Old Diaries Reveal Miss Virginia of 1700's Liked Love, Fun

By Ruth Nelson Gordon

"We danced, romped and talked scandal"

This sentence was written by a "Young Lady of Virginia" in a letter to her bosom friend about 1782, from one of the great houses in Virginia. And though her language is quaintly stilted, and her expressions a trifle sanctimonious, a frolic-some humor peeps through her long words, and we come to the conclusion that she and the most modern girl are "sisters under their skins." The only difference seems to be the degree of frankness in expressing what they think. One is shocked by any bare revelation of her inmost feelings--the other disgusted by too great reticence.

Miss Kate Mason Rowland found this old diary in an old desk, and gave it to the world just as it was, with all its quaint spelling. It was written by a young girl on a visit to her cousins the Lees, the Washington's and other prominent families of Virginia. It gives, it seems, a strong light on the thoughts and reactions of a girl of that period, and strengthens the conviction that she was not so different from the girl of today. She says:

"Lucy and I are just returned from walking. I was delighted; we walked to a river--they call it here; but it is very narrow. The banks of it are beautiful, covered with moss and wild flowers.; all that a romantic mind could form. I thought of my Polly and thought how delighted she would have been had she been a spectator of the scene. Lucy is a truly good girl but nothing of the Romance in her. So much the better, say I; she is much the happier without. I wish to Heaven I had as little!"

This, we remark is a common attitude of modern youth. But we must admit, the young moderns are not so sentimental. The next paragraph is typical of the seventeen-hundreds.

"I have spent the morning in reading Lady Julia Mandeville and was much affected. Indeed I never cried more in my life reading a novel. The stile is beautiful, but the tale is horrid."

But to prove that sentimental reactions still take place, I call up an instance that astonished me. A modern young lady was affected to tears at a performance of "Little Women." The tears streamed down her face, though she wiped them away surreptiously. Again I remark women, young and old, are still sentimental, though in different spots.

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Another paragraph in this diary shows that the girlish figure was not the subject of concern in the seventeen hundreds that it is today. The "Young Lady" writes:

"We took it into our head to want to eat; well we had a large dish of bacon and beef; after that a bowl of Sago cream; and after that an apple Pye. While we were eating the apple Pye in bed--God bless you--making a great noise--in came Mr. Washington. (Her brother-in-law), dressed in Hannah's (her sister) short gown and petticoat. --Hannah soon followed drest in his coat. After this we took it into our heads to eat oysters--and went down to the cellar to get them. Do you think Mr. W. did not follow us and "scear" us to death? Those two horrid Mortals, Mr. B and Mr W. seized and kissed me a dozen times in spite of all the resistence I could make. They really think, now that they are married, they are privaliged to do anything!"

The old letters and diaries of earlier times give us a vivid picture of youth, gay and mischievous and high-spirited. They galloped on fox-hunts on blooded horses; danced the merry Virginia Reel, and made love in the deep-recessed windows of ancient houses.

Fithian, a tutor at Nomini Hall, one of the "King" Carter estates, recorded in his diary in 1725 that on winter nights the pretty daughters of the house gathered in the library before a roaring log fire.

"The girls in their white frocks," he writes, "huddled close together for the purpose of warming each other, and looked like lambs in the spring."

But he adds feelingly:

"I wish they were half as innocent."

But if he was smarting from their pranks, he adds a significant paragraph later. He declares that:

"My pupils at Nomini Hall were more polite to the Negro servants that waited on them than many ladies and gentlemen in my own country were to each other."

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"One of the most antick Virginians I am acquainted with," writes William Byrd of Westover," is my daughter.

"Either our young fellows are not smart eno' for her, or she is to smart for them, but in a little while I hope they will split the difference. My young gentlewomen like everything in the country but the retirement. However, the lightness of the atmosphere helps them to bear their losses, amuse themselves the better--they are every day up to their elbows in housewifery, which will qualify them effectually for useful wives, and if they live long enough, for valuable women."

Yet this "antick Virginian" whom her father thought so staid, and up to her eyes in "housewifery"--planned, it was said an elopement with the earl of Petersborough. This was foiled only by the jealous master of the ship they were to sail upon, who gave the plot away. The truth of this rumor can't be vouched for, but it is delightfully romantic. It shows a spirit in the gentle Evelyn Byrd that touches the imagination.

The belles of the past were far, how ever, from being the languishing type. The "clinging vine" was not so prevalent as we may have supposed. We read of young Sarah Harrison, the first Harrison girl in Virginia, who firmly stood her ground on the occasion of her marriage when asked if she would 'love, honor and obey."

"No obey!" reiterated Miss Harrison, and stuck to this assertion. So remarkable was this behavior that it was recorded in the Virginia Gazette of the period.

"When Mr. James Blair was Married to Mrs. Sarah Harrison" it runs, "It was done by one Mr. Smith. When she was to say 'Obey' she said 'No obey!' The third time she said "No obey! and the said Smith went on with the rest of the ceremony."

Virginia girls, from the first ones to the present time, have been extremely fond of "fine Cloaths." The Historian Starchy says that the Princess Pocahontas was a "debonaire.' quaynt and well-pleased as a daughter of the House of Austria behune with all her jewels." He tells of a visit to her in her leafy court. She sat under a "broad-leaved" tree, covered with a white deer-skin, and her maid fetched to honor her white guest, "a frontal of white coral and pendants of drilled pearles for her eares, and a chaine of copper linkes. "A jollye ornament," he exclaims, and adds that with "feathers and flowers set in her haire" she was every inch a Princess" drest in a "cloke" of blue feathers from the breasts of pigeons that shone like satin.

We read of another Virginia belle in an old letter:

"Well, Polly and myself were drawn forth in our best airs for the occasion and saw Miss M. give her hand to the delighted Mr. P. You may be sure she looked infinitely lovely. Her dress was white satin and muslin. Her necklace, earrings and bracelets very brilliant."

Daniel Parke Custis, the first husband of Martha Washington, writes to his daughter, Fanny:

"Doe not learn to romp, but behave y'selfe soberly and like a gentlewoman. Be calme and obliging to all the servants, and when you speake, doe it mildly, even to the poorest slave."

This was fine parental advice, and was certainly taken--for it is still a Virginia characteristic to keep up the tradition of courtesy. Only last winter, a visitor from the North said, "It's stylish to be polite down here."

But were they so different? They had spirited reactions to most of the things their descendants have thrown over--only they did not think it proper to call a spade a spade. They laughed at their elders when they acted in a ridiculous manner, and often rebelled at hidebound customs. They loved weddings with all their sentimental trappings, and fine clothes and jewels, and dancing and love-making. And beneath their quaint language, and stilted modes of behavoir, they had spirit and a mind of their own.