THIS WAS MY NEWPORT—Maud Howe Elliott—The Mythology Co. ($4).
Her mother was Julia Ward Howe, who wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic in a moment of inspiration in 1861 and died in 1910, at 91, without ever having been able to live down or live up to that solitary performance. Her father was Samuel Gridley Howe, a romantic figure, a friend of Lafayette, a soldier in the wars for Greek and Polish independence. In This Was My Newport, Daughter Maud Howe Elliott, now 90, tells what it was like to be the child of celebrities, in a 269-page volume that is half personal and family history, half a reminiscent guide to Newport, and altogether with. out a breath of scandal, malice, adventure or repining.
Dinner for 100. The Howes were not rich. When one of the Howe maids who had worked for August Belmont said snobbishly, “Mr. Belmont keeps ten servants, Mr. Belmont keeps 20 horses,” Mrs. Howe’s sister retorted, “Mr. Belmont keeps everything but the Ten Commandments.”
This is as close to rough talk as This Was My Newport ever gets. The memories of Maud Howe Elliott reach back to the days when Newport tradespeople sent out their bills once or twice a year and closed their shops at noon. At the height of the Newport season, the regulars counted on dining out every night of the week. At two Newport homes, Mrs. Ogden Mills’s and Mrs. Elbridge Gerry’s, dinner for 100 could be served without calling in outside help. Dinner began at 8:30 and lasted three hours, until King Edward VII decreed that no dinner should last longer than an hour. Guests were invited to balls at 10:30. A few admirals and the clergy arrived at 11. The others dined, played bridge, arrived at midnight. Supper was served before 1:00 for the elderly, who took a glass of champagne, a cup of bouillon, a roll, and their departure. The youngsters danced till daybreak, ate breakfast of ham & eggs, and hurried to Bailey’s Beach for a swim.
The cotillion “was the main event of the ball, beginning at midnight, after supper. Your partner’s first act was to secure a pair of chairs by tying them together with a handkerchief. These were all placed around the ballroom in front of the benches reserved for chaperons and unlucky girls who had no partners. The leader of the cotillion had absolute powers; his word was law. He rarely took a partner, and so was free to direct the dancing. At a signal from him, a certain number of couples—six, ten, twelve, as the case might be—danced through the first bars of the waltz . . . and then separated, the lady choosing a man from those seated around the room, the man choosing a lady, with whom the figure was danced. . . . Girl or boy, your success depended on the number of times you were taken out. The favor figures were the most exciting. The favors—sometimes a corsage, or a gay rosette of ribbons—were placed on a table at the end of the ballroom…. Later the tokens became more and more expensive—fans, cigaret cases, enameled watches, jeweled stickpins. . . .”
The peril of the cotillion was that wallflowers could not be camouflaged. Says the daughter of Julia Ward Howe: “Today no woman will goto a ball without an escort. These moderns play safe. … I must say I think we were rather more sporting in our attitude. . . .”
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