XI.  Causes of Display and Frivolity

What else could be expected, for the time being at least?  For, the war over, the people naturally reacted from the dreary period of hardships and suspense to a period of luxury and enjoyment.  Moreover, here was a new nation, and the citizens of the capital felt impelled to uphold the dignity of the new commonwealth by some display of riches, brilliance, and power.  Then, too, the first President of the young nation was not niggardly in dress or expenditure, and his contemporaries felt, naturally enough, that they must meet him at least half way.  Washington apparently was a believer in dignified appearances, and there was frequently a wealth of livery attending his coach.  A story went the round, no doubt in an exaggerated form, that shows perhaps too much punctiliousness on the part of the Father of His Country: 

“The night before the famous white chargers were to be used they were covered with a white paste, swathed in body clothes, and put to sleep on clean straw.  In the morning this paste was rubbed in, and the horses brushed until their coats shone.  The hoofs were then blacked and polished, the mouths washed, and their teeth picked.  It is related that after this grooming the master of the stables was accustomed to flick over their coats a clean muslin handkerchief, and if this revealed a speck of dust the stable man was punished."[222]

Perhaps Washington himself rather enjoyed the stateliness and a certain aloofness in his position; but to Martha Washington, used to the freedom of social mingling on the Virginia plantation, the conditions were undoubtedly irksome.  “I lead,” she wrote, “a very dull life and know nothing that passes in the town.  I never go to any public place—­indeed I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else, there is a certain bound set for me which I must not depart from and as I cannot doe as I like I am obstinate and stay home a great deal.”  To some of the more democratic patriots all this dignity and formality and display were rather disgusting, and some did not hesitate to express themselves in rather sarcastic language about the customs.  For instance, gruff old Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania, who was not a lover of Washington anyway, recorded in his Journal his impressions of one of the President’s decidedly formal dinners: 

“First was the soup; fish roasted and boiled; meats, gammon (smoked ham), fowls, etc.  This was the dinner.  The middle of the table was garnished in the usual tasty way, with small images, artificial flowers, etc.  The dessert was first apple-pies, pudding, etc., then iced creams, jellies, etc., then water-melons, musk-melons, apples, peaches, nuts....  The President and Mrs. Washington sat opposite each other in the middle of the table; the two secretaries, one at each end....

“It was the most solemn dinner ever I sat at.  Not a health drank, scarce