55.
all occasions to full grown ladies and gentlemen es-
pecially the latter on the political, social, and moral
questions of the day, and is greatly interested on
the scores of Abolition and Temperance. He likes
to favor you with his views as to the approaching elec-
tion for the Presidency. I got him, once, to define
his platform. I go said he, in answer to my
respectful enquiry for the development of our internal
resources, for Protection and Free Soil; and really,
since the outrages in Kansas, I am almost provoked
to join the Garrisonan stripe, though before, I assure
you I was exceedingly moderate. Furthermore he is
learned in Entomology, always knows the state of
the barometer, don t approve of story books as he
has heard of several persons becoming insane from the
pernicious habit of reading novels and is so super-
fluously polite as to wish you good day whenever he
meets you, if it should chance twenty times in the
course of a morning. At table his appetite is gui-
ded by that of his father. (I wonder if that gentleman
needed castor-oil whether the boy wouldn t want a simi-
lar dose?) He has not the smallest iota of modesty,
timidity or childish reverence. You could as soon put
the author of the life of P. T. Barnum to the blush,
or out of countenance. He d give you his opinions on
the Trinity, or Predestination without dumur. He
calls upon the girl who waits at table twice as often
as the grown boarders. Mrs Potter (our landlady)
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eight: page sixty-two |
| Description: | Describes Professor Martin's son. |
| Date: | 1856-09-09 |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Children; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Martin, Jr.; Martin, Professor; Potter, Mrs. |
| Coverage (City/State): | [New York, New York] |
| Scan Date: | 2011-02-02 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eight |
| Description: | Includes descriptions of the process of publishing his book, ''The Physiology of New-York Boarding Houses;'' his poor mental state upon returning to New York from England; meeting Walt Whitman; visits with Fanny Fern, James Parton, and Harriet Jacobs' daughter Louisa who is living with them; a visit to the Catskill Mountains with the Edwards family; moving into the boarding house at 132 Bleecker Street; working on the publication ''European'' with Colonel Hugh Forbes; the death of publisher William Levison and his daughter Ellen in his boarding house; visiting the scene of the murder of a dentist to get a sketch of the suspect; visiting Newport, Rhode Island, on assignment to sketch for Frank Leslie; and the death of his brother-in-law, Joseph Greatbatch. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Journalism; Medical care; Mental illness; Publishers and publishing; Travel; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Newport, Rhode Island |
| Note: | Thomas Butler Gunn was born February 15, 1826, in Banbury, England, and came to New York in 1849. During the Civil War he worked as a correspondent for the New York Tribune and the New York Evening Post. He returned to England in 1863, and died in Birmingham in April 1903. The collection includes twenty-one volumes of his diaries, including newspaper clippings, letters, photographs, sketches, and various other items inserted by Gunn. Diary entries date from July 7, 1849, to April 7, 1863, and include his experiences with the New York publishing and literary world, his descriptions of boarding houses, his travels throughout the United States, and his experiences traveling with the Federal army as a Civil War correspondent. |
| Publisher: | Missouri History Museum |
| Rights: | Copyright 2011 Missouri History Museum. |
| Source: | Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum. |
