[Boston—Saturday, 1 November 1873]
Saty Nov 1. Mr. Lowes Dickinson, an English portrait-painter of some eminence came to dine. We liked his quiet polished manners, perfectly natural, friendly, even tender as he came to know us better. His wife is with him. He is traveling for his health two months in America. They have five children.
Last Tuesday [October 28] I have omitted to set down our first visit from Mr. Wilkie Collins—a small man with an odd figure and forehead and shoulders much too large for the rest of him. His talk was rapid & pleasant but not at all inspiring. He appears to be quick at adapting plays for the stage, a kind of superior Boucicault. A man who has been much fêted and petted in London society who has overreaten & overdrunk, has been ill, is gouty, and in short is no very wonderful specimen of a human being.
