Posted on 03/13/2018 4:41:21 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed. To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.
The picture of the Presidential Reception in Washington doesn’t show the mud, cold, smoke, and stench.
In an interesting book about Congressman Dan Sickles, who will eventually become of interest, the author waxed vividly about living conditions in Washington City.
I didn’t finish the book because I got really annoyed with the author, who was fond of attributing his own sentiments and judgments to the historical figures.
March 14, SUNDAY. Joy is in a sort of squabble with the chemical committee of the board. Some criticism has been made on the catalogue of chemical materials he proposed to order, and he is affronted. Among the items was so many grammes of anaconda’s feces from Paris, for the manufacture of uric acid at quite a “high figure.” Why not apply to the anaconda at Barnums’? Why should not the College keep its own anaconda and produce its own stercoration? Let domestic industry be encouraged. Is it certain that we could not get along with Gouvrerneur Ogden as a substitute?
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Who knew that snake droppings were such a big thing in the 1850s? I’m suspicious of Professor Joy’s ordering snake droppings from Paris ... could this be a cover for some packages of lingerie or those French picture cards one hears about?
Smuggling smut with the scat? The Board should investigate to rule it out. This would be an especially bad time for a scandal to erupt, as they strive to upgrade Columbia from college to “University.”
I don’t think this “University” thing is going to catch on. What a waste of time!
March 15. The great Hurlbut, who has for some months been missing, has reappeared and is going to Europe, “probably never to return” So mote it be.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
We first heard of the variously spelled Hurlbut back in December 1856. Here, again, is his Wikipedia page.
It’s strange that all these people just toodle off to Europe and back all the time, while I never go anywhere, just like my farm-bound ancestors in the 1850s.
March 19. Walked to West Thirtieth Street at ten tonight to escort Ellie home from what I supposed was to be the smallest of aesthetic and family tea-drinkings at the Toppans’. (Mrs. Toppan is a first cousin of Mr. Ruggles.) Found some fifty people solemnizing “the lancers” and stayed till midnight, mostly in discourse with Mrs. John Sherwood, Mrs. Judge Ruggles, and Ellie’s grandmamma, who seems well again and has renewed her youth. Mrs. Sherwood and the Judges were very gracious and agreeable, and nothing went wrong but I’ve come home tired and bored and blue and in an evil temper. The Toppans’ house is pleasant. They have filled it with nice pictures and engravings and other indicia of civilization; they have lived much abroad and seem uncommonly refined and amiable people.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Poor George sounds disgruntled. Remember, early to bed and early to rise ...
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