Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/298

frequently adorned it, have become as household words in the city which was the scene of them, and indeed are historical in the annals of the higher social life of America. Considering that she died before she was thirty-seven years of age, that she had passed much of her married life abroad, and that the close of it was away from home, and after illness had withdrawn her for some time from the sphere in which she shone, we should under ordinary circumstances find it difficult to account for the great traditionary reputation of her distinction and influence, which is found in Philadelphia as fresh almost at the end of half a century as it was at its beginning. Her reputation was, in truth, the combined result of several causes. Her beauty was splendid. Her figure, which was somewhat above the middle size, was well made. Her carriage was light and elegant, while ever marked by dignity and air. Her manners were a gift. Sprightly, easy, winning, are terms which describe the manners of many women, but while truly describing hers, they would describe them imperfectly, unless they gave the idea that they won from all who knew her a special measure of personal interest and relation. Receiving neither service nor the promise of it, every one who left her yet felt personally flattered and obliged; really exclusive in her associates, she gave to none the slightest offence; with great social ambition at the basis of her character, no aspirant for the eminence of fashion felt that she was thwarting her aims; and with advantages, personal, social, and external, such as hardly ever fail to excite envy from her sex, such was her easy and happy turn of feeling, and such the fortunate east of her natural manners, that she seemed never to excite the sting of unkindness nor so much as awaken its slumber or repose. Her entertainments were distinguished not more for then- superior style and frequency than for the happy and discreet selection of her guests, and her own costume abroad was always marked by that