Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/454

 448 (Southern Historical Society Papers.

ters — and the rooms are tastefully decorated with bric-a brae and pretty ornaments, many of which are the products of the deft fingers and good taste of Mrs. Davis and her accomplished daughters.

Books, carefully selected from standard authors, adorn the tables or grace the shelves. In a word, the stranger who knew nothing of the occupants would have only to glance through the rooms to see at once that this is an abode of culture, refinement, and taste.

The grounds are ample, the live-oaks and their hanging moss are very beautiful, the Gulf of Mexico laves the beach in front of the house, and is certainly one of the most beautiful sheets of water that the sun shines upon. The grounds are certainly very beautiful as they are, but are capable of great improvement, and one could not repress the wish that our honored Confederate chief had the means of making them all that his cultivated taste would suggest.

And yet it is a source of gratification to old Confederates that our great leader has this quiet retreat, where, away from the rushing crowd, on the soil of his loved Mississippi, breathing the healthful breezes of the Gulf that washes the southern shores of the Confed- eracy, in the shades of his own home and in the bosom of his family, he can spend tlie evening of his busy life, and fill out the record of his great duties and heroic deeds. But it ought to be added that his needed rest and quiet are often broken by visitors — loving admirers who are anxious to pay their respects and do honor to the greatest living American ; but too often mere curiosity-hunters, some of whom partake of his hospitality and then go off to write all manner of slanders about him.

THE FAMILY.

I would not be guilty of drawing aside the veil that conceals from the world the privacy of the home, or parading before the public even the names of our noble women; but the deep interest which our people take in all that concerns this noble family must be my excuse for saying some things which otherwise might not be admissible.

Those who knew Mrs. Davis in other days, as a Senator's or Sec- retary's wife, in Washington, or as "Mistress of the White House" and "first lady" of the Confederacy, in Richmond, would find no difficulty in recognizing her now; for, though time has wrought some changes in her, she is the same bright, genial, cultivated, domestic woman, who is equally well qualified to grace the parlor, preside at a State dinner with historic men as her guests, attend to the minutest