[New York City—Thursday, 12 December 1867]
Thursday. Snowing hard all day. Who should come in upon us but Ole Bull & his son. This was like a sunny apparition & now he is gone I cannot feel as if it were true. He was very well and looking as when we saw him last. Dr Dewey too came in through all the storm. He stayed a long time and if it is really he, will return tomorrow morning to breakfast. He was eager to tell us of a young Norwegian poet Bjornson only 30 years old, a man sure to be famous, who has written many things you should see, among others a poem called “The Merry Boy.” He also gave us the argument in full of a touching story by the same author and I do not know how many more he would have given us if he had not seen that J. was busy and needed elsewhere.
I was impressed at the “Black Crook” the other night in sitting near the stage, by the good faces, or the good in the faces of many of the ballet girls and with their well looking figures. They were certainly a remarkably respectable group of women when one considers the stigma which attaches to their calling & position. I could see that Dickens was interested too in observing this, moved by a human sympathy towards them. One of them had lost a trinket of some kind which had been given her and cried as she danced. Poor child! I suppose her tears only made her eyes shine the brighter to the pit and galleries.
Thursday a severe snow storm—was not out all day until the evening reading. The hall was crowded in spite of the terrific weather some people paying fifteen dollars for a carriage. Mr Dickens never read better but I did not see him afterward. We went quietly to bed—I smothering a disappointment I could not help feeling at not seeing him again today.
