July 23, 1860

On this date in 1860 . . . the Keeper of the Journal, aka James Madison Hall, is in New York with his father, Joshua James Hall . . . and there are no Journal entries for the rest of the month of July . . . but elsewhere in the United States . . .

CHARLESTON MERCURY, July 23, 1860, p. 3, c. 5

On Marriage. -- I suppose there is a modicum of romance in most natures, and that if it gather about any event it is that of marriage. Most people marry their ideals. There is more or less fictitious and fallacious glory resting upon the head of every bride, which the inchoate husband believes in. Most men and women manufacture perfection in their mates by a happy process of their imaginations, and then marry them. This, of course, wears away. By the time the husband has seen his wife eat heartily of pork and beans, and, with her hair frizzled, and her oldest dress on, full of the enterprize [sic] of overhauling things, he sees that she belongs to the same race as himself.

And she, when her husband gets up cross in the morning, and undertakes to shave himself with cold water and a dull razor, while his suspenders dangle at his heels, begins to see that man is a very prosaic animal. In other words, there is such a thing as a honeymoon, of longer or shorter duration; and while the moonshine lasts, the radiance of the seventh heaven cannot compare with it. It is a very delicious little delirium -- a febrile mental disease -- which, like measles, never comes again.

When the honeymoon passes away, setting behind dull mountains, or dipping silently into the stormy sea of life, the trying hour of marriage life has come. Between the parties, there are no more illusions. The feverish desire of possession is gone -- vanished into gratification -- and all excitement has receded. Then begins, or should begin, the business of adaptation. If they find that they do not love one another as they thought they did, they should double their assiduous attentions to one another, and be jealous of everything which tends in the slightest degree to separate them. Life is too precious to be thrown away in secret regrets, or open differences. And let me say to every one to whom the romance of life has fled, and who are discontented in the lightest degree with their condition and relations, begin the work of reconciliation before you are a day older.

Renew the attentions of earlier days. Draw your hearts close together. Talk the thing all over. Acknowledge your faults to one another, and determine that henceforth you will be all in all to each other; and my word for it, you shall find in your relation the sweetest joy earth has for you. There is no other way for you to do. If you are happy at home you must be happy abroad; the man or woman who has settled down upon the conviction that he or she is attached for life to an uncongenial yoke fellow, and that there is no way of escape, has lost life; there is no effort too costly to make which can restore to its setting upon the bosoms, the missing pearl. -- Timothy Titcomb.

July 19th, 1860

On this date in 1860 . . . the Keeper of the Journal, aka James Madison Hall, is in New York with his father, Joshua James Hall . . . and there are no Journal entries for the rest of the month of July . . . but elsewhere in Texas . . .

150 years later . . . comments on the Texas Troubles of 1860

DAILY GAZETTE & COMET [BATON ROUGE, LA], July 19, 1860, p. 2, c. 1. The Town of Dallas, Texas Consumed. -- The Houston Telegraph gives an account of a destruction conflagation [sic] which visited Dallas on Sunday the 8th inst. With the exception of a few dwelling houses, the entire place is in ashes. The loss is estimated at $300,000.

TEXAS BAPTIST [Anderson, TX], July 19, 1860, p. 2, c. 5. The Drouth. We have just returned from Huntsville. The roads continue dry and dusty. Farmers are much discouraged. Corn crops are about a total failure in many fields, and the best is not half a crop. -- Cotton is now presenting a gloomy prospect, a few very small bolls have matured and are opening. The most of the young bolls and forms will soon fall off unless it rains soon. The cotton crop is likely to be a worse failure than the corn crop, in the counties we have seen. We hope our friends in the northern part of the State will pity us and send us some flour, and some small grain of different kinds to sow for our stock during the winter. We want Barley, Rye, Wheat and oats.

TEXAS BAPTIST [Anderson, TX], July 19, 1860, p. 2, c. 6. Fire at Dallas. -- We are sorry to learn that nearly the whole of the town of Dallas was destroyed by fire on the 7th instant, leaving not a hotel, store, or office hardly remaining. The loss is estimated at between $3000,000 [sic] and $500,000. The fire spread with such rapidity that very little was saved, and part of the goods taken out of some of the buildings were consumed. This will be a severe blow on that growing place, as we understand there was but little insurance. It is supposed to have been the work of abolition incendiaries.