The Virginia house-mother had classic precedent for the utilization of what her granddaughter accounts but offal. I once heard a celebrated divine say, unctuously:
“‘Hog-killing time’ is to me the feast of the year.”
And nobody stared, or smiled, or said him “Nay.” Chine, sparerib, and sausage, such as titillated our palates in the first half of the nineteenth century, are not to be had now for love or money. The base imitations sold to us in the shambles are the output of “contract work.”
XVII
A NOTABLE AFFAIR OF HONOR
Early in the second winter of our residence in Richmond, the community and the State were thrilled to painful interest by the most notable duel recorded in the history of Virginia.
On the desk at my side lies a time-embrowned pamphlet, containing a full report of the legal proceedings that succeeded the tragedy.
The leading Democratic paper of the State at that time was published by Thomas Ritchie and his sons. The father, to whom was awarded the title of “The Nestor of the Southern Press,” was a dignified gentleman who had won the esteem of his fellow-citizens by a long life spent under the limelight that beats more fiercely nowhere than upon a political leader who is also an editor. In morals, stainless, in domestic and social life, exemplary and beloved, the elder Ritchie enjoyed, in the evening of his day, a reputation unblurred by the rancor of partisan spite. The policy of his paper was fearless, but never unscrupulous. To the Democratic party, the Enquirer was at once banner and bulwark. Of his elder son, William Foushee, I shall have something to say in later chapters, and in a lighter vein. The second son, the father’s namesake, was recognized as the moving spirit of the editorial columns.
John Hampden Pleasants was as strongly identified with the Whig party. He was a man in the prime of life; like the Ritchies, descended from an ancient and honorable Virginia family, noble in physique, and courtly in bearing. He held a trenchant pen, and had been associated from his youth up with the press. He had lately assumed the office of editor-in-chief of a new paper, and brought it into notice by vigorous and brilliant editorials that were the talk of both parties.