[Manchester—Saturday, 11 August 1866]

Saturday morning. Yesterday did not continue to bear the stamp of perfect beauty but today the rains have cleaned the air, there are no clouds and the serenity is unchanged.

I hear poor Mary Dodge’s mother is struck with paralysis. The last time I saw her she said, “I do not know what I should do without my mother.”

Walked on the beach and swung in the hammock in company with the Howells until our early dinner, then immediately after we started to take the cars for Boston. I say we for I drove over with them in order to post a few letters intending to wait near by until Mr Fields should arrive. I soon bade them “good bye” and felt a little sigh of relief as the train bore them away for they were neither of them strong or well and I feared they would be actually ill if they stayed longer. Their five years sojourn in Venice has helped to enervate constitutions by no means very strong in themselves and their pallid faces were in strange contrast with our healthy sunburnt countenances. Beside they have no rapturous love of country sights and sounds—they love the sea because it reminds them of Venice and their days of early married life especially where it laps up softly on the sands but they did not seem to hear his lonely voice in the nighttime when it brings us news from the far misty deep.

I walked slowly away from the station under the clear blue sky which was brilliant and radiant as autumn and going back into the woods sat down under an odorous pine to look and listen and drink in the fragrance. All was still! now and then a bird chirped, a squirrel rustled in the leaves, or a mighty ant ran across my dress; once a cool breeze stirred the tree above me til it sang—then all was quiet once more. While I sat there lost in the profound stillness wherein only one voice was clearly heard—the village bell tolled. The sound fell solemn and sudden as the hand of death. When the reverberation ceased utterly, again, one stroke—until I knew a child of five years old lay below in the village wrapt in immortal sleep.

The time did not appear long but as I had omitted to bring my watch I thought I would return to the Post Office. I found an hour and a half had indeed fled—so I went to the station. Suddenly a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand appeared and in ten minutes the sky was overcast. Before we could reach home the thunder was really over our heads and we were sprinkled over pretty thoroughly.


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