Elizabeth Frances Perry Diary

Preface

This little Book is respectfully presented to Mrs. Elizabeth F. Perry by her loving husband with the earnest request that she will appropriate it as her Journal. In after life it will be a source of great satisfaction to refer to the remarks & comments which will here be made on the passing events of the day.

For several years past I have kept a Journal of my life, in which I have recorded all the incidents which have happened to me during that time. I have told where I was & what I was doing, whom I saw and what they said. But even more than this, I have written the inmost secret of my heart, the feelings and impulse of my nature. This afforded me great pleasure at the time, and has often given me much greater pleasure since in reading and looking over it.

Let me then advise you my dear wife to begin your Journal today. Make it a sort of diary - set down in the evening what you have been doing that day - whom you have seen - what book you have read - the work you have been at - whether the day has been pleasantly & [profitably] spent. When you travel or leave home let this book be your companion & write down in it all you see &c. In doing this I do assure you that you will make a Book of exceeding [grist] to yourself in after life. It will be a record of your feelings opinions & [views] every day. In looking over this Book [years] hence it will give you great pleasure

to be wondered at that you, possessing all the [charms] I have just given you, should have made so easy a conquest of my heart.

I had been from childhood of a sober serious turn of mind, devoted to books & study. I was never fond of company or society. I early [imbibed?] a prejudice against the [insincerity] of the one and the heartlessness of the other. In my manner I was plain, and [unpretentious], & that proud soul which natures God has endowed me with ever seemed to humble itself or act falsely. Hence I was no courtier or Chesterfield.

But I [forbere?] to give you a sketch of my own character in your Journal This I will leave for you to [discover?. I have done so in my own Journal & with an [illegible] & [illegible] which might surprise you. My faults which are many are told with the honest frankness of one who feels & knows them & who would gladly remidy them, but who can not conceal them.

In conclusion let me say that if you will only write one sentence [every] week in this Book for twenty years, it will at the end of that time afford you more interest to look over its pages than any other Book in this world.

July 16^th 1837— B. F. Perry