Journal of Sarah Eve, March 23, 1773

A most fine day indeed, but as this is not uncommon at this season, I dare say, in a week it will be entirely forgotten, as in general it is only the rare occurences that make impressions on the memory. In this year we have had as yet but one day rendered memorable by its temperature, and that was the 21st of February, the extreme coldness of which made it so. Scarcely a day but you hear it referred to; it was "that cold Sunday" that such an one caught their cold; the relation of such, another, attributes the death of a friend to " that cold Sunday," such a thing happened a week or two before "that cold Sunday," when was it ? let me see, it was, it was, oh! it was the day before, or after "that cold Sunday," and so on! It puts me in mind of those lines of our poet Godfrey:^l

Curiosity's another name for Man;

The blazing meteor streaming thro' the air,

Commands our wonder, and admiring eyes

With eager gaze we trace the lucent paths

Till spent at last, it shrinks to native nothing,

While the bright stars which ever steady glow

Unheeded shine and bless the world below.

The weather certainly may be said to be an emblem of mankind; there are few men in an age that are remembered after they are dead, and those few for being remarkable, like the days of the year, extreme in something, man for his goodness, wisdom, or ambition, for the service or disservice he has done a community, in common, with the weather only pleases or displeases for the present, all is forgotten when no more. It seems ingratitude so soon to forget those whose whole lives were made eminent by their social virtues, when perhaps another will be remembered and his name handed down to posterity for having been the best hair-dresser, or the best fiddle-maker of his time.

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1 Thomas Godfrey whose poems were published in 1765. He was the son of the inventor of the quadrant, was born in Philadelphia 1736, and died at the age of twenty-six. The lines quoted are from The Prince of Parthia, A Tragedy. Act I. Scene 2d.

SOURCE: “Extracts from the Journal of Miss Sarah Eve,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1881), pp. 27-8