The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-04-26

Got Into West Point.
Nellie Arthur, Fannie Hayes, Mollie Gar
feld-Brown, and Nellie Grant-Sartoris are the
four daughters of Presidents with whom the
public is familiar and whose histories lie en-
tirely within the last generation. Frequent
newspaper mention of these young matrons
and maidens serves as 1t were to keep their
lives in touch with the world and to arouse in
their fortunes kindly interest. There is,
however, another, a fifth living daughter of
United States President, but one whose days
of social prominence lie beyond the shadow of
the great Rebellion and the stream Of whose
quiet life is fast approaching the shoreless
sea. This lady, between whom and her youth
full successors nearly fifty years of history were
made, is Mrs. Letitia Tyler-Semple, the
daughter of President John Tyler and the
widow of the late Purser Semple, of the
United States Navy. This aged but still proud
and elegant woman is prominent in the group
of aristocratic old Southern ladies who live in
the Louise Home at the Capital. Though
nearly eighty years of age, Mistress Semple is
neither old nor enfeebled. She not only re-
tains much of the beauty Of fifty years ago,
but expresses herself with the same vigor and
exhibits the same constitutional conservatism
as did her father before her. She is rather
above medium height and carries herself as
erectly as a woman of half her years, and her
fine, strong face, lighted by keen but kindly
brown eyes, and softly framed in loose silver
waves, certainly bellies the years with which
history credits her. This lady, who has gone
upon the record as among the charming
young mistresses of the White House, is rep
resentative of another time and generation.
She is the faithful adherent of the old regime,
and, as one born and reared in the traditions
and creeds of the Virginian ante-bellum glory,
regards with distrust and dsfavor the So
called progress of these uneasy latter times.
Since the death of her husband and her en-
trance to The Louise Home, some eight or ten
years ago, Mrs. Semple has been quite lost to
the gay world in which she once reigned, the
gay official world which she now placidly
contemplates from the window of a coZy
apartment overlooking the broad, clean sweep
of Massachusetts avenue, and the quiet ele-
gance of Scott Circle, where the fashionable
equipages continually roll. Here, however,
in the warmth and comfort of her high-up
sunny, CHEEKY retreat, she receives the very
small circle of old-time. friends and the
younger ones who delight in the reminiscent
pictures of her grlhood days and its environ
ment of great persons and events.
To hear lady chat familiarly of Daniel
Webster, of Dolly Madison, and of Clay and
Calhoun clothes these intellectual factors of
history with flesh -and-blood personality, and
enables one, as it were, to shake hands with
her forefathers and to realize her relationship
to history. Her recolections of an era when
society was "dignifed," when slang was un-
known as a drawing-room accomplishment,
and when "pmnciple and honor were the first
tenets of gentleman's creed" are most inter
esting, and her comparisons between then and
now are never in favor Of the present giddy
age.
WASHINGTON SOCIETY FIFTY YEARS AGO.
Referring to official society at the Capital
during her fathers administration, Mrs.
Semple said; "Society was then u very
different thing from now Women leaned
upon men as their protectors and guardians,
and gentleman of those days regarded as his
first duty the care of his wife and children
and his mother and sisters. The progressive
woman, that dreadful outgrowth of the war
and the upheayal of society, had never been
heard of. Women then desired to be good
wives and mothers, and were not men either
in thought or doing mems work, and dis
to silence in public Progress is not always
advancement" concluded this lady with
emphasis, and passing from this she com
pared the women of to-day with those Of
former times, spoke derogatorily of the
modern methods of fashionable entertainment,
and deplored the crowded, ill-regulated, and
purely snowy character of the present fashion
able reception, tea, or luncheon. "In those
days, said she, ''a drawing-room entertainment
was something more than crush of people
1t was planned to give pleasure, not merely
to cancel obligations. 1t was a cordial and
orderly affair, the young gentlemen We're
called upon to usher and look out for the
pleasure of the guests, and when supper was
announced the eldest and most important
persons were first led into the dining-room
OF course" added Mrs. Semple, "in those
days you must remember there was but one
railroad into the Capital, that from Baltimore,