In the
discharge of these duties, they gained robust constitutions and
vigorous health; they increased the butcher's bill at the expense of
the doctor's; and such women were the mothers of the men who have made
a history for their country, for themselves and their mothers. I may be
prolix and prosaic, but I love to remember the mothers of fifty years
ago--she who gave birth to Lucius Q.C. and Mirabeau B. Lamar, to
William C. Dawson, Bishop George Pierce, Alexander Stuart, Joseph
Lumpkin, and glorious Bob Toombs. I knew them all, and, with
affectionate delight, remember their virtues, and recall the social
hours we have enjoyed together, when they were matrons, and I the
companion of their sons. And now, when all are gone, and time is
crowding me to the grave, the nobleness of their characters, the
simplicity of their bearing in the discharge of their household duties,
and the ingenuousness of their manners in social intercourse, is a
cherished, venerated memory. None of these women were ever in a
boarding-school, never received a lesson in the art of entering a
drawing-room or captivating a beau.
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