The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-09-11
NEW BOOK NEWS


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 In silence as she had come the lady retired, leaving a goodly coin under the coverlid to be later discovered there. For rest did she do 1t? Just for change. Just because the notion. struck liner. Just to give those old people something to talk over! This Is only one story of many of an that Mrs. Clay-Clopton's story of her aunt's animated soliloquies recalls. There are none of them now. Ec- centricities surely vanished with pam desoys and farthingales. Mrs. Clay Clopton pays a tribute to Mrs. Stafford that beloved educator of Alabama's
 early days, to which many an old pu- pI of that urbane and most attractive woman will utter fervid amen. Is there not in the household of every one of us a preceptor (may such ever re- | main with us) as Virginia's uncle Thomas B. Tunstall, Secretary of State: He early instilled into me pride of family, while reading to me Scott's fine tribute to Brian Tunsta1l. the stain less knight or, as he rehearsed sto- | rfes of Sir Cuthbert Tunstall. Knight of the. Garter. etc, etc." It Is in most | families an aunt, mayhap maiden
 aunt who takes up the wondrous tale" ] apd tells 1t all down the generations
 have yet to see any harm come of
 these old lessons. these dear lessons of
 noblesse oblige. t. Thus and thus have your ancestors
 done. Go thou and do likewise. When
 wide-spreading and engulfing change has drowned all these old stories, has
 hanished the blessed recitative
 tive of family history from our homes | the South will have lost worthful | thing. One might finger long over the
 stories of childhood at the South, bless
 ed the child who had It's life-beginning there where. people seem to know best how to let youth develop with strong
 and kindly leading and supporting. not
 marring the development, of the indi-
 viduality.
 But we shall take Virginia now as
 she comes to Mobile, as she declares:
 50 green that I had not been protected
 by two loving guardians, would have
 been eaten up by the cows on the Mo
 bile meadows" ..4-,-
 She has a sudden metamorphosis
 from brown Holland" to peach -blos
 som silk" She goes to her first ball
 and dances her first quadrille wis., to Madame Le Vert, then in the zenith
 of her fame.
 Interesting was the meeting of these two charming women of Alabama, since the mantle of Madame Le Vert
 was to fall on the shoulders of the lit
 tie girl.
 Washington Irving said: But one
 such woman is born in the course of
 an empire" Lamartine exclaimed on conversing with her: Madame, you
 can charm a nation as you are now charming me!'
 Of Mrs. Clay -Clopton, her brilliant colaborator justly writes: T have come
 upon no record of any other woman of her time. who filled so powerful a place politically, whose belleship has been so long sustained, or whose mag netism and compelling fascination
 have swayed others so universally as have those of Mrs. Clay-Clopton." The story of how this woman. charm
 ing from her cradle, refused to become
 bindingly engaged to Colonel McClung because she had met at my uncle Golfers in Tuscaloosa the young legis-
 lator. Clement c. Clay. Jr. and had
 then had premonition that if we should meet when I returned from
 school I would marry him." will be a delight to the many who believe in affinities and fore-destined loves. Every belle of today will want to
 read the story of Virginia Tunstalrs social triumphs in Tuscaloosa, the capital of our State at that date. What belle of today feels that she has seen the whole gamut of our States social delights until she has had a present. day season of university commencement at Tuscaloosai
 Young men wrote poems to maidens
 of those distant days. The great orator. William l.. Yancey, wrote one tO Virginia Tttnufal1 he ed: ITO the lady with the snow wfrite- plume" Many others wrote
 verses to the same charmer of all These sketches of capital-days in Tus- caloosa remind of that delightful book | of "Reminiscences by William R. Smith for many legislative sessions Con- gressman, known in his University days, so his grey-haired contemporaries tell me as Extra Billy" for that all
 that he did was Extra We'll Done. Then followed one of those ardent courtships
 which seem to have been vogue in the good old days. Ten days after we met we were afianced There was a hastily gathered trousseau selected in part by Mime. Le Vert in Mobile and hurried on to my aunt's home. A month later, and our marriage was celebrated with all the eclat our lit-
 tie city could provide. The legislature came In body, the president of the fac
 ulty of the State University-Dr Ca-
 pers, afterward Bishop of South Caro- lima, officiated"
 So vividly are these scenes put be-
 fore us that one seems to catch the wait of the perfume of white hyacinths that formed the decorations, and to near the gay echoes of that week of festivities" that followed the wedding. Then a bridal journey to Huntsville In Dig four-wheeled stage-coach when
 what Is now bustling busy Blrming-
 ham was but rugged place of rocks and boulders."
 An entrance into Huntsville where
 all along the streets friendly hands and kerchiefs waved a welcome" The accounts of campaigning fin Ala bama will not only live as history. but | for literature of the rarest sort sub- | ject matter in these pages for a. dozen
 plays brighter than have appeared on the boards for many a season Couid we believe had not an eye-wItness related 1t such scenes on our soil !
 this Congressman W. R. W. Cobb who called himself the maker of Senators, who would sing in stentorian tones ! winking as he did so: