They say the English will like Mr. Mason; he is so manly, so straightforward, so truthful and bold. “A fine old English gentleman,” so said Russell to me, “but for tobacco.” “I like Mr. Mason and Mr. Hunter better than anybody else.” “And yet they are wonderfully unlike.” “Now you just listen to me,” said I. “Is Mrs. Davis in hearing—no? Well, this sending Mr. Mason to London is the maddest thing yet. Worse in some points of view than Yancey, and that was a catastrophe.”
August 29th.—No more feminine gossip, but the licensed slanderer, the mighty Russell, of the Times. He says the battle of the 21st was fought at long range: 500 yards apart were the combatants. The Confederates were steadily retreating when some commotion in the wagon train frightened the “Yanks,” and they made tracks. In good English, they fled amain. And on our side we were too frightened to follow them—in high-flown English, to pursue the flying foe.
In spite of all this, there are glimpses of the truth sometimes, and the story leads to our credit with all the sneers and jeers. When he speaks of the Yankees’ cowardice, falsehood, dishonesty, and braggadocio, the best words are in his mouth. He repeats the thrice-told tale, so often refuted and denied, that we were harsh to wounded prisoners. Dr. Gibson told me that their surgeon-general has written to thank our surgeons: Yankee officers write very differently from Russell. I know that in that hospital with the Sisters of Charity they were better off than our men were at the other hospitals: that I saw with my own eyes. These poor souls are jealously guarded night and day. It is a hideous tale—what they tell of their sufferings.
Women who come before the public are in a bad box now. False hair is taken off and searched for papers. Bustles are “suspect.” All manner of things, they say, come over the border under the huge hoops now worn; so they are ruthlessly torn off. Not legs but arms are looked for under hoops, and, sad to say, found. Then women are used as detectives and searchers, to see that no men slip over in petticoats. So the poor creatures coming this way are humiliated to the deepest degree. To men, glory, honor, praise, and power, if they are patriots. To women, daughters of Eve, punishment comes still in some shape, do what they will.
Mary Hammy’s eyes were starting from her head with amazement, while a very large and handsome South Carolinian talked rapidly. “What is it?” asked I after he had gone. “Oh, what a year can bring forth—one year! Last summer you remember how he swore he was in love with me? He told you, he told me, he told everybody, and if I did refuse to marry him I believed him. Now he says he has seen, fallen in love with, courted, and married another person, and he raves of his little daughter’s beauty. And they say time goes slowly”—thus spoke Mary Hammy, with a sigh of wonder at his wonderful cure.
“Time works wonders,” said the explainer-general. “What conclusion did you come to as to Southern men at the grand pow-wow, you know?” “They are nicer than the nicest—the gentlemen, you know. There are not too many of that kind anywhere. Ours are generous, truthful, brave, and—and—devoted to us, you know. A Southern husband is not a bad thing to have about the house.”
Mrs. Frank Hampton said: “For one thing, you could not flirt with these South Carolinians. They would not stay at the tepid degree of flirtation. They grow so horridly in earnest before you know where you are.” “Do you think two married people ever lived together without finding each other out? I mean, knowing exactly how good or how shabby, how weak or how strong, above all, how selfish each was?” “Yes; unless they are dolts, they know to a tittle; but you see if they have common sense they make believe and get on, so so.” Like the Marchioness’s orange-peel wine in Old Curiosity Shop.
A violent attack upon the North to-day in the Albion. They mean to let freedom slide a while until they subjugate us. The Albion says they use lettres de cachet, passports, and all the despotic apparatus of regal governments. Russell hears the tramp of the coming man—the king and kaiser tyrant that is to rule them. Is it McClellan?—“Little Mac”? We may tremble when he comes. We down here have only “the many-headed monster thing,” armed democracy. Our chiefs quarrel among themselves.