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MY DAY
REMINISCENCES OF A LONG LIFE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration: MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR.]
MY DAY
REMINISCENCES OF A LONG
LIFE
BY
MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR
AUTHOR OF "REMINISCENCES OF PEACE AND WAR,"
"THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON AND HER
TIMES," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1909
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1909,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To the Memory of
My Son
Theodorick Bland Pryor
_I stood at dawn by a limitless sea
And watched the rose creep over the gray;
Till the heavens were a glowing canopy!
This was my day!_
_The pale stars stole away, one by one—
Like sensitive souls from the presence of Pride:
The moon hung low, looking back, as the sun
Rose over the tide._
_And he, like a King, came up from the Sea!
He opened my rose—unfettered my song—
And quickened a heart to be true to me
All the day long._
_The soul that was born of a song and flower
Of tender dawn-flush, and shadowy gray,
Was strengthened by Love for a bitter hour
That chilled my day._
_I had dwelt in the garden of the Lord!
I had gathered the sweets of a summer day:
I was called to stand where a flaming sword
Turned every way._
_It spared not the weak—nor the strong—nor the dear;
And following fast, like a phantom band,
Famine and Fever and shuddering Fear
Swept o'er the land._
_They whispered that Hope, the angel of light,
Would spread her white wings and speed her away;
But she folded me close in my longest night
And darkest day._
_As of old, when the fire and tempest had passed,
And an earthquake had riven the rocks, the Word
In a still small voice rose over the blast—
The Voice of the Lord._
_And the Voice said: "Take up your lives again!
Quit yourselves manfully! Stand in your lot!
Let the Famine, the Fever, the Peril, the Pain,
Be all forgot!_
_"Weep no more for the lovely, the brave,
The young head pillowed on a blood-stained sod;
The daisy that grows on the soldier's grave
Looks up to God!_
_"The soul of the patriot-soldier stands
With a mighty host in eternal calm,
And He who pressed the sword to his hands
Has given the Palm."_
* * * * *
_And now I stand with my face to the west,
Shading mine eyes, for my glorious sun
Is splendid again as he sinks to his rest—
His day is done._
_I have lost my rose, forgotten my song,
But the true heart that loved me is mine alway;
The stars are alight—the way not long—
I had my day!_
_November 8, 1908._
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Mrs. Roger A. Pryor. From a Photograph, 1900 _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Residence of Dr. S. P. Hargrave 43
Mrs. Fanny Bland Randolph 71
University of Virginia 75
Stephen A. Douglas 85
William Walker 121
Washington in 1845 138
General Robert E. Lee in 1861 208
Theodorick Bland Pryor 344
William Rice Pryor 348
Charlotte Cushman 359
Helena Modjeska 362
General Hancock 371
General Sheridan 377
Mrs. Vincenzo Botta 403
Judge Roger A. Pryor in 1900 447
MY DAY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
I am constrained to encourage a possible reader by assuring him that I
have no intention whatever of writing strictly an autobiography. Nothing
in myself nor in my life would warrant me in so doing.
I might, perhaps, except the story of the Civil War, and my part in the
trials and sorrows of my fellow-women, but this story I have fully and
truly told in my "Reminiscences of Peace and War."
My countrymen were so kind to these first stories that I feel I may
claim some credentials as a "babbler of Reminiscences." Besides, I have
lived in the last two-thirds of the splendid nineteenth century, and
have known some of the men and women who made that century notable. And
I would fain believe with Mr. Trollope that "the small records of an
unimportant individual life, the memories which happen to linger in the
brain of the old like bits of drift-wood floating round and round in
the eddies of a back-water, can more vividly than anything else bring
before the young of the present generation those ways of acting and
thinking and talking in the everyday affairs of life which indicate the
differences between themselves and their grandfathers."
But I shall have more than this "floating driftwood" to reward the
reader who will follow me to the end of my story!
Writers of Reminiscences are interested—perhaps more interested than
their readers—in recalling their earliest sensations, and through them
determining at what age they had "found themselves"; _i.e._ become
conscious of their own personality and relation to the world they had
entered.
Long before this time the child has seen and learned more perhaps than
he ever learned afterwards in the same length of time. He has acquired
knowledge of a language sufficient for his needs. His miniature world
has been, in many respects, a foreshadowing of the world he will know
in his maturity. He has learned that he is a citizen of a country with
laws,—some of which it will be prudent to obey,—such as the law against
taking unpermitted liberties with the cat, or touching the flame of
the candle; while other laws may be evaded by cleverness and discreet
behavior. He finds around him many things; pictures on walls, for
instance, that may be admired but never touched,—other lovely things
that may be handled and even kissed, but must be returned to mantels
and tables,—and yet others, not near as delightful as these, "poor
things but his own," to be caressed or beaten, or even broken at his
pleasure. He has learned to indulge his natural taste for the drama. His
nurse covers her head with a paper and becomes the dreadful, groaning
villain behind it, while the baby girds himself for attack, tears the
disguise from the villain, and shouts his victory. As he learns the
names and peculiarities of animals, the scope of the drama widens. He is
a spirited horse, snorting and charging along, or—if his picture-books
have been favorable—a roaring lion from whom the nurse flees in terror.
Of the domestic play there is infinite variety—nursing in sickness, the
doctor, baby-tending, cooking,—and once, alas! I heard a baby girl of
eighteen months enact a fearful quarrel between man and wife, ending
firmly "I leave you! I never come back!"
These natural tendencies of children would seem to prove that the soul
or mind of man can be "fetched up from the cradle"—a phrase for which
I am indebted to one of my contemporaries, Mr. Leigh Hunt, who in turn
quoted it as a popular phrase in his late (and my early) day. But with
the single exception of the spoken language all these childish plays
have been successfully taught to our humble brothers; to our poor
relation the monkey, the dog, elephant, seal, canary bird—even to fleas.
All these are capable of enacting a short drama. The elephant, longing
for his bottle, never rings his bell too soon. The dog remembers his
cue, watches for it, and never anticipates it. The seal, more wonderful
than all, born as he has been without arms or legs, mounts a horse for
a ride, and waits for his umbrella to be poised on his stubby nose.
Even the creature whose name is a synonym for vulgar stupidity has been
taught to indicate with porcine finger the letters which spell that
name.
With these and other animals we hold in common our faculty of imitation,
our memory, affection, antipathy, revenge, gratitude, passionate
adoration of one special friend, and even the perception of music—the
infant will weep and the poodle howl in response to the same strain
in a minor key—and yet, notwithstanding this common lot, this common
inheritance, there is born for us and not for them a moment when some
strange unseen power breathes into us something akin to consciousness
of a living soul.
Having no past as a standard for the reasonable and natural, nothing
surprises children. They are simply witnesses of a panorama in the
moving scenes of which they have no part. When I was three years old,
I visited my grandfather in Charlotte County. The Staunton River wound
around his plantation and I was often taken out rowing with my aunts.
One day the canoe tipped and my pretty Aunt Elizabeth fell overboard.
Without the slightest emotion I saw her fall, and saw her recovered.
For aught I knew to the contrary it was usual and altogether proper
for young ladies to fall in rivers and be fished out by their long
hair. But another event, quite ordinary, overwhelmed me with the most
passionate distress. Having, a short time before, advanced a tentative
finger for an experimental taste of an apple roasting for me at my
grandfather's fire, I was prepared to be shocked at seeing a colony of
ants rush madly about upon wood a servant was laying over the coals.
My cries of distress arrested my grandfather as he passed through the
room. He quickly ordered the sticks to be taken off, and calling me
to a seat in front of him, said gravely: "We will try these creatures
and see if they deserve punishment. Evidently they have invaded our
country. The question is, did they come of their own accord, or were
they while enjoying their rights of life and liberty, captured by us
and brought hither against their will?" My testimony was gravely taken.
I was quite positive I had seen the sticks, swarming with ants, laid
upon the fire. "Uncle Peter," who had brought in the wood, was summoned
and sharply cross-questioned. Nothing could shake him. To the best
of his knowledge and belief, "them ants nuvver come 'thouten they was
'bleeged to," and so, as they were by this time wildly scampering over
the floor, they were gently admonished by a persuasive broom to leave
the premises. Uncle Peter was positive they would find their way home
without difficulty, and I was comforted.
I remember this little incident perfectly; I can see my dear
grandfather, his white hair tied with a black ribbon _en queue_,
advancing his stick like a staff of office. I claim that then and
there—three years old—I found myself, "fetched up my soul" from
somewhere, almost "from the cradle," inasmuch as I had pitied
the unfortunate, unselfishly espoused his cause, and won for him
consideration and justice.
Writers of fiction are supposed to present, as in a mirror, the truth
as it is found in nature. They are fond of hinting that at some moment
in the early life of every individual something occurs which foreshadows
his fate, something which if interpreted—like the dreams of the ancient
Hebrews—would tell us without the aid of gypsy, medium, or clairvoyant
the things we so ardently desire to know. In Daniel Deronda, Gwendolyn,
in her moment of triumph, touches a spring in a panel, which, sliding
back, reveals a picture,—the upturned face of a drowning man. In Lewis
Rand, Jacqueline, the bride of half an hour, hears the story of a
duel—and the pistol-shot echoes ever after through her brain, filling
it with insistent foreboding.
We might recall illustrations of similar foreshadowing in real life. For
instance, Jean Carlyle, six years old, beautiful and vivid as a tropical
bird, stands before an audience to sing her little song; and waits in
vain for her accompanist. Finally she throws her apron over her head and
runs away in confusion. _She_ was prepared, she knew her part; but the
support was lacking, the accompaniment failed her. It was not given to
him who told the story to perceive the prophecy!
Were I fanciful enough to fix upon one moment as prophetic of my life—as
a key-note to the controlling principle of that life—I might recall the
incident in my grandfather's room, when I ceased to be merely an inert
absorber of light and warmth and comfort, and became aware of the _pain_
in the world—pain which I passionately longed to alleviate.