[Boston—Sunday, 25 March 1866]
Sunday March 25. Walked to Roxbury meaning to attend church but heard that Mrs Putnam the Dr’s wife had died. It was a surprise and shock to me for she looked stable and suggestive of a home always, our type for something indestructible. We could not go in to the church under the circumstances & hear a stranger and so returned walking all the way home the larger portion of the way out. The skies were gusty, full of snow and rain, but the air was not unpleasant. We saw the Catholic children going and coming with their palm branches, for Palm Sunday has returned again and God’s peace was abroad in the earth for his children. The buds on the trees grow larger & larger in spite of the snow and cold.
We passed last evening at Governor Andrew’s with a Miss Vanloo and her brother from Richmond. She was one of the very few Southern women who felt for our soldiers during the war. She obtained an order from Genl Winder admitting her to the Libby prison, with the right to carry delicacies to our prisoners and she it was who discovered the body of young Ulric Dahlgren and caused it to be delivered to his father. She did not look noble or powerful nor was her manner of speaking dignified or agreeable and J.T.F. could not help doubting if she were the heroine she was represented. But I was persuaded she was enthousiastic, and had been kind to our men but disliked to talk about it and being a woman of no culture did not understand how to say gracefully what was best to say and no more.
Her brother was quite a pretender in science, whom Profr Rogers tried to warn against thinking he knew something when he knew nothing. Altogether it was a strange exposition to me of life in Richmond Va. one not precisely agreeable either.
Jamie amused me by an anecdote Longfellow related to him last Wednesday evening. In an obituary notice in a Portland paper years ago he saw a curious misuse of a portion [of] that line in Shakspeare.
See what a rent the envious Casca made after telling the history of the person the notice ended by saying,
thus death with his envious Casca closed the scene.
Friday last. James F. Clarke with his wife and daughter & Miss Putnam and Miss Weston took tea here.
