[Manchester—Thursday, 1 August 1867]

August 1st Today we pass the day at Nahant with Mr Longfellow and his children. The two sisters who keep this house, are daughters of a sea-captain but they are also women of education and kind feeling who do everything in their power to serve us.

We have renewed our constant pilgrimages to the beach and while I was sitting there alone in the yellow sunshine yesterday a flock of children who said “we are a pic-nic” came flitting and circling around me. At first I did not speak to them for they were so like a flight of gayly plumaged birds that I liked to keep up the illusion; but presently they took heart and explained themselves as above. Stockings & shoes were off in a wink’s time and they ran in and out of the waves like sandpipers. Finally they gave a little cry, “to the pasture” & flew entirely away.

We reached Nahant at 12 m. Longfellow came forward to meet us to whom I introduced President White of Cornell University who accompanied us. Mr Appleton’s famous yacht “Alice” having crossed the seas was disporting itself on a short pleasure trip for the morning, with the children. We sat talking awhile on the balcony overlooking the sea. The sky was clouded and the wind came whispering gently thro’ the poplars which shaded the piazza. Mr Longfellow inquired with sincere interest about the new university. He said they could hardly overrate the advantage of their situation between two lovely rivers with 200 acres of land to build upon and use in gardens beside an unlimited extent of forest for the present around them. The buildings themselves he strongly urged should be built in quadralaterals [sic]. They talked somewhat of the misuse of words and Longfellow said he had about made up his mind that the same words did not mean the same thing to each one of us. He was often astonished to see the different effect produced upon several persons by the same expressions. In translating, it was of course very difficult not to be occasionally misled as for instance Chateaubriand was when he translated for Milton’s Paradise Lost the lines

 

“and Silva’s brook, that flow’d

Fast by the oracle of God.” as

Le ruisseau de Silva qui coulait rapidement

in later editions this error was corrected by someone.

There is an elegance in Longfellow’s conversation which contrasts strongly with that of almost everybody else and a tact also and judgment most signal. These latter qualities Miss Davie (the children’s governess) tells me they also possess in a large measure. They never speak inopportunely, yet their discretion is not a matter of education.

Mr Fields told them of this man in the cars who tried to draw him into a discussion upon the Angola Saxon race. At length it became a little cool sitting there. I was already cloaked but the gentlemen made themselves look very venerable, Longfellow especially by a long blue Camlet cloak. Presently they went to walk while I went to see the Captain’s young wife who crossed in the “Alice” a simple pretty little English girl who was sick all the 30 days passage but when they asked her if she liked sailing said “No, but I would do it for him.” A dear little simple creature!

Then I sat with Miss Davie in her room until time for her to dress for dinner. She is bound up in the children and she told me everything about their characters & dispositions which it was best to tell, or tellable rather, and then I sat on the piazza and awaited the company’s return. Soon Longfellow came to where I was & the others followed. He carefully closed the blinds leading into the dining-room and retired a few moments to see that all was well but presently came back with a bunch of wild roses which he had gathered for me—(I have put one of them on the opposite page). He was evidently a trifle nervous before dinner was served lest all should not go well and I saw afterward that we owed it to his exquisite tact that the three little children had a small table by themselves in the corner of the large parlor where they were quiet but chatty with a little ripple of fun which just reached us now and then. The wines & fruits were also of his arrangement—among the rest he caused to be brought after dinner a bottle of the real “Aurum Potabile” a silvery liquer with real gold leaf of exquisite tenacity afloat in it.

Talk and fun ran high—he, always delicate & swift and lovely. We were obliged to leave very soon—before dinner was fairly ended for the train.


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