Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/78

Rh ball at Mrs. Carroll's, her beautiful fair daughters being the ornaments of the scene.

Here came General Scott; in those days he was grandly the hero of the Mexican war. Here I saw many of the young heroes destined later on to be world-renowned — Admiral Farragut and Rogers, young, handsome, and stately; General Lee, a magnificent man; Zachary Taylor, Colonel Bliss, and a little quiet man who shrank out of sight — he was known later on as U. S. Grant; Franklin and McClellan, fresh from Mexico, and a thousand others whose later fame has made their early day seem dim.

Mr. Robert C. Winthrop was a prominent figure. He was Speaker of the House, and much admired for his admirable justice and presence of mind, his fairness to his political opponents, his fine temper, and his ready wit. He was, like the Earl of Clarendon, a man with a balance of the qualities, none of them overweighing the other. Mr. Winthrop was an hereditary gentleman, a man of fortune, entertained hospitably, and was of infinite service in the House when passions ran high.

Washington was seething then with the question of abolition and "North and South." The South was very much to the front in social as in political matters. The women were beautiful, full of all the accomplishments, and knowing how to entertain. The men, like Mr. Berrian, were scholars and most admirable talkers. Perhaps we young girls, in the flippancy of youth, found some of them rather verbose, rather sesquipedalian, quoting Pope more than Longfellow, and sometimes the elderly ones would attempt an elephantine flirtation. We preferred the foreign attaches and the young officers of the army and navy, and I do still. But we had our General Dix, most accomplished of