July 11
Mr Grimball and Papa went into the Country to day , it has been very warm. Lewis writes from Fairfax C. H. on the eve of battle for an over coat for a grey flannel Jacket for woolen socks and crackers & cheese, and says it is quite cold where he is at night and when on guard duty he suffers very much. His usual covering is 2 blankets.—
Papa is going to Buncomb with C. & W. engaged a room and sets off on the 20th. He has given me a barrel of small rice and $50 to buy something for myself. He gave each of the girls, E. & L. $30, & Elizabeth $40, he gave me $50 in change for house keeping & Mr Grimball one hundred bushels of seed rice. All this is to help the living. He gave Lewis money when he went off, and a little bible.—Which was very kind.—
The Wilkinses have had 2 little teas which, as they have a piano went off nicely.—We have had two, the last included Mr & Mrs Lewis, H. Manigault, and a Miss North who sings very well & is very fat & has red hair. She wishes to go to Europe, and be cultivated for a public singer, but cannot get her parents to consent to it, they live on ill terms with each other.
Ann Barnwell took Elizabeth to drive with her yesterday afternoon, and poured out her discontent with life, herself, and all the world to Elizabeth. E. said she had been struck with a remark in a Novel of Thackery’s she had lately read, “to a good natured man the world is pleasant and kind, but to one who is misanthropic the world is very crooked and unhappy” so, if she would feel more interest in people they would please her, and she would be happier.—
We have had a constant succession of afternoon visitors, and Papa has been rather struck with it.—
In this dreary world where feeling, except for self, seems no where, it is affecting to hear of such love as this.—Papa went the other day to see Mr Alfred Huger and said he was waiting to go to Buncomb with his daughter Charlotte. He looked at him and his face all alive with feeling said “Morris, is she any thing like the one she was called after.[“] He assured him his daughter was altogether lovely and of good report. To which Mr Huger replyed [“] I have never for one hour had her out of my mind, the pressure of her hand, when she parted with me I still feel, and I would to day , old and crippled as I am, walk a mile to serve any one I thought it would please her that I should.[“]
The history of this heart affair is this; when Mr Huger was a young man, he addressed my Mother’s sister, Charlotte Manigault, and she loved him, but my Grandmother could not reconcile herself to another of her daughters being, as she said, sacrificed at the South, so she induced Charlotte to refuse him and I think she never got over it, her younger Sister Harriet married, and she attended the death beds of 2 Sisters, and died herself, a victim to consumption. So, in fact, my Grandmother sacrificed her to the North, & I have always felt as if I had been unjustly deprived of a very charming Aunt, for I knew her, & loved her.—And Mr Huger, who really loved her & loves her still, married a woman older than himself, a poor little, dreary soul who had nursed a Sister of this gentleman in a lingering illness, in which the two were brought much in contact, and sympathy, and so a match of propinquity took place. No children, but now in his old age he has in his house the children of a nephew who has lost his wife and with these young people about him, and thinking of his lost Charlotte, life is nearly for him ended.—
I have been quite ill with a pain in my head & stomach. In the years that have passed of my married life I have when ill dragged round after my duties with weak wretched feelings. Many times I have knelt down and said family prayers with a faint heart & swimming head from weakness. Now my children are grown I intend to try the other system, go to bed when I feel badly, and be waited upon, and if I live long enough shall end by pursuing the plan I like best. For the 12 confinements I had:—Motives of economy induced me to only 4 times have a regular nurse, and only twice for a whole Month, the others I had what I could get at home, & the regular nurse here was with me 2 weeks.
I believe now this was a mistake, it was thought that I really did not wish a nurse, and not that I made a sacrifice to what I considered necessary economy.—I recollect now the feeling of nervous misery, when ill, with a baby; a head paining, & the noise of children running up & down stairs, doors slamming, &c., & that restraint which the presence of a stranger in the nurse would have occasioned in my sick room, not there; & the dreary details of expenditure discussed at my bed side. Well, I have had, & now have, many blessings, but were I to begin life again, at such times I would have a nurse & I would nurse myself.—