Four Years in Rebel Capitals | Page 5

in each year; then, spinning out its centrifugal force, flew into minute fragments and scattered to extreme ends of the land. The smaller one--the inner circle--revolved sedately in its accustomed grooves, moving no whit faster for the buzz of the monster that surrounded and half hid it for so long; and when that spun itself to pieces moved on as undisturbed as Werther's Charlotte.
The outer circle drew with it all the outside population, all the "dwellers in tents," from the busiest lobbyman to the laziest looker-on. All the "hotel people"--those caravans that yearly poured unceasing into the not too comfortable caravanserai down town--stretched eager hands toward this circle; for, to them, it meant Washington. Having clutched an insecure grasp upon its rim, away they went with a fizz and a spin, dizzy and delighted--devil take the hindmost! Therein did the thousand lobbyists, who yearly came to roll logs, pull wires and juggle through bills, find their congenial prey.
Who shall rise up and write the secret history of that wonderful committee and of the ways and means it used to prey impartially upon government and client? Who shall record the "deeds without a name," hatched out of eggs from the midnight terrapin; the strange secrets drawn out by the post-prandial corkscrew? Who shall justly calculate the influence the lobby and its workings had in hastening that inevitable, the war between the states?
Into this outer circle whirled that smaller element which came to the Capital to spend money--not to make it. Diamonds flash, point lace flounces flaunt! Who will stop that mighty whirligig to inspect whether the champagne is real, or the turtle is prime?
Allons! le jeu est fait!
Camp-followers and hangers-on of Congress, many of its members from the West, claim agents from Kansas, husbandless married women from California and subterranean politicians from everywhere herein found elements as congenial as profitable. All stirred into the great olla podrida and helped to "Make the hell broth boil and bubble."
The inner circle was the real society of Washington. Half submerged for half of each year by accumulating streams of strangers, it ever rose the same--fresh and unstained by deposit from the baser flood. Therein, beyond doubt, one found the most cultured coteries, the courtliest polish and the simplest elegance that the drawing-rooms of this continent could boast. The bench and the bar of the highest court lent their loftiest intellects and keenest wits. Careful selections were there from Congress of those who held senates on their lips and kept together the machinery of an expanding nation; and those "rising men," soon to replace, or to struggle with them, across the narrow Potomac near by. To this society, too, the foreign legations furnished a strong element. Bred in courts, familiar with the theories of all the world, these men must prove valuable and agreeable addition to any society into which they are thrown.
It is rather the fashion just now to inveigh against foreigners in society, to lay at their door many of the peccadilloes that have crept into our city life; but the diplomats are, with rare exceptions, men of birth, education and of proved ability in their own homes. Their ethics may be less strict than those which obtain about Plymouth Rock, but experience with them will prove that, however loose their own code, they carefully conform to the custom of others; that if they have any scars across their morals, they have also the tact and good taste to keep them decorously draped from sight.
In the inner circle of Washington were those officers of the army and navy, selected for ability or service--or possibly "by grace of cousinship"--to hold posts near the government; and, with full allowance for favoritism, some of these were men of culture, travel and attainment--most of them were gentlemen. And the nucleus, as well as the amalgam of all these elements, was the resident families of old Washingtonians. These had lived there so long as to be able to winnow the chaff and throw the refuse off.
There has ever been much talk about the corruption of Washington, easy hints about Sodom, with a general sweep at the depravity of its social system. But it is plain these facile fault-finders knew no more of its inner circle--and for its resident society only is any city responsible--than they did of the court of the Grand Turk. Such critics had come to Washington, had made their "dicker," danced at the hotel hops, and been jostled on the Avenue. If they essayed an entrance into the charmed circle, they failed.
Year after year, even the Titans of the lobby assailed the gates of that heaven refused them; and year after year they fell back, baffled and grommelling, into the pit of that outer circle whence they came. Yet every year, especially in the autumn