[Manchester—Sunday, 26 August 1866]
Sunday morning. Clear and translucent loveliness. We lay in the sun on the rocks in a sheltered cove.
Jamie repeated Brainerd’s poem upon Niagara. He said Dr Holmes was once saying at dinner that the poets of that period were forgotten—not Brainerd said Jamie and repeated these lines which astonished the Professor with their marvelous beauty. They are second to no poet. S.G. Goodrich told J. once that B. was a young lawyer and had an office very near his. They were too poor to keep a boy to make their fires in the winter so they were in the habit of going down together and making them with their own hands. One morning B. had his stove open ready to put in the fuel when this poem came to him, he called G. in and repeated it to him—“write it down, write it down said G. it is superb” as in truth it is.
By and by we went and lay under the cedar trees and read aloud for a time then Jamie again repeated Campbell’s fine lines upon the actor, wherein the painter “steals but a glance at Time, the poet deals but in “airy” words(?) while the “mighty actor blends” the powers of all. They are indeed true poetry.
How exquisite those hours were! How short they seemed!
In the afternoon sat at home and listened to the sea—there was a cloud-rack in the sky and this day of glory cannot come again.
The night “was lit by a large low moon.”
