“To the Editor of the Repository:
“Dear Sir—June roses, etc., make our loveliest of villages a paradise this week. The constellations are all glorious and the stars of earth far outshine those of the heavens. The lake shore, ‘Lovers’ Lane,’ ‘Glen Kitty’ and the ‘Points’ are full of romance and romancers. The yellow moon and the blue waters and the dark green shores and the petrified Indians, whispering stony words at the foot of Genundewah, and Squaw Island sitting on the waves, like an enchanted grove, and ‘Whalesback’ all humped up in the East and ‘Devil’s Lookout’ rising over all, made the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ a silver sea of witchery and love; and in the cottages and palaces we ate the ambrosia and drank the nectar of the sweet goddesses of this new and golden age.
“I may as well say to you, Mr. Editor, that the Ontario Female Seminary closed yesterday and ‘Yours truly’ was present at the commencement. Being a bachelor I shall plead guilty and appeal to the mercy of the Court, if indicted for undue prejudice in favor of the charming young orators. After the report of the Examining Committee, in which the scholarship of the young ladies was not too highly praised, came the Latin Salutatory by Miss Clay, a most beautiful and elegant production (that sentence, sir, applies to both salutatory and salutatorian). The ‘Shadows We Cast,’ by Miss Field, carried us far into the beautiful fields of nature and art and we saw the dark, or the brilliant shades, which our lives will cast, upon society and history. Then ‘Tongues in Trees’ began to whisper most bewitchingly, and ‘Books in the Running Brooks’ were opened, and ‘Sermons in Stones’ were preached by Miss Richards, and this old bachelor thought if all trees would talk so well, and every brook would babble so musically, and each precious stone would exhort so brilliantly, as they were made to do by the ‘enchantress,’ angels and dreams would henceforth be of little consequence; and whether the orator should be called ‘Tree of Beauty,’ ‘Minnehaha’ or the ‘Kohinoor’ is a ‘vexata questio.’
“In the evening Mr. Hardick, ‘our own,’ whose hand never touches the piano without making delicious music, and Misses Daggett and Wilson, also ‘our own,’ and the musical pupils of the Institution, gave a concert. ‘The Young Volunteer’ was imperatively demanded, and this for the third time during the anniversary exercises, and was sung amid thunders of applause, ‘Star of the South,’ Miss Stella Scott, shining meanwhile in all her radiant beauty. May her glorious light soon rest on a Union that shall never more be broken.—Soberly yours,
A Very Old Bachelor.”
June, 1861.—There was a patriotic rally this afternoon on the campus of Canandaigua Academy and we Seminary girls went. They raised a flag on the Academy building. General Granger presided, Dr. Coleman led the choir and they sang “The Star Spangled Banner.” Mr. Noah T. Clarke made a stirring speech and Mr. Gideon Granger, James C. Smith and E. M. Morse followed. Canandaigua has already raised over $7,000 for the war. Capt. Barry drills the Academy boys in military tactics on the campus every day. Men are constantly enlisting. Lester P. Thompson, son of “Father Thompson,” among the others.
A young man asked Anna to take a drive to-day, but Grandmother was not willing at first to let her go. She finally gave her consent, after Anna’s plea that he was so young and his horse was so gentle. Just as they were ready to start, I heard Anna run upstairs and I heard him say, “What an Anna!” I asked her afterwards what she went for and she said she remembered that she had left the soap in the water.
June.—Dr. Daggett’s war sermon from the 146th Psalm was wonderful.
December 1.—Dr. Carr is dead. He had a stroke of paralysis two weeks ago and for several days he has been unconscious. The choir of our church, of which he was leader for so long, and some of the young people came and stood around his bed and sang, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” They did not know whether he was conscious or not, but they thought so because the tears ran down his cheeks from his closed eyelids, though he could not speak or move. The funeral was from the church and Dr. Daggett’s text was, “The Beloved Physician.”
1862
January 26.—We went to the Baptist Church this evening to hear Rev. A. H. Lung preach his last sermon before going into the army.
February 17.—Glorious news from the war to-day. Fort Donelson is taken with 1,500 rebels. The right and the North will surely triumph!
February 21.—Our society met at Fanny Palmer’s this afternoon. I went but did not stay to tea as we were going to Madame Anna Bishop’s concert in the evening. The concert was very, very good. Her voice has great scope and she was dressed in the latest stage costume, but it took so much material for her skirt that there was hardly any left for the waist.