[Manchester—Friday, 31 August 1866]
Friday. Mild soft somewhat clouded with flecks of white on the blue making the sky more beautiful with every hour.
Mr J.R. Lowell and Mr Rowse passed the day with us; young general Loring with Mr Bartol. Mr Fields was away with the gentlemen until dinner. Mr Lowell talked about birds saying “You ought to have bobwhites here.” We do, and they are singing now in August. He continued “the catbird is one of the loveliest singers we have, but I can’t discover him to be a mocking bird though Nuttall says so. They abound upon our place; a yellow bird tried to build the other day upon a syringa bush which had always been the home of the cat-bird, but the cat-bird tore the nest of the yellow bird in pieces time after time while she would go in search of something to complete it and make it firm; at length the yellow bird gave up the attempt. Birds are good fighters—even humming birds; the other day I was stooping over a bed of Gladioli (he pronounced it so) when a humming bird flew at me and when I brushed him away returned with such fury that all I could say was “Yes! ’tis your ground I know that, I’ll take myself off.”
He talked somewhat about the use of words such as “party” for meaning one person which he said was very old English and could be found I think he said in Hakloyt but “individual” he thought the most absurd expression. He supposed Charles the first would be called an individual by some persons. He is quite a farmer, spends 150 dollars per year in manure, produces magnificent squashes, potatoes as large as cocoa nuts and everything but his grass is doing well. He thinks Guinea hens the best but they are difficult to raise.
After dinner they lay in the hammock and on the grass and smoked, afterward we drove to Beverly together. They find this place full of “picturesque” points. Passing a barn yard he was reminded of a butcher who, when he asked him if he had any of those good old-fashioned small sausages now-a-days replied “no! to be sure we have the meat just the same but idees have got afloat in the public mind with respect to sassingers.” He spoke of the greatness of “Griffith Gaunt” said he disliked a book of Reade’s—thought it weak—called the “Eighth Commandment” and he had intended never to read anything more of his but coming upon a number of this story by chance he was obliged to read it—Oh said Mr Fields the Eighth Commandment was but a pamphlet in this country,—“but it was an octavo in England” somebody replied—“yes! difference in climate affected it,” said Rowse.
We drove through Mr Loring’s beautiful avenue. “I don’t know many latin names to flowers and I think it a misfortune that my mother was a botanist for I was never taught the common country names of flowers which are the only ones I care about when they are descriptive—for instance the cardinal flower is called “nose-bleed” and I think it is a capital name.”
Coming into Beverly which he knew well of old he said the names were chiefly derived from the french as he had discovered “Ober” being “Obear” on the old grave-stones from “Aubert.” Jersey fishermen probably had settled here or emigrants from somewhere in the channel islands. He remarked on the superior brilliancy possessed by the flowers near the sea. We passed a mountain ash in Beverly which was certainly one of the most shinningly beautiful things I ever saw.
The sunset was lovely and the evening air full of mildness as we left them after a happy day to return.
