It is an axiom in physics, that a part cannot be greater than the whole; and it will be recollected, that, after Epistemon had his head sewed on, he related a tough story about the occupations of the mighty dead, and swore, that, in the course of his wanderings among the damned, he found Cicero kindling fires, Hannibal selling egg-shells, and Julius Caesar cleaning stoves.  The story holds good in regard to the mighty personages in Washington, but the axiom does not.  Men whose fame fills the land, when they are at home or spouting about the country, sink into insignificance when they get to Washington.  The sun is but a small potato in the midst of the countless systems of the sidereal heavens.  In like manner, the majestic orbs of the political firmament undergo a cruel lessening of diameter as they approach the Federal City.  The greatest of men ceases to be great in the presence of hundreds of his peers, and the multitude of the illustrious dwindle into individual littleness by reason of their superabundance.  And when it comes to occupations, it will hardly be denied that the stranger who beholds a Senator “coppering on the ace,” or a Congressman standing in a bar-room with a lump of mouldy cheese in one hand and a glass of “pony whiskey” in the other, or a Judge of the Supreme Court wriggling an ugly woman through the ridiculous movements of the polka in a hotel-parlor, must experience sensations quite as confounding as any Epistemon felt in Kingdom Come.

In spite of numberless receptions, levees, balls, hops, parties, dinners, and other reunions, there is, properly speaking, no society in Washington.  Circles are said to exist, but, like that in the vortex of the whirlpool, they are incessantly changing.  Divisions purely arbitrary may be made in any community.  Hence the circles of Washington society may be represented sciagraphically in the following diagram.

[Illustration]

The Circle of the Mudsill includes Negroes, Clerks, Irish Laborers, Patent and other Agents, Hackmen, Faro-Dealers, Washerwomen, and Newspaper-Correspondents.  In the Hotel Circle, the Newest Strangers, Harpists, Members of Congress, Concertina-Men, Provincial Judges, Card-Writers, College-Students, Unprotected Females, “Star” and “States” Boys, Stool-Pigeons, Contractors, Sellers of Toothpicks, and Beau Hickman, are found.  The Circle of the White House embraces the President, the Cabinet, the Chiefs of Bureaus, the Embassies, Corcoran and Riggs, formerly Mr. Forney, and until recently George Sanders and Isaiah Rynders.  The little innermost circle is intended to represent a select body of residents, intense exclusives, who keep aloof from the other circles and hold them all in equal contempt.  This circle is known only by report; in all probability it is a myth.  It is worthy of remark that the circles of the White House and the Hotels rise higher and sink lower than that of the Mudsill, but whether this is a fact or a mere necessity of the diagram is not known.