[Manchester—Friday, 3 August 1866]
3d Out all the morning until eleven in the wondrous weather. Read Swinburne’s poems and ballads. He is drunk with the beauty and hot with the wine of life—he flings his arms about you and draws you away and kisses you to sleep while he sings. Also a little Indian poem by Aldrich utterly sweet—Miantonomoh. The hours passed like a dream when suddenly we saw the sun declining & a little boat saluting us as it neared the shore. The day was over, there was my love, the world grew still.
He had been in Nahant all day. Mr Agassiz had just returned and had sent for us to come to dine. Jamie declined for me fortunately but passed an hour or two there himself looking over photos of which Agassiz has brought home 3000 and hearing their lively talk. What a wife that man has! The labor of his books falls chiefly upon her. Hers is the writing and the drudgery. Hers the almost judicial wisdom. Hers the patience with trifles without which no complete result could be given. They look well in spite of their labors but Agassiz much older. Jamie had a poem in his pocket by Emerson touching a visit to the Adirondacks—a poem without rhyme or rhythm which is of course no poem at all. He and Longfellow looked it over together and were truly amused that Emerson should have considered it a thing to print.
Poor J. shocked Mrs Bartol dreadfully this afternoon by reading one of Swinburne’s poems “The Leper” aloud. I chanced upon it meaning to read something short from the new volume of ballads but that was leperous indeed. There are only three or four which come up throughout to the measure of expectation. Jamie told me of a wonderful half page written by Prof. Paine in an album belonging to an acquaintance of the Agassizes, about the stars and the far reaching power of the mind of man which has overreached the limits of the stars; it was impressive in eloquence and Agassiz delighted over it saying—“do you hear, that is Ben! Who but Ben could do that! It is Ben! It is enough to say that.”
