Occasionally you talk with a man whom you
have never before heard of, and are struck by the brightness of a
thought, and fancy that there is more wisdom hidden among the obscure
than is anywhere revealed among the famous. You adopt the universal
habit of the place, and call for a mint-julep, a whiskey-skin, a
gin-cocktail, a brandy-smash, or a glass of pure Old Rye; for the
conviviality of Washington sets in at an early hour, and, so far as I
had an opportunity of observing, never terminates at any hour, and all
these drinks are continually in request by almost all these people. A
constant atmosphere of cigar-smoke, too, envelopes the motley crowd,
and forms a sympathetic medium, in which men meet more closely and talk
more frankly than in any other kind of air. If legislators would smoke
in session, they might speak truer words, and fewer of them, and bring
about more valuable results.
It is curious to observe what antiquated figures and costumes
sometimes make their appearance at Willard's. You meet elderly men with
frilled shirt-fronts, for example, the fashion of which adornment
passed away from among the people of this world half a century ago. It
is as if one of Stuart's portraits were walking abroad.
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