Diary of Annie Adams Fields

Wednesday. All the heat of the season has gone for the time and a cool breeze is sweeping over the hills—yesterday and today have been days when “clouds are highest up in the air”; times when we recall Lowell’s verses about June and when “everything is sweet.” But I have been too...

Saturday. June 25. Heat excessive—but quiet & beautiful to be at home. Charles Lowell has just died of apoplexy—Lissie is coming home and is in London.

Sunday At Nahant with L. Cold rain, the easterly winds blowing, the trees bowing before it and man and Nature filled with exquisite enjoyment in the freshening of physical life.

Monday came in the afternoon to Canton. Mrs Bell drove into the avenue just as we did—a little woman in a dead white dress driven by a coal-black man. The place is very beautiful, as beautiful as England with a perfect lawn and perfect trees. It is sufficiently old to have lost all the...

July 1st The weather has been very warm since our return as it was while we were with Mrs Dorr. Yet it was fine weather to see her place in with its fine groves & laurel & lawns and lake; there are few things more beautiful in America. Whittier came about 4 in the afternoon & stayed until 10. He...

Saturday. July 2d We came to Manchester. I must confess to a strange reluctance at leaving home which I did even at the last and after the toil of packing was over, with regret. Yet this was senseless enough as I am truly fond of the country.

Sunday. Glad to find ourselves here today. The sky grey and the air cool, but the place sweet and quiet. In the afternoon we took a long ramble together about the beach and the old haunts. They have changed much and I fear we were not a little saddened. Probably we carried our mood to the shore;...

Monday July 4th Walked with J. & Mrs Darrah to her sister’s new house built on old “Eagle rock” and on to the Dana’s. R.H.D. Jr was in the parlor with his father. He is completely frustrated by over work (Boston & Erie railroad question chiefly I believe) and is grown thin and tremulous....

Tuesday Jamie went to town and rested here in the afternoon.

Wednesday—ditto.

July 7. A strange experience. A novel from Eugene Benson called “Broken by Love” was sent to us to be read for publication. What should it prove to be but the circumstantial story, with the real letters and journal, of Henriette Fletcher’s desertion of her home and following of this man....

July 8. Dear J. stayed down all day. The rain fell but we managed to walk to the beach before night and return in a yellow haze of twilight.

July 9. Took a long morning ramble. The day was brilliantly beautiful and I lingered in the hay and under the trees several hours. It was too fine to return. Read Swedenborg’s Essay on the Nature of Influx—full of beautiful suggestion.

Sunday July 10. Yesterday Dickens’s pictures & works of art were sold. I fear before Fechter can arrive.

Monday July 11. Beautiful summer day. Strolled about for 3 or 4 hours. Read “Mirèio” a beautiful Provence poem by Fredéric Mistral.

Tuesday 12.

Wednesday 13. The good Bartols arrived unexpectedly from the Shoals. Had much to say of Celia and of Mr. Whittier. It was beautiful to see what good times they had sitting down together, they said. He made the necessary repairs in her Æolian harp while they talked.

Thursday. Jamie stayed down. We went to Gloucester to see Bayard Taylor & his wife. Drove, altogether, to Little Good Harbor Beach where we found James F. Clarke, Lillian, Edward Perkins. Lillian was like a daisy in her purity and unconscious freshness.

15. War declared between France & Prussia & Mr. Motley recalled.

Saturday 16th A perfect summer day. Jamie did not go to town but with a bag full of letters and mss. concluded to remain here. He fell first upon a mss. by Henry James Jr. a short story called “Compagnons de Voyage” and after tasting of it in our room and finding the quality good (though the...

July 19. We have an addition to our family here. Miss Maria Oakey, cousin to Lissie Bartol, a graceful, artistic little spirit, full of abandon of action, full of taste in dress, full of readiness in speech. I was most entertained by seeing her go to the top of the stairs today to call to a boy...

Friday 21st [sic]. The days pass swiftly. The winds play in the leaves outside my window and the fresh bright air this morning gives a new glory to the earth. Such a happy earth to the young, such a cheerful earth to the dying, such a sweet tender earth to those who mourn. Miss Hogarth writes...

Sunday 23 [sic]. Another very hot day. This place is cool by night and I awoke early refreshed and took a long walk to the shore. Others could not sleep so well, finding less air.

Monday July 24 [sic]. Jamie went most unwillingly to town for the day is hot. I started at half past 7 to walk and found the sun even then very powerful. A runaway horse was careening over the fields which made all walkers scatter in a promiscuous way not at all reassuring or cooling, but I soon...

July 28. The excessive heat is at length mitigated but no rain has come. We have been here nearly 4 weeks and not one really rainy day in that time. The roads are very dry like the farmers hearts and throats and hopes. Geraniums are in bloom, wild roses are almost gone only the sly lingerers to...