Diary of Annie Adams Fields

August 5th Monday J. went to town after two lovely days here. The day was warm but clear & we drove to Gloucester & Eastern Point in the afternoon. The sunset was one of those rare and exquisite scenes we can but rarely see, the sky pale green with rosy clouds, the sea untempered steel, the...

August 6th The fog bell rang in the still mist this morning. J. went to town. Mr Bartol walked to Gloucester while I enjoyed the beach and accomplished little. Am reading Bacon’s Advancement of Learning which if I could thereby advance my capital in proportion to the advancement of my faith I...

August 7th Fog & heat. Jamie stayed down. In the afternoon Mr Bartol took us over to the “umbrella” tree. Jamie told of Dr Bigelow’s trying to get a man to make extracts from his book and put them into letters for newspapers by way of puffing the same. Literary vanity in a man of his...

August 8th Fog and great heat. I took a long walk this morning as usual but the fog has attacked me body and soul. I saw a lovely child on the beach searching for dulse—he felt rich with his brown booty and dragged an armful towards home.

Friday August 9th These precious days slip off but with so few incidents and under such enervating skies that I neither think nor feel as it appears sometimes. At such junctures we feel if we could go somewhere or do something else the fountains would be unloosed. No, let us wait—all things...

Saturday 10th A very very warm day: went to Rye to bid Lissie farewell. I did not—but we saw her until the last moment and then returned in the rain—we were both ill afterwards and J. was unable to fulfil his project of going to Marblehead with Mr Bartol.

Sunday 11th One of God’s own days—unrivalled in perfect beauty. In the afternoon we went to the hill top and sat by the out-worn little powder house with the sea in the distance—the trees full of golden sunshine at our feet—a holy time.

Monday. Cool and perfect in its beauty—the air like chrystal—exquisite contrast to the hot fogs wh. have wrapped us of late. The frequent rains too have made the grass like June. The little house-organ at our neighbours, the pastor’s, is already playing in this early morning as I...

Tuesday 13th Have been strolling about out of doors all the morning. Going to the beach directly after breakfast I found a cool south wind blowing, waves tossing, the tide rising and “life at full” as Nature seemed to say with one of her brightest smiles—after I left the beach I wandered...

August 14th Today Lissie sailed from N.Y. for Europe. Whenever I turn in my walk and catch a glimpse of the sea I think of her ship going out over the waves.

August 15th Early in the morning—raining still.

August 16th The rain poured all day with little intermission. The earth is utterly drenched and an old rock we call “the buffalo” in the pasture opposite, which is only a buffalo while it rains, appears now-a-days a perpetual buffalo.

August 17th A wonderful fog overspread the earth. I went to the beach and found the white waves showing their teeth in a wild solitude. What can compare with the aweful [sic] solitude of a beach when a fog overspreads everything! By & by the sun burned through, showing lovely awakening colors...

Monday August 19. Mr Fields came on Saturday afternoon, tired and worn. We sat and talked together while the rain pattered down and told our stories of all the things which had happened since we parted. The night was warm and hardly clear but Sunday was a cloudless day, beautiful from dawn to...

Thursday 22d Life floats on quietly here, between the glories and raptures of out-of-door life and the quiet ripple of in-door with the dear Vicar and his wife. Lissie Bartol has a somewhat different element and goes off painting daily and fills herself occasionally with something of the...

Friday 23d The rain pours heavily in a long persistent way. J. has gone to town and left the house to quietness. The drops stand thick all over the leaves of the tulip tree and a low watery plash comes in at the windows. I sit reading Chaucer’s Court of Love. His works are a necessary study to...

Sunday, August 25. I write these dates with a kind of shudder, seeing how life slips away.

Monday. Again a day of rare loveliness. Passed quietly enough here until night when the Johnston beauties (one we call the Bedouin because she sat for Mr Hunt’s picture with that name) came down with Mr Bartol who has been passing Sunday in town.

Tuesday August 27. Glorious morning, up early with a heart full of it. Jamie goes to town today & will not return tonight. I feel as if life were ebbing somehow when he does this!!

Wednesday. Alone—out of doors nearly all the time. I see wise words waiting for me in wise books but the glory of the fields holds me and it seems wrong to be elsewhere than abroad. I write little alas! or perhaps I should say, let us be thankful!

Thursday. We had intended to go to see Mr Whittier but it was a rainy warm dog-day-ish time and we wanted sunshine. Jamie stayed down and we went to the Danas. In the afternoon as we returned from walk came a note from Longfellow saying he could pass tomorrow with us—we met his children & Mr...

Friday morning rose resplendent. Jamie was up very early for town. I expect him here with Longfellow at 12.

Saturday another gorgeous day with premonition of autumn in the air.

Sunday. Mist and rain—bringing repose and relief after the exhausting splendors of yesterday. Jamie has driven to Beverly with Mr Bartol who is to preach there.

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...