SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1787 GEORGE WASHINGTON: DIARY Saturday 2 1st. In Convention. Dined at Springsbury with the Club of Gentn. & Ladies. Went to the Play afterwards. OLIVER ELLSWORTH TO ABIGAIL ELLSWORTH Philadelphia July 2 I st I 7 87 Dear Mrs. Ellsworth I believe the older men grow the more uneasy they are from their wives. Mr. Sherman and Doctor Johnson are both run home for a short family visit. As I am a third younger than they are I calculate to hold out a third longer, which will carry me to about the last of August. My health holds better than I feared. To preserve I walk a good deal in the cool of the afternoons and frequently stop in and take a little chat and tea sipping with good Connecticut women who are dispersed about in different parts of the city. They are all very agreeable, but as Mrs. Lockwood I think is the most like yourself you will allow me to like her a little the best. I can add however, if it will be any satisfaction to you that my friend Mr. Lockwood is a home man and generally makes one of the party. I yesterday dined with Mrs. Gibbs and Nancy Ferry whose company was the more acceptable because they inquired so particularly about you, and your little ones. I go to Mr. Gibbs's the oftener for the sake of conversing with Billy, who since his return from Europe where he's spent five years travelling through different nations and examining everything curious, is to me a pleasing and profitable companion. Curiosity and the love of information you know has no bounds. My curiosity was highly gratified the other day by clasping the hand of a woman who died many hundred years ago. The ancient Egyptians had an art, which is now lost out of the world, of embalming their dead so as to preserve the bodies from putrification many of which remain to this day. From one of those an arm has lately been cut off and brought to this city. The hand is intire. The nails remain upon the fingers and the wrapping cloth upon the arm. The flesh which I tried with my knife, cuts and looks much like smoked beef kept till it grows hard. This will be a good story to tell Dr. Stiles, which is all the use I shall probably make of it. His avidity for food of 177 178 SUPPLEMENT TO FARRAND'S RECORDS this kind you know is strong enough to swallow the arm and body whole. This letter is so much lighter than what I commonly send you that I will not pursue it any further lest you should imagine I am growing light headed and which may for ought I know be the case before we get through the business of the Convention. Love to Nabby and the little boys and a smack to Fanny. Oliver Ellsworth