Diary of Annie Adams Fields

19th Marvellous winter weather—day after day we awoke in the morning to see the sunlight burning like stars on the opposite shore and opal tints overlaying the bay “sits like a star upon the sparkling shire”. Today Sunday we have been at church suffering a good deal for the sake of our...

Monday Jan. 20th Lucy Larcom came to pass a few days. Dined with Mrs Dorr, met Lowell & Mabel. Church Festival afterward.

Wednesday Jan. 22. Mrs Stowe, Georgie, Mr Allen, Ed. E. Hale, Mr & Mrs Skinner (the champion for Crete) dined here. Deeply interested in all Mr Skinner had to tell us, of the generous patriotism of the Cretans, soldiers hungry themselves carrying bread on their shoulders untouched miles on miles...

Thursday. Quiet.

Friday. Jackson the sculptor & his wife passed the evening. Lucy Larcom still here. Thursday she and I tapperd tables together in the evening! Noble Amusement!

Saturday Mrs Stowe came round early for a good talk which did not end until night when we parted at Mrs Aldrich’s door. Went to see Mr. Beecher’s story dramatized at the theatre in the afternoon. It was all bad enough except the war scenes & we were too full of those to be able to help crying.

Sunday—snowstorm—soft, persistent. Put up the flowers at church but did not stay. I felt the need of worship greater than the need of a sermon and I did not want to be exposed to “personal talk” of all things from the pulpit. So I came home; losing something perhaps, gaining it maybe...

Monday. Still snowing. Mr Parton’s admirable paper on Roman Catholicism in America came last night and we read it through.

Wednesday morning. Last night, Professor Holmes, Mrs Stowe, her daughter Georgie, & the Howells, took tea here. The Professor came early and was in good talking trim,—presently in came Mrs Stowe & they fell shortly into talk upon Homeopathy & Allopathy. He grew very warm, declared that cases...

Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Beautiful winter days, the ground covered with snow, the air stimulating. Each day I passed several hours out of doors. Yesterday in part with Mrs Stowe; we went to see the busts & bas-reliefs Charlotte Cushman has sent us for the Music-Hall executed by an old Danish...

Monday morning—a visit from Mrs Stowe. There is something in her friendship more satisfactory, or I would rather say, as truly satisfactory as that of any woman I have ever known—her insight and sweetness and modesty her rest in love and desire for it, her other worldliness and abstractions,...

Feb 5. I opened this hoping to write but fell to dreaming over those last words & my memories of Mrs Stowe.

Feb. 6th We are having a few quiet days, they seem like roses and I try to collect my thoughts which had taken wings and left but a few deeds behind. My little chamber is as still as if the world were asleep—the frost has sealed up the bay and snow “covers and conceals” the blackness of...

February 7th The birthday of our friend! Dear Charles Dickens! What riches for one life to have such a friend. One whose heart is forever large and open, shut only to the hypocrites of the earth. I have sent to Washington to have flowers on his breakfast table this morning. I hope it will be...

Sunday Feb. 9. Finished first volume of “Récit d’une soeur” a touching history. Perhaps it may bring rest to some, some who have not lived so far into the things of the Spirit as to abandon all faith in the happiness to be found in an external church, in external symbols. Am I opinionated...

Feb 12. We had a real sorrow last night. Mary Dodge whom we have known so well and sincerely loved has seen fit to withdraw her friendship—and without a word, only a little note refusing to explain. She has thought she could make more money from her books but instead of talking her affairs...

Feb. 13. The grand ball of the season comes off in Boston tonight. We shall prefer to stay at home.

Feb. 14. Heard the Pastoral Symphony with Longfellow yesterday. It was perfectly played, as if the musicians loved to play together, a young Englishman said who went also with us.

Feb. 15. The days slip from under our hands, every moment heavy with significance and yet how light sometimes is our hold upon them.

Sunday. Jamie & I think it better to say nothing to Mary Dodge—to give her time to reflect—to see what she really intends. If she becomes utterly regardless I shall send off a note I wrote her when the blow first came. But I wish to give her time to retrieve herself if she wishes it.

Feby 18th We are anticipating and doorkeeping for the arrival of our friend. Whatever unpleasant is said of Charles Dickens I take almost as if said against myself. It is so hard to help this when you love a friend.

Feb. 19. The days flow on—my household of servants (three this winter & a washerwoman) are remarkably good, after many trials—and I have time in the morning for a look into a book—for visits and a walk at noon-time—for visitors or another read in the afternoon. There are not many who can...

Friday. Feb. 21st We go to Providence tonight to hear Dr. Marigold. I have been full of plans for next week which is to be a busy season with us of company.

Saturday. We have heard Marigold! To be sure the audience was sadly stupid and unresponsive but we were penetrated by it. By far the subtlest of the readings it requires more of the listener than any other and from beginning to the end is worthy of deep study. What a night we had in Providence!

Monday Feb 24th We enjoyed a delightful dinner here last night. I only hope our guests liked the good time half as well. We sat 4 hours—Dickens, Agassiz and his wife, & Miss Felton, Dr Hayes, Prof & Mrs Rogers, Mrs Whipple & Mr. Dolby were our guests. Dickens read a short extract from an...