With these surroundings a President must be singularly oblivious to the voices of nature, art and patriotism if he does not find about his temporary abode everything to minister to his higher nature.
At present, on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, the President usually receives from twelve to one o’clock; Tuesday and Friday are Cabinet days, and Monday he claims as absolutely his own. Of course if a Secretary, Senator or Representative should present himself upon urgent business, that would not admit of delay, the rule would be violated, but not otherwise.
The official etiquette of the White House remains about the same from generation to generation, but the social regime varies very much, according to the tastes of the temporary occupants. If, by a combination of fortuitous circumstances, an unpretending woman of limited education and provincial habits finds herself suddenly thrust into a position for which she is wholly unprepared by previous training, she fills it more or less acceptably, as she has tact and adaptability. These seem qualities which have not of late years been conspicuously characteristic of the “first ladies” of the land, no matter what their previous station; unless, indeed, an exception be made in favor of a certain beautiful woman, who was herself a more priceless treasure than any the White House contained.
A visitor going for the first time to the White House would suppose at a casual glance that it was a gala day, and all the world was thronging thither. It is rather surprising to learn that it is always the same. There are fine ladies and gentlemen who come in great state, foreigners of all nations, rustics from the depths of the forest, the perfectly blasé, the ignorant clown, the ubiquitous, irrepressible American child—all running rampant over the President’s house. Perhaps it would be just as well to go back to the very beginning, when this surging crowd presents itself at the main entrance. Few, fortunately, make the mistake of the intoxicated straggler who found his way into the grounds, and perceiving the three harmless gilded shells used in the way of very questionable ornamentation in front of the mansion, thus accosted a door-keeper: “Old man in?” Receiving only a look of dazed inquiry by way of reply, he continued, “Old ten per cent. money bags, I say?” At this juncture it dawned upon the official, so far as his sense of shocked dignity permitted him to receive any impression, that this besotted wretch actually supposed himself at a pawnbroker’s shop! But a much prettier story than this can be told of these empty shells: Formerly the birds built their nests in them, and now that the holes have been filled so that they can not, they yet come and perch and twitter and circle around their former dwelling-place.