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Probability, Statistics, and Data
Probability, Statistics, and Data
A Fresh Approach Using R

Darrin Speegle
Bryan Clair
First edition published 2022
by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

and by CRC Press

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author
and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the
consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright
holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if
permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not
been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint.

Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted,
reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission
from the publishers.

For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access
www.copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood
Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. For works that are not available on CCC please
contact mpkbookspermissions@tandf.co.uk

Trademark notice Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks

and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

ISBN: 978-0-367-43667-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-15441-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-00489-9 (ebk)

DOI: 10.1201/9781003004899

Publisher's note: This book has been prepared from camera-ready copy provided by the
authors.
Contents

Preface
Software Installation
1 Data in R
1.1 Arithmetic and variable assignment
1.2 Help
1.3 Vectors
1.4 Indexing vectors
1.5 Data types
1.6 Data frames
1.7 Reading data from files
1.8 Packages
1.9 Errors and warnings
1.10 Useful idioms
Vignette: Data science communities
Vignette: An R Markdown primer
Exercises
2 Probability
2.1 Probability basics
2.2 Simulations
2.3 Conditional probability and independence
2.4 Counting arguments
Vignette: Negative surveys
Exercises
3 Discrete Random Variables
3.1 Probability mass functions
3.2 Expected value
3.3 Binomial and geometric random variables
3.4 Functions of a random variable
3.5 Variance, standard deviation, and independence
3.6 Poisson, negative binomial, and hypergeometric
Vignette: Loops in R
Exercises
4 Continuous Random Variables
4.1 Probability density functions
4.2 Expected value
4.3 Variance and standard deviation
4.4 Normal random variables
4.5 Uniform and exponential random variables
4.6 Summary
Exercises
5 Simulation of Random Variables
5.1 Estimating probabilities
5.2 Estimating discrete distributions
5.3 Estimating continuous distributions
5.4 Central Limit Theorem
5.5 Sampling distributions
5.6 Point estimators
Vignette: Stein's paradox
Exercises

6 Data Manipulation
6.1 Data frames and tibbles
6.2 dplyr verbs
6.3 dplyr pipelines
6.4 The power of dplyr
6.5 Working with character strings
6.6 Structure of data
 6.7 The apply family
Vignette: dplyr murder mystery
Vignette: Data and gender
Exercises

7 Data Visualization with ggplot

7.1 ggplot fundamentals
7.2 Visualizing a single variable
7.3 Visualizing two or more variables
7.4 Customizing
Vignette: Choropleth maps
Vignette: COVID-19
Exercises

8 Inference on the Mean

8.1 Sampling distribution of the sample mean
8.2 Confidence intervals for the mean
8.3 Hypothesis tests of the mean
8.4 One-sided confidence intervals and hypothesis tests
8.5 Assessing robustness via simulation
8.6 Two sample hypothesis tests
8.7 Type II errors and power
8.8 Resampling
Exercises

9 Rank Based Tests

9.1 One sample Wilcoxon signed rank test
9.2 Two sample Wilcoxon tests
9.3 Power and sample size
9.4 Effect size and consistency
9.5 Summary
Vignette: ROC curves and the Wilcoxon rank sum statistic
Exercises

10 Tabular Data
10.1 Tables and plots
 10.2 Inference on a proportion
10.3 χ2 tests
10.4 χ2 goodness of fit
10.5 χ2 tests on cross tables
10.6 Exact and Monte Carlo methods
Vignette: Tables
Exercises
11 Simple Linear Regression
11.1 Least squares regression line
11.2 Correlation
11.3 Geometry of regression
11.4 Residual analysis
11.5 Inference
11.6 Simulations for simple linear regression
11.7 Cross validation
11.8 Bias-variance tradeoff
Vignette: Simple logistic regression
Exercises

12 Analysis of Variance and Comparison of Multiple Groups

12.1 ANOVA
12.2 The ANOVA test
12.3 Unequal variance
12.4 Pairwise t-tests
Vignette: Reproducibility
Exercises
13 Multiple Regression
13.1 Two explanatory variables
13.2 Categorical variables
13.3 Variable selection
Vignette: External data formats
Exercises

Image Credits
Index

Index of Data Sets and Packages

Preface

This book represents a fundamental rethinking of a calculus based first

course in probability and statistics. We offer a breadth first approach, where
the essentials of probability and statistics can be taught in one semester. The
statistical programming language R plays a central role throughout the text
through simulations, data wrangling, visualizations, and statistical
procedures. Data sets from a variety of sources, including many from
recent, open source scientific articles, are used in examples and exercises.
Demonstrations of important facts are given through simulations, with some
formal mathematical proofs as well.

This book is an excellent choice for students studying data science,

statistics, engineering, computer science, mathematics, science, business, or
for any student wanting a practical course grounded in simulations.

The book assumes a mathematical background of one semester of calculus

along with some infinite series in Chapter 3. Integrals and infinite series are
used for notation and exposition in Chapters 3 and 4, but in other chapters
the use of calculus is minimal. Since an emphasis is placed on
understanding results (and robustness to departures from assumptions) via
simulation, most if not all parts of the book can be understood without
calculus. Proofs of many results are provided, and justifications via
simulations for many more, but this text is not intended to support a proof
based course. Readers are encouraged to follow the proofs, but often one
wants to understand a proof only after first understanding the result and
why it is important.
Our philosophy in this book is to not shy away from messy data sets. The
book contains extensive sections and many exercises that require data
cleaning and manipulation. This is an essential part of the text.

A one-semester course using this book could reasonably cover most

material in Chapters 1–8 in order and then select two or three additional
chapters. Sections 2.4, 3.6, 5.6, 8.7 and 8.8 may be omitted or given light
coverage. The descriptive statistics in Chapters 6 and 7 are frequently the
first part of a statistics course, but we recommend leaving them in the
middle as they provide students with a welcome change of pace during the
semester. Chapter 9 (Rank Based Tests) is particularly important because it
uses simulation techniques developed throughout the text to help students
understand power and the effects of assumptions on testing.

There is enough material for a more leisurely and thorough two-semester

sequence that would delve deeper into probability theory, spend more time
on data wrangling, and cover all of the inference chapters.

Most chapters in the book contain at least one vignette. These short sections
are not part of the development of the base material. We imagine these
vignettes as starting points for further study for some students, or as
interesting additions to the main material. Examples include chloropleth
maps, data and gender, Stein's paradox, and a treatment of Covid-19 data.
FIGURE 1 Chapter dependencies.
Base R and tidyverse tools are interspersed, depending on which is better
for a particular job, though we don't introduce any tidyverse tools until
Chapter 6. We feel that replicate and the base R plotting tools are
appropriate for doing simulations and creating the types of visualizations
that we need in the first chapters. The dplyr package is used for most data
wrangling beginning in Chapter 6, and ggplot2 is used for most
visualizations beginning in Chapter 7. Other tidyverse tools introduced in
this text, in order of emphasis, are stringr for string manipulation,
tidyr for pivot_longer and pivot_wider, lubridate and
janitor::clean_names.
All data sets for this book are found in freely available R packages. The
bulk of the data sets are in the package associated to this book, fosdata,
and are mostly sourced from open access publications that are linked to in
the help pages of the data. We encourage readers to spend time reading the
publications that were written using the data in the book. We have taken two
approaches to the data from original papers. In some instances, fosdata
provides essentially all of the data from the published paper. This allows
you to explore the data further and think about other visualizations and
analyses that would be useful. It also typically requires some wrangling to
get the data in a format for the analysis. In other instances, we have
simplified the data from the paper quite a bit. In particular, in a few
instances we have modified the data by filtering out observations or
averaging in order to make it reasonable to assume independence. Please
see the links provided in the help pages of fosdata for details.

No book like this would be complete without resources for the student who
wishes to learn more. Here are some suggestions for further study that the
authors have enjoyed:
ggplot2, by Hadley Wickham, gives a nice overview of the capabilities
of the ggplot2 package. Students interested in data visualization
would find this book interesting.
Advanced R, by Hadley Wickham, provides much more information on
R than what we cover in this book. Computer Science students might
enjoy reading this book.
 The Statistical Sleuth, by Ramsey and Schafer, will help the student
think more like a statistician when dealing with data sets. This book is
on a lower level mathematically.
Modern Applied Statistics with S, by Venables and Ripley, is a book that
covers more advanced statistical topics without much mathematics.
Introductory Statistics with R, by Peter Dalgaard, is a concise
introduction to using R for many types of statistical procedures.
Mathematical Statistics with Applications, by Wackerly, Mendenhall,
and Scheaffer, is a more mathematical (but still only requiring
multivariate calculus and perhaps basic linear algebra) look at the topics
of this book. Students interested in learning how to do the material in
this book by hand without access to a computer may enjoy this book.
Data Feminism, by D'Ignazio and Klein, offers a way of thinking about
data science and data ethics informed by the ideas of intersectional
feminism. About more than just gender, this book investigates the use
and abuse of the power of data science.

This book is written in R Markdown using the bookdown package, by

Yihui Xie. The original idea for a course of this type is due to Michael
Lamar. The authors wish to thank Matt Schuelke, Kerith Conron, and
Christophe Dervieux for helpful discussions. Thanks to Haijun Gong,
Kimberly Druschel, Luis Miguel Anguas, Mustafa Attallah, Xue Li, and
Caden Beddingfield for working through early editions. The anonymous
reviewers provided useful comments, for which we are also grateful. We
had two editors at CRC: John Kimmel, who believed in us from the start,
and Lara Spieker, who got us to the finish line. Many thanks to both of you
and a happy retirement to John!

This book is copyright 2021, Darrin Speegle and Bryan Clair. Do not
transmit or reuse without express permission.

Software Installation
R is a programming language, distributed as its own software program.
Other documents randomly have
different content
Congress gaiters must be acknowledged, the hoops also, but
perhaps they may all come again; and then some beauty like the
empress of the French may arise to make them beautiful. They were
large! Beside them Queen Elizabeth's farthingale was an insignificant
circumstance. The belle in the fifties lived in an expansive time.
There was still plenty of room in the world. Houses were broad and
low, carriages were broad and low, furniture was massive. Even a
small pier glass was broadened by great scrolls of mahogany.
Drawing-rooms were filled with vast arm-chairs, sofas, and tables.
The legs of pianos were made as massive as possible.

Ladies wore enormous hoops, and because their heads looked

like small handles to huge bells, they widened the coiffure into broad
bandeaux and braids, loaded it with garlands of flowers, and
enlarged it by means of a wide head-dress of tulle, lace, and
feathers, or crowned it with a coal-scuttle bonnet tied under the chin
with wide ribbons. In this guise they sailed fearlessly about, with no
danger of jostling a neighbor or overturning the furniture. They had
not then filled their rooms with spider-legged chairs and tables, nor
crowded the latter with frail toys and china. Now that so many of
these things are imported, now that the world is so full of people,—
in the streets, cars, theatres, at receptions,—milady has found she
must reef her sails. Breadth was the ambition of 1854—length and
slimness the supreme attainment of 1904. What would the modern
belle look like, among all these skyscrapers, in a hoop? Like a ball—
nothing more.

Finding herself with all this amplitude, milady of the fifties

essayed gorgeous decoration. She had stretched a large canvas; she
now covered it with pictures—bouquets and baskets of flowers
appeared on the woollens for house dresses; on the fine gauzes and
silks one might find excellent representations of the Lake of Geneva,
with a distant view of the Swiss mountains.
 When a lady ordered a costume for a ball, her flowers arrived in
a box larger than the glazed boxes of to-day in which modistes send
home our gowns. The garniture included a wreath for the hair, with
bunches at the back from which depended trailing vines. The
bouquet de corsage sometimes extended to each shoulder. Bouquets
were fastened on gloves at the wrist, wreaths trailed down the skirt,
wreaths looped the double skirt in festoons. Only one kind of flower
was considered in good taste. Milady must look like a basket of
shaded roses, or lilies, or pomegranates, or violets. Ropes of wax
beads were sometimes substituted for flowers.

I once entered a milliner's shop—not my dear Madame Delarue's

—and in the centre of the room, suspended by a wire from the
ceiling, was one of these huge garnitures—all tied together and
descending down to the floor. "This, Madame," I said, "is something
very recherché?"

"Yes, Madame! That is the rarest parure I have. There was never
one like it. There will never be another."

I scrutinized the flowers, and found nothing remarkable in any

way.

"That, Madame," continued the milliner, "was purchased from

me by the wife of Senator ——! She wore it to Mrs. Gwin's ball, and
returned it to me next day. I ask no pay! I keep it for the sake of
Mrs. Senator ——, that I may have the honor of exhibiting it to my
patrons."

There is no reason, because we sometimes choose to swing

back into the ghastly close-fitted skirt, or to wrap ourselves like a
Tanagra figurine, that we should despise a more spacious time. Nor
is it at all beneath us to attach enough importance to dress to
describe it. Witness the recent "Costumes of Two Centuries," by one
of our most accomplished writers. Witness the teachings of a
theologian eighteen hundred or more years ago, who condescended
to illustrate his sermon by women's ways with dress! Says Tertullian:
"Let simplicity be your white, charity your vermilion; dress your
eyebrows with modesty, and your lips with reservedness. Let
instruction be your ear-rings, and a ruby cross the front pin in your
head; submission to your husband your best ornament. Employ your
hands in housewifely duties, and keep your feet within your own
doors. Let your garments be of the silk of probity, the fine linen of
sanctity, and the purple of chastity."

"How does that impress you for a nineteenth-century costume?"

I asked Agnes my bosom friend, to whom I read the passage aloud.
"Well," she replied, "I should be perfectly willing to try the ruby
hairpin as a beginning—and get Clagett to order the new brand of
silk, which sounds as if it might be a very pure article indeed and
warranted to wear well; but if you are seeking my honest opinion of
Tertullian, I frankly confess that I think our clothes and our behavior
to our husbands are none of his business."

Society letters of 1857 give us strictly accurate description of

toilettes, which may interest some of my readers:[3]—

"The wealth of the present Cabinet, and their elegant style of

living, sets the pace for Washington soirées—equal in magnificence
to the gorgeous fêtes of Versailles.

"At the Postmaster-General's the regal ball room was lined with
superb mirrors from floor to ceiling. In the drawing-rooms opposite
the host, hostess, and daughter and Miss Nerissa Saunders occupied
the post of receiving.

"Mrs. Brown was dressed in rose-colored brocade, with an

exquisite resemblance of white lace stamped in white velvet, a point
lace cape, and turban set with diamonds. Miss Brown wore a white
silk tissue embroidered in moss rosebuds, a circlet of pearls on her
hair, and natural flowers on her bosom. Lady Napier wore white
brocaded satin, with head-dress of scarlet honeysuckle. Madame de
Sartige's gown was of white embroidered crêpe, garnished with
sprays of green. The wife of Senator Slidell was costumed in black
velvet, trimmed with fur. Her head-dress was of crimson velvet, rich
lace, and ostrich feathers. A superb bandeau of pearls bound her
raven hair. Miss Nerissa Saunders was exquisite in a white silk, veiled
with tulle, the skirts trimmed with rose-colored quilling. Mrs. Senator
Clay wore canary satin, covered all over with gorgeous point lace.
Mrs. John J. Crittenden was superb in blue moire antique, with point
lace trimmings. Mrs. General McQueen of South Carolina appeared in
a white silk with cherry trimmings, her head-dress of large pearls fit
for a queen. Mrs. Senator Gwin wore superb crimson moire antique
with point lace, and a head-dress of feathers fastened with large
diamonds. Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas, a white tulle dress over white
silk—the overdress looped with bunches of violets and grass, similar
bunches on breast and shoulder, and trailing in her low coiffure. Mrs.
Faulkner from Virginia was attired in blue silk and Mechlin lace, her
daughters in white illusion. Mrs. Reverdy Johnson was superb in
lemon satin and velvet pansies. Mrs. Pringle of Charleston wore a
velvet robe of lemon color; Mrs. Judge Roosevelt of New York velvet
and diamonds; Mrs. Senator Pugh of Ohio crimson velvet with
ornaments of rubies and crimson pomegranate flowers."

This last lady, Mrs. Pugh, wife of the Senator from Ohio, was par
excellence the beauty of the day. To see her in this dress was
enough to "bid the rash gazer wipe his eye." Her eyes were large,
dark, and most expressive. Her hair was dark, her coloring vivid.
Mrs. Douglas, Mrs. Pugh, and Kate Chase were the three
unapproached, unapproachable, beauties of the Buchanan
administration. The daughter of Senator Chase was really too young
to go to balls. She was extremely beautiful, "her complexion was
marvellously delicate, her fine features seeming to be cut from fine
bisque, her eyes, bright, soft, sweet, were of exquisite blue, and her
hair a wonderful color like the ripe corn-tassel in full sunlight. Her
teeth were perfect. Poets sang then, and still sing, of the turn of her
beautiful neck and the regal carriage of her head." She was as
intellectual as she was beautiful. From her teens she had been
initiated into political questions for which her genius and her calm,
thoughtful nature eminently fitted her. When she realized that
neither party would nominate her father for President in 1860, she
turned her energetic mind to the formation of plans and intrigues to
obtain for him the nomination of 1868! She failed in that, she failed
in everything, poor girl. She wrecked her life by a marriage with a
wealthy, uncongenial governor of Rhode Island, from whom she fled
with swift feet across the lawn of the beautiful home at Canonchet,
and hand in hand with poverty and sorrow ended her life in
obscurity.

It is going to be a long time before we again visit Vanity Fair;

and lest it linger too delightfully in our memories, we must try to find
some rift in the lute, some fly in the amber—not daring, however, to
look beneath the surface.

And so we are fain to acknowledge that the evening gowns of

these fair dames were liberal only in their skirts. The bodice was
décolleté to the extremest limit—as I suppose it will always be. And
then, as now,—as always,—there was no lack of wise men, usually
youthful prophets, to preach against it, to read for our instruction
Solomon's disrespectful allusions to jewels in the ears of fair women
without discretion, and St. Paul's well-known remarks upon our
foibles. "The idea of quoting Solomon as an authority on women,"
said my friend Agnes one day, as we walked from church. "I never
quote Solomon! He knew a good many women without discretion,
some hundreds of them; but he didn't live up to his convictions, and
he changed his mind very often. He was to my thinking not at all a
nice person to know."
 "But how about St. Paul?" I ventured.

"I consider it very small in St. Paul to think so much about dress
anyway! One would suppose the thorn in his own flesh would have
made him tender toward others; and Timothy must have been a
poor creature to be taken in by 'braided hair,' 'gold and pearls, and
costly array.' Now, of course, we have a few of those things, and like
to wear our hair neatly; but I don't see why they are not suitable for
us so long as we don't live for them, nor seek to entangle Timothy."

"Well," I replied, "I never can feel it is at all my affair. I hear it

often enough! But somehow St. Simeon Stylites, preaching away on
his pillar, seems a great way off, and not to know the bearings of all
he talks about. We listen to him dutifully; but I fancy if we amend
our ways we will do it of our own selves, and not because of St.
Simeon."

"I wouldn't mind St. Simeon," said my irate friend (she had
worked herself up to a pitch of indignation); "probably he was old
and venerable, and to be tolerated; but it hurts me to be preached
to by a young thing like that minister to-day, as if I were a
Babylonish woman! We don't 'walk haughtily with stretched-forth
necks, walking and mincing as we go, making a tinkling with our
feet.' And as to our 'changeable suits of apparel,' and the 'crimping
pins,' do we live for these things? Our maids make a living by taking
care of them while we are at church hoping to hear of something
better than crimping pins."

The lady who expressed these heretical sentiments was, as I

have remarked, my most intimate friend; and although not older
than herself, I considered it my duty to reason with her. "But you
see, my dear Agnes," I said, "we are obliged to be on the side of our
young preacher, whether we like it or not. He is the white-plumed
champion riding forth from the courts of purity and beauty of
behavior. We wouldn't like to be the sable knight who emerges from
the opposite direction."

"I would!" declared my young rebel. "Infantile clergymen should

keep to the sins of their own sex. Nobody criticises men's dress.
They are exempt. They may surround their countenances with Henry
VIII ruffs, which make them look like the head of John the Baptist
on a charger,—nobody calls them ridiculous. They wear the briefest
surf costumes—nobody says they are indecent."

"But, my dear—"

"But, my dear, I know all about the matter of evening dress. I've
studied it up. It is a time-honored fashion (I can show you all about
it in my new encyclopædia). You remember I let you air your
learning and quote old Tertullian. Did I look bored?"

"Not at all. You may tell me now. You can finish before we get
home."

"Well, then, the décolleté bodice is not a new expression of total

depravity. It is an old fashion, appearing in 1280, with stomacher of
jewels. It reached England from Bohemia, but was then the fashion
in Italy, Poland, and Spain. Those times were not conspicuous for
sentiment, but were quite as moral as the times of the Greek chiton,
or the Roman tunic, or the Norman robe, or the Saxon gown."

"But," I interrupted, "it was out of fashion in the high-necked

days of Queen Elizabeth."

"Oh, she had her own reasons for disliking to see a suggestive
bare throat! Queen Bess was not conspicuous for purity. Don't
interrupt me—I'll prove everything by the book—lots of good women
have worn low dresses. Madame Recamier was a pretty good
woman, and so were our grandmothers, and so were the ladies of
the Golden Age in Virginia who reared the boys that won our
independence."

"All of which proves nothing," I declared; but we had reached

our door on New York Avenue, and went in for our Sunday dinner.
My friend did not inflict the encyclopædia. She had already quoted it.
What was the use? We may be sure of one thing: no fashion has
ever yet been discarded because it was abused. No Damascus blade
has ever been keen enough to lop off an offending fashion.
 CHAPTER VI
CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL LIFE IN 1858—LEADERS IN SOCIETY

There were many brilliant and beautiful women who escaped the
notice of the society newsmonger of the day.

Mrs. Cyrus McCormick, recently married to the inventor of the

great reaping machine, was one of these. Mr. McCormick, then a
young man, was destined to be decorated by many European
governments and to achieve a great fortune. His wife, just out of
Miss Emma Willard's school, was very beautiful, very gentle, and
winning. No sheaves garnered by her husband's famous reaper can
compare with the sheaves from her own sowing, during a long life
devoted to good deeds.

Then there were Mrs. Yulee, wife of the Senator from Florida,
and her sisters, Mrs. Merrick and Mrs. Holt, all three noted for
personal and intellectual charm; and beautiful Mrs. Robert J. Walker,
who was perhaps the first of the coterie to be called to make a
sacrifice for her country, exchanging the brilliant life in Washington
for the hardships of Kansas—"bleeding Kansas," torn with
dissensions among its "squatter sovereigns," and with a climate of
stern severity, where food froze at night and must be broken with a
hatchet for breakfast. Mrs. Walker shrank from the ordeal, for she
was well fitted for gay society; but the President himself visited her
and begged the sacrifice for the good of the country. She went, and
bore her trials. They were only a little in advance of sterner trials
ordained for some of her Washington friends. Nor must we fail to
acknowledge the social influence of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, one of the
most brilliant women of her time—greatly sought by cultivated men
and women.

But the wittiest and brightest of them all was Mrs. Clay, the wife
of the Senator from Alabama. She was extremely clever, the soul of
every company. A costume ball at which she personated Mrs.
Partington is still remembered in Washington. Mrs. Partington's
sayings could not be arranged beforehand and conned for the
occasion. Her malapropos replies must be improvised on the
moment, and must moreover be seasoned with wit to redeem them
from commonplace dulness. Mrs. Clay rose to the occasion, and her
Mrs. Partington became the Mrs. Partington of the future.

The reader will not fail to observe the number of Southern

women who were prominent in Mr. Buchanan's court. A
correspondent of a leading New York paper[4] has recently written
an interesting article on this subject. He declares that the Southern
women (before Lincoln's day) had long controlled the society of
Washington. "With their natural and acquired graces, with their
inherited taste and ability in social affairs, it was natural that the
reins should fall to them. They represented a clique of aristocracy;
they were recognized leaders who could afford to smile good-
naturedly at the awkward and perplexed attempts of the women
from the other sections—Mrs. Senator This, Mrs. Congressman That
—to thread the ins and outs of Washington's social labyrinth. To
none of these ladies was the thought pleasant of secession from the
Union and consequent giving up whatever of social dominion she
had acquired."

I wish I could give some idea of the "days at home" of these

court ladies in Washington in 1858. The large public functions were
all alike then as now, with this exception, that nearly every man
present was Somebody, and every woman Somebody's wife. It was
not necessary for these people to talk. The men made little effort. It
was well known what they had said yesterday in the House or the
Senate Chamber; but we dared not express opinions in public (and
not freely in private), such was the tense feeling at that time.
Conversation had been always, at the South, an art carefully
cultivated. Conversation suffered at a time when we were forced to
ignore subjects that possessed us with absorbing interest and to
confine ourselves to trivialities.

Excusing the silence of one famous man, somebody remarked:

"Oh, well, you know brilliant men do not of necessity talk well.
Thrilled by their utterances in their speeches and writings, we are
surprised, when we meet them, at their silence." A "famous man's"
eye twinkled. "Ask Galt," he said, "why he doesn't give away his
gems. Probably he might answer that he proposes to sell them," an
ingenious way of avoiding the remotest hint that silence was the
result of preoccupied thought on the grave questions of the hour.

For some inexplicable reason the wives of great men are apt to
be quiet and non-committal—little moons revolving around a great
luminary. Moon-like, one side only is turned to the world. How is it
on the other side? We have a glimpse of it over the demi-tasse in
the drawing-room after dinner, or at our informal "at homes" in our
own houses.

At these times of unbending in Washington we were wont to

begin in a rather stilted manner, sipping our coffee and liqueurs in a
leisurely way, and steering widely clear of politics and politicians. We
talked of art and artists, galleries in Europe, shops in Paris,—
anything except what we were all thinking about. The art of
conversation suffered under such circumstances. But some
interesting books were just out in England, and everybody was
discussing them. Thackeray had recently given "The Virginians" to
the world. Tennyson was turning all the girls' heads with "Elaine." A
new star was rising—George Eliot. Dickens, we were, at the
moment, cordially hating because of his "American Notes." Bulwer
was well to the fore. Two valued members of our own special coterie
were Randolph Rogers and Thomas Crawford the sculptor, whose
genius, differently expressed, lives to-day in his gifted son, Marion
Crawford. Thomas Crawford had been commissioned by the state of
Virginia to execute a colossal statue of Washington for the Capitol
Square in Richmond, a great work,—including statues of Virginia's
statesmen,—which was happily completed in 1861, and from which I
heard Jefferson Davis's inaugural address, February 22, 1862, upon
his taking the oath as permanent President of the Confederacy. It
was a black day of rain and snow; the new government, destined
never to flourish in sunshine, was born in storm and tempest.

Thomas Crawford, born in New York in 1814, was now at the

height of his fame. He had studied and worked with Thorwaldsen.
Apart from his peculiar genius he was a charming companion, full of
versatile talk. The younger man, Randolph Rogers, was also most
interesting. He brought to us his sketches and drawings for the
bronze doors of the Capitol before they were submitted to the
committee, and came again when they were accepted, to tell us of
his good fortune.

The army and navy people were especially interesting. They

never discussed politics. Their positions were assured and there
were consequently no feverish society strugglers among them. They
had no vulgar respect for wealth, entertaining charmingly within
their means. Admiral Porter and his family were there, General
Winfield Scott was there, the admiral (then commander) forty-four
years old, and the noble old veteran nearer seventy-four. Both were
delightful members of Washington society. Nobody esteemed wealth
or spoke of it or thought of it. Office, position, talent, beauty, and
charm were the requisites for men and women.

On one day, I remember, I had gone the rounds of Cabinet

receptions, had taken my chocolate from the generous urn of the
Secretary of State, and had dutifully looked in upon all the other
Secretaries. I knew a dear little lady, foreign, attached to one of the
legations (I really never knew whether she was Russian or
Hungarian), who had invited me for the "end of the afternoon." Her
husband had not a prominent place in the embassy, nor she in
society, but she knew how to gather around her tea-kettle a choice
little company, every one of whom felt honored to be included. I
found her seated at a small round table, and she welcomed me in
the English that gained from a musical voice, and the deliberate
enunciation of syllable which always seems to me so complimentary
and respectful in foreigners.

The fashion of the low tea-table had just been introduced. One
could have tea, nothing else. One could always find behind the silver
urns "'igh and 'aughty" butlers serving chocolate, wine, and every
conceivable dainty at the houses of the great Senators, Ministers,
and Cabinet officers. Things were much more distingué at this lady's
tea-table. A few early spring flowers, crocuses, hyacinths, or purple
heather, were blooming here and there about the room. Our hostess
was gowned in some white stuff, and there was a bit of classic
suggestion in her attire, in the jewelled girdle, and an order or medal
tucked under a ribbon. A little white-capped maid welcomed and
ushered us, and managed to hover about for all the service we were
likely to require. The impression grew upon me that all this had been
done for me especially, and I found myself thinking how fortunate it
was I had happened to come. That lovely woman would have been
so sorely disappointed had I stayed away!
 But presently other guests arrived. They were all foreigners, but
perceiving the American presence they spoke only English. The
hostess put into motion the most musical conversation. How has she
done it? She has made no effort "to entertain." Conversation had
come unbidden. Russian tea? Why, certainly! Do we ever care for
other than Russian tea? She was deliberate. We forgot we were
sorely pressed this day with seventeen names on our list. We gave
ourselves up to the pleasure of observing her.

She lighted her silver lamp; and, although she wished us to see
the great shining samovar which descended to her from her
grandmother, she said it was good, very good indeed, in the camp or
on journeys when one had only charcoal; but here in America the
fairy lamp to light the wax taper and the alcohol burner beneath the
kettle are best. She poured the water, which had bubbled, but not
boiled (boiling water would make the tea flat), over delicious tea,
paused a moment only, then poured the steaming amber upon two
lumps of sugar, two slices of lemon, and one teaspoonful of rum,
and we pronounced it a perfect cup of tea. But our enchantress said
No, that some day ladies will grow tea in their own conservatories,
and then only will it be perfect in this country; for the ocean voyage
spoils the delicacy of the sensitive herb.

Glancing around the table, our hostess grasped the situation.

Here was a Russian lady with a proud head, there two dark-eyed
Bohemians, one Greek beauty, an English woman, and our own stiff,
heavy, uncompromising American self!

She is to make these people happy for the five minutes they are
around her little board. How does it come to pass that these
strangers find a common ground upon which they can hold animated
conversation?
 They talked of genius and geniuses,—how they are not created
by opportunity or culture, but are inspired; how that, apart from
their gifts, they are quite like other people, not even cleverer always.
"Yes," said the Greek girl, with an exalted look in her dark eyes,
"they are chosen, like the prophets, to speak great words or
compose immortal music, or build symphonies in stone; and what
they do is outside themselves altogether." "It is literally true," said
the Englishwoman, "that people have 'a gift' apart from their
ordinary selves. Does not George Eliot say that his novels grow in
him like a plant. No amount of work and study can create a genius!"
And then everybody marvels at the wonderful young man (for
nobody knows it is a woman) who has just written "Adam Bede" and
"The Mill on the Floss."

Or perhaps the hostess has bribed some one of the foreign

legation to come to her "at home." Novels on Washington life hint of
such a possibility. Or perhaps some prince of good talkers among
our own Ministers is home for a brief holiday, or returned from a
mission, and a circle gathers around him.

Our Minister, sent to France by Mr. Pierce, once honored me by

his presence and told us the following story. Everybody who
remembers the genial John Y. Mason will easily imagine how he told
it, and how his own magnetism possessed his listeners. Not a tea-
cup rattled during the narration. "I lived," said Mr. Mason, "at a hotel
for a few weeks after receiving my appointment as Minister
Plenipotentiary—while my house was being made ready to bring my
family. The house was crowded, and my landlord was forced to
divide one of his offices by a thin partition to receive me at all.

"One night I was awakened by a stifled sob on the other side of

the partition. Rising on my elbow, I listened. The sob was repeated
—then I heard abusive language and oaths in English—I fancied I
heard a blow! Leaping to my feet, I struck smartly on the partition,
and all was still.

"The next morning I asked the clerk about my neighbors and

complained that they disturbed me. He shrugged his shoulders and
said, 'Mais, Monsieur! they are Americans!' as if that explained
everything. However, he informed me that they had left the hotel
that morning.

"A few days later I was sitting in my room at the legation, when
I received a visitor—a slender female closely veiled, who said in a
troubled whisper that she had come to claim protection of the
French government. I told her I could not confer with her while she
was disguised, and she slowly raised her hand and held her veil
aside. I never saw a lovelier face.

"She could not have been older than eighteen years. Her
features were delicate, her eyes large and expressive, her brow
shaded by golden-brown hair. She was deathly white. I never saw
such pallor. 'What can I do for you, my child?' I asked. Well, it was a
sad story. Married to a dissipated young fellow, away on her
wedding journey; threatened, and in terror of losing her life. She
wished the protection of the police. She said she should never have
had the courage to ask it alone, but that she knew I had slept near
her at the Maison Dorée. I had heard! I could understand. I was the
American Minister, and I could help.

"'But think,' I said, 'I heard nothing but harsh language. We

cannot go with this to the préfet. He will not consider it cause for
action against your husband.'

"The girl hesitated. Finally, with a burst of tears, she unfastened

her gown at the throat, turned it down, and disclosed the dark print
of fingers on the delicate skin.
 "It was enough. She had been choked into silence—this frail
American girl—on the night when I heard the smothered sob.

"Of course you may imagine my zeal in her behalf. I had

daughters of my own. I arranged to accompany the young wife at
once to the office of the préfet, and having ascertained the address
of her bankers I resolved to make arrangements to get her out of
Paris in case she felt her life to be in danger.

"Well, I waited long at the office of the préfet. Finally our turn
came. I rose and made my statement. Imagine my feelings when my
fair client threw back her veil, and with a surprised look said:

"'I think the American Minister has been dreaming!'

"I felt as if a tub of ice-water had been poured over me. Of

course my position was perfectly ridiculous. Before I could recover
she had slipped through the crowd and was gone. While we waited
she had changed her mind!"

"The wretch!" exclaimed one of the listeners. "That just proves

that women are always attracted by brutality."

"Really?" said Mr. Mason.

"Not exactly, perhaps, but there was once an English countess

who explained a divorce suit of one of her relatives thus:—

"'You see, Ermentrude was one of those women who needed

kicking down the stairs, and Ferdinand was gentle; he was not up to
it!'"

An agreeable function, no longer in vogue in this country, was

the evening party. Lady Napier gave one of these parties to present
her friends to Edward Everett.
 These parties were arranged that pleasant people might meet
distinguished strangers and each other. As this was the prime object
of these occasions, there were no blatant bands to make
conversation impossible, but there was no lack of delightful music.
Miss Nerissa Saunders played exquisitely upon the harp; Mrs. Gales's
niece, Juliana May, sang divinely; many young ladies had cultivated
voices. Nobody thought of hiring entertainment for guests. The
guests were bright talkers and could entertain each other. If a ball
room were attached to the salon, dancing was expected; but the
parlors were distant and people could talk! Of course it is always
stupid to collect a lot of dull people together, but the wives of the
brilliant men of Mr. Buchanan's administration understood
entertaining. There were always gifted conversationalists present
who liked talking better than eating, with cleverness enough to draw
out, and not forestall, the wit of others. This art could not be
claimed by the great talkers of old English society, Johnson,
Macaulay, Coleridge, De Quincey, and the rest. We should not now, I
am sure, care much for these monopolists. Sheridan, for instance,
must have been rather a quenching element at an evening party; for
in addition to his own witty creations, he had a trick of preserving
the bon mots of others, leading conversation into channels where
they would fit in, and using them accordingly. Thus in talking with
Sheridan his friends had a dozen wits to cope with withal.

Our Washington hostesses always gave a supper—not a fine

supper—a good supper, where the old family receipt book had been
consulted, especially if our hostess had come from Kentucky,
Maryland, or Virginia. The canvasback ducks, terrapin, and oysters
were unlike Gautier's. We all know that rubies are now less rare in
this country than good cooks. We may essay the triumphs of the old
Washington of the fifties, but beneath our own fig tree they become
failures and shabby makeshifts. There are mysteries in cooking
unattainable to any but the elect—and of the elect were the sable
priestesses of the Washington kitchens.
 CHAPTER VII
THE THIRTY-SIXTH CONGRESS

When the famous Thirty-sixth Congress met for its long session,
December 5, 1859, the whole country was in ferment over the
execution of John Brown. "An indiscreet move in any direction,"
wrote ex-President Tyler from his plantation, "may produce results
deeply to be deplored. I fear the debates in Congress, and above all
the Speaker's election. If excitement prevails in Congress, it will add
fuel to the flame which already burns so terrifically."[5] He, and all
patriots, might well have been afraid of increased excitement. It was
evident from the first hour that the atmosphere was heavily charged.
The House resolved itself into a great debating society, in which the
only questions were: "Is slavery right or wrong? Shall it, or shall it
not, be allowed in the territories?" The foray of the zealot and
fanatic aggravated the fury of the combatants.

The member from Mississippi—L. Q. C. Lamar (afterwards

Supreme Court Justice of the United States)—threw an early
firebrand by announcing on the floor of the House, "The Republicans
are not guiltless of the blood of John Brown, his co-conspirators, and
the innocent victims of his ruthless vengeance." Lawrence Keitt of
South Carolina declared: "The South asks nothing but its rights. I
would have no more, but as God is my judge, I would shatter this
republic from turret to foundation-stone before I would take a tittle