Character guide

The Honourable Silas P. Ratcliffe

major

Also known as Ratcliffe, Mr. Ratcliffe, Senator Ratcliffe, Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe

Ratcliffe is a political giant from the prairie, a man of immense ambition and shrewd calculation who sets his sights on Madeleine Lee as both a wife and a symbol of the refinement he craves. He operates by a political code that Madeleine finds both repellent and fascinating, and his courtship becomes a test of her ideals against the machinery of power. His presence in the novel's early and middle chapters transforms Washington from an abstract idea into a personal, moral battleground for Madeleine.

Madeleine Lee

major

Also known as Madeleine, Madeleine Ross

Madeleine Lee is a woman of wealth, intellect, and profound ennui who abandons New York society and philanthropy for the study of Washington's political game. Her desire to understand power is matched by her horror of its corrupting touch, and her relationship with Ratcliffe forces her to confront the limits of her own detachment. As the novel's central consciousness, her journey from observer to participant drives the moral inquiry of the early and middle chapters.

Mr. Carrington

major

Also known as Carrington, John Carrington

Carrington is a gentleman of the old South, a pardoned rebel who now practices law in Washington and serves as Madeleine's most trusted friend and advisor. He carries the scars of the war and a hopeless devotion to Madeleine, which makes him both her protector and a silent rival to Ratcliffe. His moral clarity and personal sacrifice provide a counterweight to the political cynicism around him, and his warnings about Ratcliffe shape Madeleine's choices.

Sybil Ross

supporting

Also known as Sybil, Miss Sybil, Miss Ross

Sybil is the lively, less intellectual counterpoint to Madeleine, delighting in Washington's social whirl and the attentions of young diplomats. Her love for her sister is fierce and possessive, and her instinctive horror of Ratcliffe leads her to desperate, emotional appeals that force Madeleine to confront the human cost of her political experiment. Her presence adds warmth and urgency to the novel's central dilemma.

Mrs. Lightfoot Lee

supporting

Also known as Mrs. Lee, A Mrs. Lightfoot Lee

Mrs. Lightfoot Lee is the widow of a Virginia Lee who settled in New York, and her decision to spend a winter in Washington puzzles her friends and masks a profound spiritual ennui. She has exhausted philosophy, philanthropy, and society, and her search for something worth sacrificing herself to becomes the novel's driving question. Though she recedes from the narrative, her initial restlessness sets the stage for Madeleine's political education.

Lord Skye

supporting

Lord Skye is a seasoned diplomat who treats the social circus of Washington with ironic contempt, using his position to exhibit a visiting princess and pay off his debts with a grand ball. He is fond of Madeleine and Sybil, and his easy cynicism provides a foil to the earnest American political drama. His ball becomes a pivotal social event that brings the novel's tensions to a head.

Mr. Nathan Gore

supporting

Also known as Mr. Gore, Gore

Gore's History of Spain in America won him four satisfying years as minister at Madrid, and now, reduced to private life by a change of administration, he is in Washington angling for restoration, backed by the Massachusetts delegation. He is abominably selfish, colossally egoistic, and not a little vain, yet shrewd enough to hold his tongue, flatter dexterously, and eschew satire—except among trusted friends, a confidence Mrs. Lee has not yet earned. His polished self-interest makes him a quiet barometer of how literary reputation and political patronage trade favors in Gilded Age Washington.

Little Victoria Dare

supporting

Also known as Victoria, Victoria Dare, Miss Dare

Victoria belongs to the young society set that orbits Sybil and Madeleine, and she treats Lord Dunbeg's courtship as a laboratory for impudence, demanding to know how Countesses are selected and cheerfully informing him that General Washington was a rawboned, profane, tipsy country farmer. She seems devoted to men while caring nothing about them, and her monotonous voice never rises even as her inventions grow wilder. Her gleeful irreverence punctures the solemnities of both English nobility and American piety, making her the novel's sharpest instrument of social satire.

Mr. C. C. French

supporting

Also known as Mr. French, French, poor French

French moves through the same Washington circles as Gore and the Schneidekoupons, a reform-minded writer whose sincerity sits awkwardly beside the cynicism of senators and diplomats. His naivety about how patronage and society actually operate leaves him perpetually a step behind the joke, the man others call poor French with affectionate contempt. His presence sharpens the novel's question of whether honest reform can survive contact with the capital's professional operators.

Mr. Hartbeest Schneidekoupon

supporting

Also known as Mr. Schneidekoupon, Schneidekoupon, poor Schneidekoupon

Schneidekoupon moves through Washington society as a rich New Yorker whose family claims descent from all the Kings of Israel and is prouder than Solomon in his glory, a lineage his sister Julia defends with severe dignity. He is among Victoria Dare's suitors, and it is at his request that Sybil sits down at the piano to sing her ironic hymn, a small moment that helps disperse the tension after Jacobi's harangue. His money and marital prospects make him a specimen of the novel's larger theme: how American wealth and democratic ambition negotiate with the older claims of blood and title.

Lord Dunbeg

supporting

Also known as Dunbeg, Poor Lord Dunbeg

Dunbeg arrives in Washington among the visiting English nobility, an Earl whose polite bewilderment makes him perfect prey for Victoria Dare's experiments in impudence. He gamely attempts to lay down rules for choosing a Countess and confesses he would rather be George Washington than an Earl, only to be told he has not the air of wishing it and that his hero was a rawboned, illiterate, tipsy farmer. His patient confusion dramatizes the collision between European title and American self-invention that runs through the novel's social comedy.

Mrs. Sam Baker

supporting

Also known as Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Samuel Baker, Baker

Mrs. Baker's husband died after a short illness, leaving her and her child well provided for but also leaving compromising papers in the hands of his executor, who now finds himself responsible for the widow's welfare. She is a silly little woman by his own account, pretty enough to embody his idea of feminine perfection, and her arrival in Washington sets her adrift among the capital's social and political currents. Her situation quietly raises the question of how a woman with money, beauty, and no protector navigates a city where every friendship carries an interest.

Old Baron Jacobi

supporting

Also known as Baron Jacobi, Jacobi, the Baron

Jacobi moves through Madeleine Lee's drawing room as a cosmopolitan provocateur, needling Senator Ratcliffe with the claim that America, far from being exempt from Old World vices, will one day outdo Rome under Caligula. He is corrupt and cheerfully admits it, which gives his mockery its sting and his listeners their discomfort. His harangue unsettles Ratcliffe and sharpens the novel's central question of whether democratic government can be purified at all.

Mrs. Schuyler Clinton

supporting

Also known as Mrs. Clinton, Schuyler Clinton

Mrs. Clinton circulates among the respectable women who watch Madeleine Lee with worldly calculation, measuring her as a likely bride for Senator Ratcliffe and a future President's wife. Her presence embodies the social machinery that reads every Washington resident as a candidate for office, and she helps establish the gossip and expectation that press on Madeleine. Through her, the novel shows how thoroughly the capital converts private life into political speculation.

Maude

minor

Also known as Poor Maude

A young woman briefly mentioned in Washington social circles.

Senator Schuyler Clinton

minor

Also known as Senator Clinton

A U.S. Senator from New York, husband of Mrs. Clinton.

Count Popoff

minor

Also known as Popoff, The faithful Popoff

A Russian diplomat and minor character in Washington society.

Julia Schneidekoupon

minor

Also known as Julia, poor Schneidekoupon

Sister of Hartbeest Schneidekoupon, a quiet young woman.

Wilson Keen

minor

Also known as Mr. Wilson Keen, Mr. Keen, Keen

A journalist and acquaintance of the main characters.

Count Orsini

minor

Also known as Orsini

An Italian diplomat appearing in Washington society.

Mr. Grimes

minor

Also known as Grimes

A minor political figure in the novel.

Countess Dunbeg

minor

Also known as the Countess Dunbeg

Wife of Lord Dunbeg, accompanying him to America.

Mr. Thomas Lord

minor

Also known as Mr. Lord, Mr. Tom Lord, Tom Lord, Tom

A minor character in Washington social circles.

Senator Krebs

minor

Also known as Krebs

A U.S. Senator mentioned in political discussions.

Josiah B. Carson

minor

Also known as Carson

A minor political figure in the novel.

Representative Cutter

minor

Also known as Cutter

A member of Congress briefly appearing in the story.