Diary of Annie Adams Fields

Friday 31. J. here all day—warm—we were out of doors six hours.

August 1st The Bartols arrive & our old regime of life begins—except the B’s are both feeble which is strangely unlike the old. The fogs and misty skies are most beneficient for we have had no rain to speak of since the middle of June.

August 3d We have both been ill for a day or two & I feel —— No I won’t write what I feel while I am still “under the weather.” Saturday was a rare morning one of perfect liberty and perfect health. I seemed to live throughout. Mr. Bartol drags about, eating & sleeping pretty well, but...

Tuesday—4th Rain Began.

Wednesday August 5th Yesterday J. was in town with R.H. Dana Jr. They are busy over a new edition of “Two Years.” Dana gave him a circumstantial description, which he D. has never yet found time to write down, of his later journey round the world. “Ah!” said D. “if I had only taken...

Friday August 7th We have had two or three days of glorious rain. Jamie has been to town each day & the raindrops have not been too thickset for me to catch wonderful morning rambles.

Saturday 8th Past 6 hours out of doors—first rambling over the cliffs & beaches and sitting by the morning sea where a cool fresh light like a clouded dawn under a canopy of heavy storm rack rested until noon;—then out in a boat with Capt. Leech with a “sparking breeze” to Beverly & Back...

Sunday. The rain pouring with occasional thunder. We sit in doors and read or write. The long hours stretch out melodiously. At noon the sun shone and we had our first look at the clear yellow sun for days? and today Monday [10 August 1868] the sky is pellucid from horizon to horizon.

Saturday August 15. This week has been exceptionally beautiful.

Sunday. J. went indeed but Whittier had just left for the Isle of Shoals. We have had a week of perfect weather cool, with glorious sunshine—today the soft clouds have again overspread the sky and it rains.

Wednesday August 19th The exquisite days drop one after another away into the silence. We live chiefly out of doors in the pure sunshine.

Friday 21st How speedily these lovely days whirl away. I could almost grieve over their swift flight if it were not that their swiftness brings us nearer to an immortal and immutable glory. The chief incident of every day is a morning walk! Yet nothing could be filled with more varied or purer...

Sunday 24th [sic] The inexpressible beauty of the days covers and surrounds us. We live more than ever out of doors. Dr. Bartol’s condition is a pain to us—otherwise the world is full once more to the brim with light and love.

Wedy 27th [sic]. Our life is uneventful externally here! What a happy life is that, at least for a time. I am frequently reminded in my content at its slow movement of Shelley’s saying that he thought that was the way life should be divided into six months of solitude & six of society. If I...

Friday August 29 [sic]. Jamie was in town all day yesterday. Two Chinese students, Charlotte Cushman & Miss Stebbins, Anna Dickinson & Judge Russell were among his visitors. In the evening he amused us hugely by telling the story of his encounter in England with Samuel Lover (who has just now...

Saturday. For the past two days we have had cool clear weather and Friday morning we all went off to Rafe’s Crack. Nothing could have been bluer than the skies, blacker than the chasm, greener than the trees, more brilliant than the Golden Rod. We lay down and leaned over the brink of the...

August 31st The last day of summer. The morning was shrouded in cool silvery mist, but while I walked along the beach the sun looked out and when I turned into the field and orchard I found everything touched with gold by his heavenly alchemy. I longed to pass the day gazing about in that...

Sep 1st Went to town.

Sep. 2d J. stayed at home—called on Charlotte Cushman, E.S. & Anna Dickinson at Swampscott.

Thursday Sep. 3. The weather is quite cool again. J. has been gone all day. He gave a dinner at Point Shirley to Editors &c. today which was entirely successful, as his good times can never fail to be. Whipple was the wit of the table; full of simple frolicsomeness, he is simple and hearty as a...

Sunday Seper 6th Night before last after a dark sky and strong east wind all day the rain began to pour with such musical force as well as flow that all light sleepers were awakened. Jamie dreamed of Tennyson delightfully. He was no younger than he appears in the early pictures and was...

Thursday Sep 10th How the season marches! Shut in by the rain except for a short walk this morning there seems for once to be time enough. But time lies in the head I find. Every day is long enough for the work we were created to you [sic] when the head is in working order. Today in spite of...

Sep 12th Letter from Longfellow yesterday.

Sunday. Sep 13th Jamie stayed in town all day yesterday and every thing went hardly with him! He had scarcely turned into our street before he was convinced that Sarah, our maid, would tell him that the new cook I had engaged in her mother’s place was not coming; and he had not crossed the...

Monday, a breezy day, the Bartols gone. J. gone and the world of a week (how small a world it is, after all,) before me. J. stayed in Boston all day. Passed the afternoon at the Dana’s.