John Chesnut had a basket of champagne carried to my house,
oysters, partridges, and other good things, for a supper after the reception.
He is going back to the army to-morrow.
James Chesnut arrived on Wednesday. He has been giving Buck
his opinion of one of her performances last night. She was here, and the
General's carriage drove up, bringing some of our girls. They told her he could
not come up and he begged she would go down there for a moment. She flew down,
and stood ten minutes in that snow, Cy holding the carriage-door open. “But,
Colonel Chesnut, there was no harm. I was not there ten minutes. I could not
get in the carriage because I did not mean to stay one minute. He did not hold
my hands — that is, not half the time — Oh, you saw! — well, he did kiss my hands.
Where is the harm of that?” All men worship Buck. How can they help it, she is
so lovely.
Lawrence has gone back ignominiously to South Carolina. At
breakfast already in some inscrutable way he had become intoxicated; he was
told to move a chair, and he raised it high over his head, smashing Mrs.
Grundy's chandelier. My husband said: “Mary, do tell Lawrence to go home; I am
too angry to speak to him.” So Lawrence went without another word. He will soon
be back, and when he comes will say, '”Shoo! I knew Mars Jeems could not do
without me.” And indeed he can not.
Buck, reading my journal, opened her beautiful eyes in
amazement and said: “So little do people know themselves! See what you say of
me!” I replied: “The girls heard him say to you, ‘Oh, you are so childish and
so sweet!’ Now, Buck, you know you are not childish. You have an abundance of
strong common sense. Don't let men adore you so — if you can help it. You are
so unhappy about men who care for you, when they are killed.”
Isabella says that war leads to love-making. She says these
soldiers do more courting here in a day than they would do at home, without a
war, in ten years.
In the pauses of conversation, we hear, “She is the noblest
woman God ever made!” “Goodness!” exclaimed Isabella. “Which one?” The amount
of courting we hear in these small rooms. Men have to go to the front, and they
say their say desperately. I am beginning to know all about it. The girls tell
me. And I overhear — I can not help it. But this style is unique, is it not? “Since
I saw you — last year — standing by the turnpike gate, you know — my battle-cry
has been: ‘God, my country, and you!’” So many are lame. Major Venable says: “It
is not ‘the devil on two sticks,’ now; the farce is ‘Cupid on Crutches.’”
General Breckinridge's voice broke in: “They are my cousins.
So I determined to kiss them good-by. Good-by nowadays is the very devil; it
means forever, in all probability, you know; all the odds against us. So I
advanced to the charge soberly, discreetly, and in the fear of the Lord. The
girls stood in a row — four of the very prettiest I ever saw.” Sam, with his eyes
glued to the floor, cried: “You were afraid — you backed out.” “But I did
nothing of the kind. I kissed every one of them honestly, heartily.”
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 287-9
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