Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

Tuesday, June 1, 2004

June.—Our cousin, George Bates, of Honolulu, came to see us to-day. He has one brother, Dudley, but he didn’t come. George has just graduated from college and is going to Japan to be a doctor. He wrote such a nice piece in my album I must copy it, “If I were a poet I would celebrate your virtues in rhyme, if I were forty years old, I would write a homily on good behaviour; being neither, I will quote two familiar lines which if taken as a rule of action will make you a good and happy woman:

“Honour and shame from no condition rise,

Act well your part, there all the honour lies.”

I think he is a very smart young man and will make a good doctor to the heathen.