THE REPUBLICAN

July 15, 1887

 

Wives of the Presidents.

 

            The inner circle of what may be called the Presidential society have always been the subject of much comment and gossip among what may be termed the outer circles.  Thus Mrs. Abigail Adams, wife of Vice-President John Adams, wrote as follows of Mrs. Washington:  “She endears herself to all, not by what she is so much as by what she is not, and makes up by cordiality the shortcomings of an early education.”  In turn Mrs. Adams, when her husband became President, was commented upon as follows in one of the private letters of the day:  “She is prim, cold and possesses too much mind for the very little heart that hardly seems to beat under her taffeta gown.”  By the aristocracy of Virginia Mrs. Madison was called “the Quaker widow,” and gentlemen were “too fond of her society,” in the common parlance of the day.  The manners of Mrs. Monroe were “too much of the French school,” and it was asserted that the niece of General Jackson, who presided over his household, “had no manners at all.”  Mrs. Harrison left the White House before her manners were developed, and while the first wife of John Tyler was “too old,” the second was “too young.”  Mrs. Polk wore “shawls and a turban,” as well as paste jewelry.  Mrs. Taylor “did not receive.”  Mrs. Fillmore “was deaf.”  Mrs. Pierce, sad and afflicted, “Never laid off her mourning.”  Miss Lane was greatly admired by all here.  Mrs. Lincoln’s love for her husband covered a “multitude of sins.” But we are getting down among persons living and must stop.  Fifty years from now extracts from letters will be published giving a different view of Mrs. Cleveland from what is in the “rose-colored sketches of the lady correspondents. – Ben:  Perley Poore in Omaha Republican.