THE MISTRESS OF THE WHITE HOUSE.
POWER, whether it be mental, social, or merely financial, always endows its possessor with a certain fascination which makes his personality at once interesting. The writer of a famous book, the leader of a brilliant coterie, the owner of vast wealth, seems by some subtile process to have a glamour cast over the trifles of his daily life, so that his very moods and fancies, the idlest utterances from his lips, have for the majority of people an interest born doubtless of the sort of curiosity about those whom the world calls "great" which is in some degree to be found in every mind, and seems to me harmless enough, unless it becomes intrusive.
The tourist whose breast is conscious of the most intensely republican spirit pauses before the long glass screen which shuts off the general public view from the private portion of the Executive mansion in Washington, and wonders how and where "they" live,—the President and his family? Have they hours for social intercourse? Do they chat about ordinary topics such as interested them a year ago and will interest them two or three years hence? Does the mistress of the White House move and live and have her being like other simple young matrons? Or is there a touch of royalty in this half-seclusion which the nation grants the President and his family? Are any of the splendors within those closed portals regal? Is she, the sweet girlish mistress of the house, an inaccessible, remote being surrounded by the divinity which doth hedge a king?
It is a fortunate circumstance that some of Mrs. Cleveland's predecessors established precedents which make social and domestic life at the White House more endurable than in the days when the President's wife was expected to return calls and accept almost every invitation offered her. The first lady of the White House, Mrs. John Adams, complained bitterly of the work involved in returning calls, and young Mrs. Tyler made merry over her fatigue in travelling in the "city of magnificent distances." But, startling as some of the innovations were at the time they took place, the present lady of the White House has to be thankful for the freedom left to her. She may visit her friends if she likes, but is not compelled to go through the dreary formality of returning calls that constitutes a part of the social bondage of fashionable life.
The home of the President is now nearing the centenary of its existence. Its story includes much that politically and socially is both
