Diary of Annie Adams Fields

Sep. 27. Called to see Mrs Lowell Putnam. She was away but the sweet old place looked a welcome and wore the air of a home suited to such a life. We found Col. Greene and his wife one half hour later in their cottage under the pines. The drawing-room was like a bit of Paris to us. We found them...

October 4. Passed the evening with Mrs Howe, at her house, where were Prof. Henry of Washington, his daughter, Mr Alger, ourselves and the Misses Dewey. We had an interesting talk, Mrs Howe witty as usual. She spoke of the beauty of character shown by Mrs George Greene who still young and with...

Oct. 6. The ladies went to Long Island to see the conscripts drilled. They discovered the following facts.

October 9. Went at eleven o clock to pass the morning with Mrs Silsbee. She showed us many beautiful things; among the rest a marble group of a weak-faced woman with her foot upon the back of a powerful man—it might be called Virtue and Vice she said if one could tell which was which.

Sunday Oct. 12. [sic] Went to Watertown hoping to hear Mr Weiss. He did not preach but as Jamie wished to see him about his memoir of Theodore Parker we went to the house. He did not preach because of a swollen face nor did I see him for the same reason. Mr Lyman took him to London shut him up...

October 13. Took the cars for Lexington at 12 a.m. The day was of the purest autumnal beauty; we drove from L. down to Bedford Springs about 1½ miles. There we found a lake in front of the house quiet and full of sunshine. The keeper of the house came to us while standing by the lake side and...

Oct. 15. The “Union Club” was inaugurated last night. Mr Everett made a delightful speech in which he alluded to the bas-relief of Longfellow presented by Messrs Ticknor & Fields.

Oct. 16. Mr Alcott breakfasted with us. He said all vivid new life was well described by his daughter Louisa. She was happier now that she had made a success. “She was formerly not content to wait but so soon as she became content then good fortune came as she always does.” I told him we...

Sunday. Heard Edward E. Hale preach one of the best charity sermons we ever listened to. He said we had no idea that the warm weather of the past season had produced a more severe epidemic among the crowded poor than Boston had known since the day of cholera. 900 children have died in five...

Monday. J.T.F. went to see Mrs Theodore Parker. He was impressed as all must be with the pathos of her all enduring all suffering, all silent, life. Mr Lyman, Mr Parker’s executor, has some spite against T. & F. and is putting Mr Weiss’s life of Theodore Parker into the Harper’s hands....

October 21. Telegram from W.D.T. who went to New York that possibly all will yet be well with regard to Theodore Parker’s life. It should be published in Boston.

October 23. Mr Stillman, artist and American Consul to Rome, came in unexpectedly to breakfast. One of the intelligent Castellani brothers is yet in Rome and has of late made new and highly interesting discoveries at Palestrina about 22 miles from Rome. Large pits like the Latin Columbasia have...

Oct 27. Henry M. Alden and his wife passed the night here after his first lecture of a course on the “Structure of Paganism.” They are people to be taken up and cared for knowing not in the least how to care for themselves. They have lost two infants and are very sad; but coming to Boston...

Oct 30. J.T.F. received a most delightful call yesterday from Rose Terry—a sweet lady full of dignity and character in poor health. She had never seen Boston before. Her life is devoted to an invalid sister.

October 31. Finished the first volume of Theo. Parker’s “Life and Letters.” They contain much that is remarkable more that is sad. The truest thing is his estimate of himself “irritabile but not irritabile vatis.” It was a noble sorrowful career.

Monday Nov. 2. Miss Dodge and Una Hawthorne came to dine. At 7 o’clock we all started for the Music Hall. Miss Cushman read my ode in a most perfect manner. She was very nervous about it and skipped something but what she did read was perfect. Her dress and manner too were dignified and...

Friday. Nov. 6. Came Lucy Larcom to pass the night looking sadder for her long experience of affliction but still gleaming with her own peculiar sunshine. Mr Fields had been suffering with neuralgia ever since the dinner on Tuesday evening to the Organ Builders. That was a brilliant occasion,...

Saturday. Theo Tilton, Alden, Lucy Larcom, Mr Scudder, who wrote a lovely poem in the “Atlantic” once called “After Wither” breakfasted with us. Tilton stays with Garrison. He has had of late an interview with the President Lincoln opened his heart and said among many things “tell your...

Monday Nov 9. Sat for the 3 time to Mr Rowse for portrait. He is eccentric but true and interesting. Not a fanatic about anything but with a smothered enthousiasm of his own which challenges respect.

November 13. Sitting to Rowse daily and studying french. He is strange, and deeply absorbed in his work. Reads little, and lives rather a lonely life or would like to do so but has an insight into human nature as his pictures show I think.

Saturday 14. Mr Alden and his wife passed last night here. We sat late talking of Etrusia and of Greek remains blending with Egyptian architecture on the banks of the Nile. In the morning we read Mr Beecher’s letters together and talked of what we call genius versus talent or the spirit of...

Sunday 15. Our wedding day—oh quiet soft rain! Beautiful flowers were sent us from Louisa. Our festival—Nine unsullied years. Went to see the poor hypochondriac Sebastian Lehmann. Madame Sand says in her memoirs page 123 vol. 1—“Mais quoiqu ’on fasse, quoique dans ma pensée rien ne...

Tuesday Nov. 17. J.T.F. saw Mr Kennard today and we heard from him the particulars of Mr Beecher’s landing. He came on shore in the warm fog which was the precursor of the heavy rain we have today at 3 o’clock a.m. of Sunday. He went to the Parker house until day should break and Mr Kennard...

Thursday Eve. Mr and Mrs Robert Waterston and Miss Julia Bryant passed the evening with us. Mrs Waterston described her late visit to Roslin (Mr Bryant’s place) and one evening in particular when Mr B. read them a portion of his new volume. Many of the poems have been written for years Miss...

Friday. J.T.F. Rose very early and wrote to dear Whittier accepting an article for the A.M. from a colored girl. Charlotte Forten also thanking him and his sister for their heartfelt praise of a certain Ode.