Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-05-25
F. W. Lander She is about the youngest

L
woman 1 know.
To go back to the avenue. The change I
most deplore is that We have lost it as a
promenade. In those ante-bellum, ante
asphaltum. ante-cable-car-um days, it's
paths were paths of pleasantness,' tho
little uneven underfoot. In the early
morning and cool evening hours, you met
everybody you cared to see, and some you
didn't, on that long Rialto of social eX-
change. Distinguished strangers, cabinet
ministers and their wives, awe-inspiring
Supreme Court judges famous actors and
actresses, great generals, patent medicine
millionares-all came and walked with the
children of men. Our urbane President,
Willard Fillmore, was to be seen now ana
then on the avenue; but, tho he was good
" to look upon. the sight was not impos-
ing as he walked with no lynx-eyed de-
tective near him, and rode with no mount
ed policeman galloping before or after his
flying victoria.
Famous members of the Senate and the
House could be encountered, going to or
coming from the Capitol. Chase, the
stately, always looking cool; Hale. the 70 70
naughty, chewing the cud of sweet and
bitter secession fancies; Douglas, the
doughty, chewing-but not fancies; Robert
Winthrop and Pierre Soule, fine contrast
ing types of northern and southern ~ele-
garce and culture. There was always
hope that one might behold the tall hero or
San Jacnto, the barbaric beau, in all his
somber. sombrero glory. He knew he was
an imposing sight, and did not begrudge
himself to the public. Like nearly all the
big men knew at that time in public life,
he was as colossal in vanity as in stature.
There were some lovely young ladies in
Washington society at that time, tho one
would think from newspaper reports now
adays that nature had saved up all her
pretty girl stuff for fifty years to make
democratic debutantes of to grace this adj
miristration. People used to stroll up and
down the avenue in the hope of encounter
| ing certain beauties" just as, a quarter
| of "a T,nn1OnprS visited
Park at certain hours to look on the face
of Mistress Langtry, whom the prince de-
| lighted to honor. All the world could see
| her there, the lily in her first dewy bloom,
/ and there was nothing to pay.
! One of our beauties the blooming
| Ada Cutts-afterward Mrs. Stephen A.
| Douglas. Another. the lovely American
schoolgrl-wife of the Russian minister,
| Baron Bodisco. That gentleman was ugly,
| in fact, pre-eminently SO, and some people
went so far in their disapproval of the
| marriage as to refer to the old fairy tale
Beauty and the Beast" One seldom met
| the Unmatched couple without a sigh,
which meant "Ah. the pity of it!' Yet peo-
| pie said it was not an unhappy marriage
| Wealth and position are potent comforters
| A certain wise woman of the east once
| said: There is {. moral support in a good
silk gown which neither philosophy nor re-
ligion can afford" And when the gown is
of best Lyons velvet, shot with gold or
| sewn thick with seed pearls, where does the
pity come in?
Occasionally the British minister, Sir
| Henry Bulwer and Lady Bulwer We're
encountered on that promenade, walking
| hriskly, as though chasing down their Con
| stitutional." They We're cold, prOud-look-
ing pair and they weren't pretty but he
was the brother of Pelham and she was
| the daughter of an earl-perhaps of "a
hundred ears." like Lady Clara We're de
We're. So. on meeting them, one felt a
slight thrill, chill, of romantic awe, or
| something.
Now Washington society walks not,
neither does ii skate nor coast. and by the
erd of the fashionable season the smart
| set" all ''kerrdge folks" find themselves
feeble and fabby, in spite of quinia and
the massage, and all more or less in need
| Of constitutional amendments.