United States -- Social life and customs -- To 1775; Women -- United States
When we got here we found the house pretty full. I had to dress
in a great hurry for dinner. We spent the evening very agreeably
in chatting. Milly Washington is a thousand times prettyer than I
thought her at first and very agreeable. About sunset Nancy, Milly
and myself took a walk in the Garden (it is a most beautiful place).
We were mighty busy cutting thistles to try our sweethearts, when Mr
Washington caught us; and you cant conceive how he plagued us--chased
us all over the Garden and was quite impertinent. I must tell you
of our frolic after we went to our room. We took 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 dressed in Hannah’s short
gown and peticoat, and seazed me and kissed me twenty times, in spite
of all the resistance I could make; and then Cousin Molly. Hannah soon
followed dressed in his Coat. They joined us in eating the apple-pye
and then went out. After this we took it into our heads to want to eat
oysters. We got up, put on our rappers and went down in the Seller to
get them; do you think Mr Washington did not follow us and scear us
just to death. We went up tho, and eat our oysters. We slept in the
old ladys room too, and she sat laughing fit to kill herself at us.
Now, these were no folk of low degree. The lively and osculatory Mr.
Washington was Corbin Washington. He married Hannah, daughter of
Richard Henry Lee. Their grandson, John A. Washington, was the last
of the family to occupy Mount Vernon. Mr. Pinkard also had a delicate
habit of “bolting in upon us, and overhearing part of our conveasation
in our rooms, which hily delighted him,” trying to seize the girls’
letters, dressing in women’s clothes, and other manly and gentlemanly
pleasantries.
Sarah Eve records in her journal an equally affectionate state of
manners in Philadelphian society in 1722. She writes:--
In the morning Dr Shippen came to see us. What a pity it is that the
Doctor is so fond of kissing. He really would be much more agreeable
if he were less fond. One hates to be always kissed, especially as it
is attended with so many inconveniences. It decomposes the economy of
ones handkerchief, it disorders ones high roll, and it ruffles the
serenity of ones countenance.
Though there was great talk made of gallant and chivalric bearing
toward the ladies, it is evident that occasional rudeness of manner
still existed. A writer in the _Royal Gazette_ of August 16, 1780, thus
complains of New York swains:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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