Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-28
WASHINGTON SOCIETY.
Visiting is Carried On this Season More
than Ever Before.

Washington Cor Louisville Courier-Journal
L believe Washington has gone to visiting
more this season than ever before Every day
is visiting day for some particular class, and
the number of visitors, and the enormous con-
sumption of visiting cards far exceeds any
thing ever heard of before. More than a hun
dred and fifty years ago lady writing from
London said that the happiest hours of life
were found in sociable visits to convertible
friends, and in discourse mot of trifles and
visits, actors, and dresses. but on subjects at
least amusing and engaging" But this sort of
society, she wrote, ''seems to have gone out of
the world" suppose the same thing would
be said now of Washington society by those
disposed to take the view that what is called
society is place for exchange of solid infor
nation. But it has never seemed to me that
social intercourse. however light the discourse
may be- has ever got the credit it deserves.
One can judge fairly of such thing only by
Its effects, and the effects can be ascertained
only by comparison. Where there is much
society, as in Washington, it is a notable fact
that
OLD MEN AND OLD WOMEN
retain their esprit much longer than where
there is not so much of it. Take a city-possi-
bly, Louisville may be an example-where So
ciety is left almost exclusively to the young
and to the unmarried people, and what be-
comes of the old people? They are respected
and beloved by their families, but are they
agreeable and entertaining persons? Do they
do their share in making and keeping life
agreeable? Now here in Washington we see
old gentlemen and old ladies going about visit
ing and attending receptions and dinner par
ties and balls. and giving vivacity and agree
down because they have passed youth and mid
die age. They bring the strength Of expe-
rience and the accumulation of information
and wisdom to entertainment Why should
they retire when time has brought them so
much more of the means for entertainment?
In Washington the young people do not seem
to want the old people to get out of the way
simply because the old people make them
selves agreeable. In some other places, and
possibly In Louisville, old people do not make
the EFFORT to be agreeable. They retire
themselves. and they are at pains, if chance
or necessity catches them in society to ex-
plain how very old, incapable and miserable'
they are. There are conspicuous exceptions
everywhere-men and women who keep
their hearts young. who think so little of
their own dear old selves as to make them
selve agreeable to others, and even to young
people, but it is not the rule.
OUTSIDE OF WASHINGTON
in this country, who would think of lively din
ners and livelier smokes after dinner. and mid
night returns to home, with the company run
ming into the seventies, the Young fellows of
sixty following the pace of their elders and the
lads of forty-five only a little less frolicsome
than usual because their elders are SO engage
ing that they want to take it all in? What is
the reason these old people in Washington do
not go to bed at early candle-light, and get
tucked in and have the house stilled and gem
eral and chill air of decrepitude cast over ioy-
Gus life so that young people learn to look upon
age with horror? Simply because they have
kept on going out visiting here. dining there.
and going to balls and receptions and mingling
with life in all its ages. Suppose the CONVERSE
ton is not ponderous on a crowded receiving
day. there is always youth and gayety There
is always something different from what the
other part of the day has brought to us. There
Is something always to make man button up
his coat, smooth out his wrinkles and brace up
to his best. And this effort, this bracing up to
do our best, is really what keeps us all going in
all we do. In some places / have been where
other customs prevail; l have fled from a man
OF sixty who began in mournful conversation
with the doleful remark: when man reaches
my age it is time -" Here in Washington |
have been drawn near to men of seventy and
over through the magnetism of their charming
conversation.
1T Is A PITY
to think of some parts of our beloved country
that know of, how few years it will be before
the bright. entertaining and attractive young
women and young men who now give so much
brilliancy to their society, will shrink into
socially dilapidated old men and women who
will crawl off to their own upstairs dens because
they have crushed all pleasure out of their
lives, and will not be missed down stairs
because they give no pleasure to life The
true philosophy of life is in the military sys-
tenn. From the first day when he buttons up
his coat to the last day when his comrades
buttons it around him, the soldier is always
bracing himself up for effort. He goes to
parade every day of his life merely to keep
himself in trim, consequently he is fighter to
the end