A letter from Eliza B., who is in Montgomery: "Mrs. Mallory got a letter from a lady in Washington a few days ago, who said that there had recently been several attempts to be gay in Washington, but they proved dismal failures. The Black Republicans were invited and came, and stared at their entertainers and their new Republican companions looked unhappy while they said they were enchanted showed no ill-temper at the hardly stifled grumbling and growling of our friends, who thus found themselves condemned to meet their despised enemy."
I had a letter from the Gwinns to-day. They say Washington offers a perfect realization of Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Celebrated my 38th birthday, but I am too old now to dwell in public on that unimportant anniversary. A long, dusty day ahead on those windy islands; never for me, so I was up early to write a note of excuse to Chancellor Carroll. My husband went. I hope Anderson will not pay them the compliment of a salute with shotted guns, as they pass Fort Sumter, as pass they must.
Here I am interrupted by an exquisite bouquet from the Rutledges. Are there such roses anywhere else in the world? Now a loud banging at my door. I get up in a pet and throw it wide open. "Oh!" said John Manning, standing there, smiling radiantly; "pray excuse the noise I made. I mistook the number; I thought it was Rice's room; that is my excuse. Now that I am here, come, go with us to Quinby's. Everybody will be there who are not at the Island. To be photographed is the rage just now.
We had a nice open carriage, and we made a number of calls, Mrs. Izard, the Pringles, and the Tradd Street Rutledges, the handsome ex-Governor doing the honors gallantly. He had ordered dinner at six, and we dined tete-a-tete. If he should prove as great a captain in ordering his line of battle as he is in ordering a dinner, it will be as well for the country as it was for me to-day.
Fortunately for the men, the beautiful Mrs. Joe Heyward sits at the next table, so they take her beauty as one of the goods the gods provide. And it helps to make life pleasant with English grouse and venison from the West. Not to speak of the salmon from the lakes which began the feast. They have me to listen, an appreciative audience, while they talk, and Mrs. Joe Heyward to look at.
Beauregard27 called. He is the hero of the hour. That is, he is believed to be capable of great things. A hero worshiper was struck dumb because I said: "So far, he has only been a captain of artillery, or engineers, or something." I did not see him. Mrs. Wigfall did and reproached my laziness in not coming out.
Last Sunday at church beheld one of the peculiar local sights, old negro maumas going up to the communion, in their white turbans and kneeling devoutly around the chancel rail.
The morning papers say Mr. Chesnut made the best shot on the Island at target practice. No war yet, thank God. Likewise they tell me Mr. Chesnut has made a capital speech in the Convention.
Not one word of what is going on now. "Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh," says the Psalmist. Not so here. Our hearts are in doleful dumps, but we are as gay, as madly jolly, as sailors who break into the strong-room when the ship is going down. At first in our great agony we were out alone. We longed for some of our big brothers to come out and help us. Well, they are out, too, and now it is Fort Sumter and that ill-advised Anderson. There stands Fort Sumter, en evidence, and thereby hangs peace or war.
Wigfall28 says before he left Washington, Pickens, our Governor, and Trescott were openly against secession; Trescott does not pretend to like it now. He grumbles all the time, but Governor Pickens is fire-eater down to the ground. "At the White House Mrs. Davis wore a badge. Jeff Davis is no seceder," says Mrs. Wigfall.
Captain Ingraham comments in his rapid way, words tumbling over each other out of his mouth: "Now, Charlotte Wigfall meant that as a fling at those people. I think better of men who stop to think; it is too rash to rush on as some do." "And so," adds Mrs. Wigfall, "the eleventh-hour men are rewarded; the half-hearted are traitors in this row."
April 3d. - Met the lovely Lucy Holcombe, now Mrs. Governor Pickens, last night at Isaac Hayne's. I saw Miles now begging in dumb show for three violets she had in her breastpin. She is a consummate actress and he well up in the part of male flirt. So it was well done.
"And you, who are laughing in your sleeves at the scene, where did you get that huge bunch?" "Oh, there is no sentiment when there is a pile like that of anything!" "Oh, oh!"
To-day at the breakfast table there was a tragic bestowal of heartsease on the well-known inquirer who, once more says in austere tones: "Who is the flirt now?" And so we fool on into the black cloud ahead of us. And after heartsease cometh rue.
April 4th. - Mr. Hayne said his wife moaned over the hardness of the chaperones' seats at St. Andrew's Hall at a Cecilia Ball.29 She was hopelessly deposited on one for hours. "And the walls are harder, my dear. What are your feelings to those of the poor old fellows leaning there, with, their beautiful young wives waltzing as if they could never tire and in the arms of every man in the room. Watch their haggard, weary faces, the old boys, you know. At church I had to move my pew. The lovely Laura was too much for my boys. They all made eyes at her, and nudged each other and quarreled so, for she gave them glance for glance. Wink, blink, and snicker as they would, she liked it. I say, my dear, the old husbands have not exactly a bed of roses; their wives twirling in the arms of young men, they hugging the wall."
While we were at supper at the Haynes's, Wigfall was sent for to address a crowd before the Mills House piazza. Like James Fitz James when he visits Glen Alpin again, it is to be in the saddle, etc. So let Washington beware. We were sad that we could not hear the speaking. But the supper was a consolation - pâté de foie gras salad, biscuit glacé and champagne frappé.
A ship was fired into yesterday, and went back to sea. Is that the first shot? How can one settle down to anything; one's heart is in one's mouth all the time. Any moment the cannon may open on us, the fleet come in.
April 6th. - The plot thickens, the air is red hot with rumors; the mystery is to find out where these utterly groundless tales originate. In spite of all, Tom Huger came for us and we went on the Planter to take a look at Morris Island and its present inhabitants - Mrs. Wigfall and the Cheves girls, Maxcy Gregg and Colonel Whiting, also John Rutledge, of the Navy, Dan Hamilton, and William Haskell. John Rutledge was a figurehead to be proud of. He did not speak to us. But he stood with a Scotch shawl draped about him, as handsome and stately a creature as ever Queen Elizabeth loved to look upon.
There came up such a wind we could not land. I was not too sorry, though it blew so hard (I am never seasick). Colonel Whiting explained everything about the forts, what they lacked, etc., in the most interesting way, and Maxcy Gregg supplemented his report by stating all the deficiencies and shortcomings by land.
Beauregard is a demigod here to most of the natives, but there are always seers who see and say. They give you to understand