115
experience in a trifling matter to-day. I think it
is only because women move in a narrower, more contracted
sphere than men. Not one woman in a thousand can afford
fair play to a man if he offend her in any small matter.
Some men can. They may detest the individual, yet in their
judgment do justice to all his good qualities.
26. Monday. Down town early, in the fresh cold morning and
sunshine. Post & Pic Offices. Return. Gun came. Helped him to
get big box up stairs. Phonography. Chores &c in the afternoon, and
perplexing my brain for notions for Harpers. Wrote a pretty lengthy
article for the Pic in the evening. I feel unusually lonely just
now. Haney and Cahill walk off together of an evening, to Ed-
wards , with never a will you go, too, which might give one a
pleasant reminescence for the rest of the day. They re naturally
more together from their goings up and down town, but I think
its more than that. Cahill s just good-humored and careless,
the companion of those who ll drink with him and help him to waste
time. He came home on Saturday night or rather Sunday mor-
ning during the small hours (as usual) with trousers torn,
hands and legs cut from a fall. Haney is consistent, just
on his dealings, but there s a spice of dogmatism in his manner
which smacks of the school teacher. Besides he is like, I fancy,
most little men (in stature) has a pretty good opinion of him-
self. And all Americans are hard there s a lack of kindness
and sympathy about them. They think any need of this any
despondency or sensibility unmanly and half despise it. They
are brought up in an atmosphere of self will. I never yet met
a modest or self distrustful American. I ve heard Parton, who
is to a certain amount tainted by an certa admiration for this
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Nine: page one hundred and thirty-two |
| Description: | Comments on Jesse Haney, Frank Cahill, and Americans in general. |
| Date: | 1858-04-25 |
| Subject: | Cahill, Frank; Gun, Robert; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Haney, Jesse; Parton, James; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | [New York, New York] |
| Scan Date: | 2011-02-02 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Nine |
| Description: | Includes descriptions of boardinghouse living, a picnic at Hoboken with other New York artists and journalists, his drawing and writing work in New York, attending a lecture by Lola Montez, visits to James Parton and Fanny Fern and the Edwards family, a controversy over Fitz James O'Brien's story ''The Diamond Lens,'' artist Sol Eytinge's relationship with writer Allie Vernon, the suicide of writer Henry William Herbert, antics of the New York Bohemians, the interest of people living in his boarding house in spiritualism, a visit to his friend George Bolton's farm in Canada, a visit to Niagara Falls, and a scandal involving Harbormaster Willis Patten, who lives in his boarding house. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Farms; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Publishers and publishing; Suicide; Travel; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Rochester, New York; Elmira, New York; Paris, Ontario, Canada |
| 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. |
