ve of our presidents was,

"The statues of our stately fortunes
Are sculptured with the chisel, not the axe."

Mr. Van Buren was Secretary of State, and one of the most agreeable
and politic of statesmen. He was in line of succession to the
great office, and understood well the importance of maintaining
his hold upon President Jackson. A widower himself, the call upon
which so much stress was laid at the time subjected the Secretary of
State to no embarrassment at home. Not so, however, with three of
his colleagues in the Cabinet: Mr. Ingham, Secretary of the
Treasury, Mr. Branch of the Navy, and Mr. Berrien the Attorney-General.
The wife of each of these gentlemen refused to return Mrs. Eaton's
call, or to recognize her in any possible manner. No remonstrance
on the part of the President could avail to secure even a formal
exchange of courtesies on the part of these ladies. All this only
intensified the determination on the part of the President to secure
to the wife of the Secretary of War the social recognition to which
he considered her justly entitled, but it would not avail; the
purpose of the most resolute man on earth was powerless against
a determination equal to his own. Never was more forcibly exemplified
the truth of the old couplet:

"When a woman will, she will, you may depend on't,
And when she won't, she won't, and there's an end on't."

As to how Mrs. Eaton meanwhile appeared to others, something may
be gleaned from the statement of a distinguished gentleman who
called at the home of the Secretary of War:

"I went to the house in the evening, and found assembled there a
large company of gentlemen who paid assiduous court to the lady.
Mrs. Eaton was not then the celebrated character she was destined ere
long to be made. To me she seemed a strikingly beautiful and
fascinating woman, all graciousness and vivacity--the life of
the company."

That the discordant status of the households of the official advisers
of the President was the topic of discussion among leading statesmen,
may be inferred from the following extract from a letter written
at the time by Daniel Webster:

"Mr. Van Buren has evidently, at this moment, quite the lead in
influence and importance. He controls all the pages on the back
stairs, and flatters what seems to be, at present, the Aaron's
serpent among the President's desires, a settled purpose of making
out of the lady of whom so much has been said, a perso