A visit from the President's handsome and accomplished
secretary, Burton Harrison. I lent him Country Clergyman in Town and Elective
Affinities. He is to bring me Mrs. Norton's Lost and Saved.
At Mrs. Randolph's, my husband complimented one of the
ladies, who had amply earned his praise by her splendid acting. She pointed to
a young man, saying, “You see that wretch; he has not said one word to me!” My
husband asked innocently, “Why should he? And why is he a wretch?” “Oh,
you know!” Going home I explained this riddle to him; he is always a year
behindhand in gossip. “They said those two were engaged last winter, and now
there seems to be a screw loose; but that sort of thing always comes right.”
The Carys prefer James Chessnut to his wife. I don't mind. Indeed, I like it. I
do, too.
Every Sunday Mr. Minnegerode cried aloud in anguish his
litany, “from pestilence and famine, battle, murder, and sudden death,” and we
wailed on our knees, “Good Lord deliver us,” and on Monday, and all the week
long, we go on as before, hearing of nothing but battle, murder, and sudden
death, which are daily events. Now I have a new book; that is, the unlooked-for
thing, a pleasing incident in this life of monotonous misery. We. live in a
huge barrack. We are shut in, guarded from light without.
At breakfast to-day came a card, and without an instant's
interlude, perhaps the neatest, most fastidious man in South Carolina walked
in. I was uncombed, unkempt, tattered, and torn, in my most comfortable, worst
worm wadded green silk dressing-gown, with a white woolen shawl over my head to
keep off draughts. He has not been in the war yet, and now he wants to be
captain of an engineer corps. I wish he may get it! He has always been my
friend; so he shall lack no aid that I can give. If he can stand the shock of
my appearance to-day, we may reasonably expect to continue friends until death.
Of all men, the fastidious Barny Heywood to come in. He faced the situation
gallantly.
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 277-8
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