I have never been an early riser, and the thought of the stern resolution I have made, to get up at five punctually, keeps me waking up all night long. I strike a match, look at the little clock on the table at the head of the bed, and think with delight how many hours there are before the fateful five strikes. I am losing pounds daily in the process, but make up in pride over my strenuosity.
On the plantation the struggle to get all the peas ploughed in for hay is most exhausting. Gibbie says he is sick, and I have engaged Loppy to do it, but he finds fault with the team and the plough.
Sunday, July 30.
A pleasant service and good sermon in our little church. When I got home to my great joy found C. and John. We got out the little old black leather-covered trunks which came from the log house, where they were stored, and looked over some of the papers in them.
Found many old letters from grandmother to papa when he was at West Point, beautiful letters, urging on him duty, discipline, and diligence. Oh, what an inestimable blessing to a boy to have such a mother and to value the letters so that here almost a century later they are found carefully kept; I suppose all she wrote, for postage was so high then that letters were not an everyday or a weekly matter.
August 24.
Reading with great pleasure the "Life and Letters of Washington Allston," and came upon so many bits of wisdom which I would like to keep, for instance:—
"Confidence is the soul of genius.... A little seasonable vanity is the best friend we can have."
"It was a saying of Alcibiades, and I believe a very just one, that 'When souls of a certain order did not perform all they wished it was because they had not courage to attempt all they could.'"
All this written by my great-uncle Washington Allston, August 24, 1801, to the artist Charles Frazer—to-day 109 years ago. We have a very beautiful miniature of him and it has the face of a wise man and almost a saint.