RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
I felt in having just as many of them as I needed by merely issuing instructions to have them delivered. The White House greenhouses and nurseries were a source of constant joy to me. I had lived so long where plants are luxuriant and plentiful that a house without them seemed to me to be empty of a very special charm and the head horticulturist remarked at once that during my régime his gems of palms and ferns and pots of brilliant foliage were to be given their due importance among White House perquisites. I filled the windows of the great East Room with them, banked the fireplaces with them and used them on every possible occasion.
The state Dining Room is one of the many splendid results of the McKim restoration and, next to the East Room, is the handsomest room in the White House. It is not so tremendously large, its utmost capacity being less than one hundred, but it is magnificently proportioned and beautifully finished in walnut panelling with a fireplace and carved mantel on one side which would do honour to an ancient baronial hall. A few fine moose and elk heads are its only wall decorations.
We had table-tops of all sizes and shapes, but the one we had to use for very large dinners was in the form of a crescent which stretched around three sides of the room. For any dinner under sixty I was able to use a large oval top which could be extended by the carpenters to almost any size. Indeed, I have seen it so large that it quite filled the room leaving only enough space behind the chairs for the waiters to squeeze their way around with considerable discomfort. On this table I used the massive silver-gilt ornaments which President Monroe imported from France along with his interesting collection of French porcelains, clocks and statuettes which still occupy many cabinets and mantels here and there in the house.
These table ornaments remind one of the Cellini period when silversmiths vied with each other in elaborations.
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