[Manchester—Tuesday, 3 September 1867]
Tuesday. Sepr 3d The Bartols go to town today although the skies are blue and the trees are waving as invitingly as in June. They feel there is work for them and they are ready. Mr Bartol came bringing me a handful of water-lilies. It is very late for them I believe—but the season is late and much fruit will never ripen wh. is weighing down the vines. There is a symbol in this. We shall stay here ten beautiful days longer, then I shall gird myself for a good fight this winter. How I shall miss Lissie!
Mr Bartol took us a last row in his boat yesterday afternoon. There was low soft rain-clouds over the sky making the sunset resplendent. They did not mean rain however as today proves which is blue and fair since the clouds of the early morning were dissolved. Jamie is beginning to have very busy days in town. They contrast strangely enough with mine but he enjoys the freedom and rest so keenly when he does come that I am delighted to be here on his account.
Yesterday Mrs Hawthorne came to him complaining of poverty. He has already given her 700 dollars above what he owes her and she has debts in Concord to the same amount, yet Julian lives at the Parker House and in spite of his mother’s assertions to the contrary spends a good deal of money. She now says he is to enter the scientific school. It is sad to think that in 3 years Hawthorne’s family should be virtually beggars. He was so just and careful himself, never spending a cent he could not afford and managed to have his affairs in so good a condition had they been well managed that it is indeed most sad. Mrs Hawthorne appears to take it very hard that we do not come forward and do still more but J. is just as he is generous and can do no more. Mrs Stowe returned also from a sad visit to her brother Charles. His two daughters were drowned in a lake near his house just as her son was drowned so few years ago! Poor woman—family! Her novel is unfinished and this retards the possibility of it still longer. She has all the money for it in her hands (or it has already gone through them elsewhere, who knows) and is about to defer the publication of it until Spring.
E.E. Hale came in to borrow money to send his sisters to Europe. He received something. There is no end to these demands but J. seems to meet them with equanimity and so long as the bank stands, no charity is more beneficient than that to literary men & women.
Tuesday—lovely day—the Bartols returned to town. J. did not return until night. He had a busy-day. An interview with Dr Hayes who is writing a most successful story in the “Young Folks” called “Out in the Cold”. He also had a call from Dr Weir Mitchell of Phila: a man of 38 years full of ability and magnetism. He has been canoeing out on the St. John river for six weeks with Phillips Brooks the celebrated preacher of Phila: his friend. He pays a high tribute to Fanny Kemble’s husband who has just died as a man of signal ability. Her daughter Mrs Wistar is a woman of real power—could excel in literature if she turned her attention in that direction.
Mr Emerson also came in for J. to go to the photographer Notman’s with him. “Thank you” he said “as J. arranged his person slightly “my babes will thank you too for anything you can do in this way.” He spoke with great enthousiasm of Parson’s Dante. (He is easily wrought upon and I doubt not Mrs Parsons has taken good care to have her husband’s book well presented). How much Mr Emerson knows of Dante, I cannot tell but it must be a very perfect piece of work which could stand by the side of Longfellow’s and not fade in such light.
