[Boston—Thursday, 26 September 1867]
Thursday morning—weather grows rapidly more autumnal.
Hunting up a seamstress all day yesterday till evening when we went to the Horticultural exhibition. The noble palm leaves and beautifully colored begonias were a wonder and wealth to be remembered. The grapes were even finer than usual in spite of the season which has not been a grape-growing one by any means. Their odor came stealing upon the senses like the pure bouquet of fine wine.
Today a Mr Keeler of California is to breakfast with us. He proved to be quite a remarkable person, not yet thirty, with a novel just finished for publication. He has had a long strong fight with fortune, has travelled over the world with almost nothing in his pocket, has made a place & has won a salary for himself as journalist but seems bound for a more strictly literary career—we shall see.
Mr Little and James came to dinner. Business is low wh. troubles J. somewhat—nothing sells but Miss Muhlbach’s historical novels which have proved a fortune to publish & write although she does say in one place that the arms of her heroine were beautiful as those of the Venus de Milo! Poor Venus! I wish any mortal could see her arms!! Yet 21.000 diamond Tennyson’s have been sold within a year which is certainly doing well. The “Atlantic” does not stand over 47.000 now however which is several thousand less than last year. The condition of the country will account for this I think. While this terrible Johnson administration holds sway the country can never be prosperous. The party for impeachment is a large one but all dread the convulsion wh. might occur. Yet if Grant could step directly in and Stanton return to his old place it looks as if all would be well.
Sallie Dana came in in the afternoon. Those children seem in a degree sacrificed by the illness and inattention of their mother, who though a noble and interesting woman appears to have diseases of mind and body wh. prevent her from giving herself as mother’s in America must to her family.
