[Boston—Friday, 12 October 1866]
Friday. Saw two black swans in the public garden and tried to think them beautiful because they are rare—that is the way of the world, shall we never learn that the most beautiful things are the nearest?
Called at Miss Whitney’s studio with Lissie. Saw an exquisite bust of Miss Manning and better yet if possible saw Miss Manning herself a sweet Madonna like creature with large asking and giving eyes.
In the evening Mr Scudder came and being deaf, although there were several persons in the room we sat close together and talked in clear half stentorian tones to the evident demoralization of the other conversations but to some personal pleasure. He told me that in his last visit to England Mr Rossetti asked him to dinner to meet Swinburne on the ground of their mutual interest in William Blake. He said Swinburne then was but 24 years old (this was a year ago) was a short man whose fingers and toes kept up a nervous dance all the time and who talked in high squeaking tones. He was asked much of certain Americans of whom he had never heard especially of a T.D. Chivers “whose name of itself was like grasping ravelled silk.” This man had printed a book called “Eonics of Rubis” [i.e., Eonchs of Ruby] from which Swinburne read in excited voices. After Scudders return he asked Lowell about the book. He said one line was enough for him which he found in a poem called “Mississippi.”
“While the bottomless king to eternity runs.”
Mr Scudder has a large collection of Blake’s works, large, for a new collector and an American. He has of late become the editor of a rival magazine published by Hurd & Houghton and I liked it that he came to see us because it proved that he believed himself to be doing a thoroughly honorable and good thing. He says he feels better for active occupation. He will live here in Boston for the present.
