[Boston—Sunday, 13 January 1867]
Sunday. Walked to Roxbury in the morning to see mother. On our return about one oclock we found Mr Whittier here. He was contentedly looking over the old books and seemed to be enjoying himself. After dinner we talked of many things, of Leach he has one volume at home, and keeps it as a perfect fund of entertainment, of the Freedmen’s monument and schools, he thinks both may be carried forward, of Mrs Ames (he thought the blame of her uncomfortable married life should fall as strongly on Ames as on herself since he must have known what she was when he married her whose great beauty impressed him profoundly the first time he saw her,) of William Greene whose ancestors the Batchelders of Haverhill were the same stock from which he sprung, of his mother who was so superior to his father as the world said and whose life after marriage was most miserable in short of every topic which came naturally to the surface, reminding me of talk as it is described by Mme de Sevigné—“de conversations infinies.” At five oclock he went away because Richard Spofford had promised to carry Anna Dickinson to pass the evening with him. We went to Louisa’s for two hours and tea.
