[Boston—Sunday, 2 November 1873]
Sunday Nov. 2. Mr. & Mrs Dickinson dined with us. She is very deaf, but one of the most simple and perfect ladies I have seen for many a day. She says Mr. D. sees many celebrities professionally but she lives very quietly in the country. Their cottage is of brick, covered with every beautiful vine one could think of almost. Derwent Coleridge is their clergyman. He has the original of Allston’s portrait of his father at the Rectory & thinks it by far the most valuable portrait of S.T. Coleridge which was ever taken.
Mr. Dickinson’s brief glimpses of John Bright, Gladstone, and Cobden delighted us, they were vivid and fine. He has a good deal of fame. The deafness of his wife is a very bad trial to both of them; he says he always gathers up stories of deaf people to amuse her. He tells one of a deaf man lately married who went into the Club where he was accustomed to go. One of his acquaintance began to question him about his bride. “Is she pretty?” No replied the deaf man, no she’s not, but she will be when her father dies.!!!
My first interview yesterday of importance with regard to Centennial business—Mrs S.T. Hooper promises to be Chairman of Boston Com. at least for the present. We must now try to arrange a tea-party to commemorate the tea in the harbor of 16th Dec. 1773.
The plot will soon thicken and grow more and more laborious and confusing until the great end in 1876—July 4.
