Washington [396]
From the description, one can see how meticulously Washington fashioned the image that he broadcast to the world. Walter Buchanan, a New York physician, left a revealing tale of a visit to the Cherry Street mansion during the president’s first Fourth of July in office. When told that a small delegation from the Society of the Cincinnati had appeared on his doorstep, Washington disappeared upstairs, donned his black velvet suit and dress sword, then invited the veterans in for cakes and wine. “On their departure,” noted Buchanan, “the general again retired and came down to dinner in his usual costume of pepper-and-salt colored clothes.”20
The Tuesday-afternoon levees, wooden and boring, were excruciating affairs, unrelieved by spontaneity. Washington’s heroic stature, an essential part of his strength, was turned into a plaster cast that imprisoned him. During these scripted functions, people found it impossible to engage in substantive discussions with him, and perhaps that was the point. The taciturn Washington could see people without worrying that they would solicit him for jobs or pump him for political opinions. In searching for the happy medium between “much state” and “too great familiarity,” Washington largely succeeded in finding it.21 Despite the benign look in his eye, he managed to preserve a certain official distance. “He is polite with dignity,” Abigail Adams attested that spring, “affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity, modest, wise, and good.”22
Since Washington’s Tuesday levees were limited to men, he and Martha decided that she would entertain female visitors every Friday evening from seven to ten, serving tea, coffee, ice cream, and lemonade. The plump little Martha, seated on a sofa as guests entered, enjoyed sampling the desserts. She dressed well but avoided jewelry as inappropriate for the new republic and was addressed by the democratic nomenclature of “Mrs. Washington.” Never a sparkling talker, she was invariably a capable one, falling easily into conversation with people and making even complete strangers feel welcome. Usually seated at her right elbow was Abigail Adams, who noted how Washington chided anyone who violated protocol: “The president never fails of seeing that [the seat] is relinquished for me, and having removed ladies several times, they have now learnt to rise and give it to me.”23
Dispensing with hat and sword, Washington made a minor concession to informality by wearing a brown coat on Friday evenings. More relaxed than at his own levees, he circulated and chatted amiably with guests, displaying “a grace, dignity, and ease that leaves Royal George far behind him,” Abigail Adams reported.24 Washington delighted in the company of pretty women, who found his appeal only heightened by the presidency. “The young ladies used to throng around him and engage him in conversation,” said one visitor. “There were some of the well-remembered belles of that day, who imagined themselves to be favorites with him. As these were the only opportunities which they had of conversing with him, they were disposed to use them.”25 Another observer noted that Washington seemed less austere at his wife’s teas, where he “talks more familiarly with those he knows and sometimes with the ladies.”26 Washington never engaged in flirtatious looks, but he unquestionably paid special attention to women in attendance. “The company this evening was thin, especially of ladies,” he complained in his diary after one Friday soirée.27 Because the