse, but Mrs. Fish
has proudly, elegantly held her own.
and braved the tereest and most malig-
nant of those storms of scandal aud in
trigue, feeling that she was in the Cabi-
net but not of it. The weary social du-
ties of the years have weighed upon her
and whitened her hair and added wrin-
kles to her patrician face. She has led
an arduous life, never deserting her
post, almost if not always having been
present at every reception that was
given at the White House, and cheer
fully, unfailingly extending the hospi-
taiity of her own house to the officials,
to the public aud her friends, and most
scrupulously returning the thousands of
calls that were made upon her on her