There are no negro sexual relations half so shocking as
Mormonism. And yet the-United States Government makes no bones of receiving Mormons
into its sacred heart. Mr. Venable said England held her hand over “the malignant
and the turbaned Turk” to save and protect him, slaves, seraglio, and all. But
she rolls up the whites of her eyes at us when slavery, bad as it is, is
stepping out into freedom every moment through Christian civilization. They do
not grudge the Turk even his bag and Bosphorus privileges. To a recalcitrant
wife it is, “Here yawns the sack; there rolls the sea,” etc. And France, the
bold, the brave, the ever free, she has not been so tender-footed in Algiers.
But then the “you are another” argument is a shabby one. “You see,” says Mary
Preston sagaciously, “we are white Christian descendants of Huguenots and
Cavaliers, and they expect of us different conduct.”
Went in Mrs. Preston's landau to bring my boarding-school
girls here to dine. At my door met J. F., who wanted me then and there to
promise to help him with his commission or put him in the way of one. At the
carriage steps I was handed in by Gus Smith, who wants his brother made
commissary. The beauty of it all is they think I have some influence, and I
have not a particle. The subject of Mr. Chesnut's military affairs, promotions,
etc., is never mentioned by me.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 143
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