August 24th.—Daniel, of The Examiner, was at the President’s. Wilmot de Saussure wondered if a fellow did not feel a little queer, paying his respects in person at the house of a man whom he abused daily in his newspaper.
A fiasco: an aide engaged to two young ladies in the same house. The ladies had been quarreling, but became friends unexpectedly when his treachery, among many other secrets, was revealed under that august roof. Fancy the row when it all came out.
Mr. Lowndes said we have already reaped one good result from the war. The orators, the spouters, the furious patriots, that could hardly be held down, and who were so wordily anxious to do or die for their country—they had been the pest of our lives. Now they either have not tried the battleield at all, or have precipitately left it at their earliest convenience: for very shame we are rid of them for a while. I doubt it. Bright’s speech¹ is dead against us. Reading this does not brighten one.
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¹ The reference is to John Bright, whose advocacy of the cause of the Union in the British Parliament attracted a great deal of attention At the time.
