[Boston—Thursday, 30 May 1872]

Thursday. Decoration day—arose before six and made a wreath of white flowers—soon after nine dear Celia Thaxter joined us with more flowers and we carried them all together to the graves of Willie Putnam (for his mother’s sake) who is now in Europe, as well as for his own. We met Longfellow on the way who stopped for a few minutes talk. He urged our coming to see him upon our return and we saw the hospitable door thrown invitingly open—but Jamie felt too much occupied by business to stop so we unwillingly passed on. He greeted Celia very warmly with a true poetic grasp. After our return to town Dr. Bellows of New York dropped in. We all thought him more sincere and interesting than usual. He left a volume of verse & prose by a young dear friend for us to read—which he had just edited.

Celia and I enjoyed the day together—clouds & rain succeeded to the loveliness of the morning and we sat looking out upon the water reading & reciting to each other by turns. Celia’s poem of the Blind Lamb for children seems to me as beautiful as anything of our time. She has also written a new ballad which we think one of her finest. She thinks of calling it All’s Well. At night we went to see Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle—a perfect thing artistically but there is too little mobility in it to stand by the side of genius like Fechter’s for instance one moment.


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