Diary of Annie Adams Fields

(Wednesday morning). Last night Mr. Bryant met us in the train. The cars were crowded and he insisted upon giving me his seat. A younger man soon rose up and gave Mr. Bryant his, so I felt relieved from the trouble I felt in taking the old man’s place. He is over 70 years now nearly 80 indeed,...

Today Thursday. We again visited Mr. Bryant’s place and went all over it. He evidently takes great joy in it. Coming back we found the company seated on the grass under the great waving trees, eating cherries. It was a perfect picture. Christine, the queen in her sailor hat seated on a chair,...

Sunday July 2d at home. I find I have said nothing of Catskill. It is because such glory, such experience is indeed impossible to tell. It was not a night to sleep. As we ascended the mountain, indeed as we crossed the lovely swelling plain by which the mountain is skirted from the river side,...

July 3. William Stillman and his wife (Marie Spartali) passed the evening with us. She is a delicately nurtured woman, hardly more than twenty years old of great beauty and exquisite grace. She has talent and ambition as an artist, and is also accomplished in music. Her father is a Greek...

July 4. Took the boat for Nahant and passed the day with Louisa. Boat was crammed with excursionists although the day was a dreary drizzle of rain. We were entertained quite as well as if we had been at the theatre by the talk of a party of shop-girls and clerks going down for “a good time”....

Saturday. July 8. 1871. Passed the day from five o’clock when we arose, until nearly night in packing, going to Manchester and unpacking. Getting away from home for so long a time, making the servants contented, tearing away from old associations, building up new ones, settling things, all...

Sunday. Jamie and I have been reading the Prelude. I did not know before how great it is and am disposed to say with Lowell it is the best thing Wordsworth ever did—I will not in face of the Ode—That shall stand. Miss Laura Browne, Musician is passing Sunday here. Mr. & Mrs Bartol & the...

Monday. Walked in the heat, and returned with a half awakened feeling to find dear J. with headache. Read Carlyle on Goethe and meditated on the cheerful progress of his truly poetic life. A letter of thanks came from Bayard Taylor respecting my note to him thanking him for his translation of...

Tuesday July 11. Jamie went to Portsmouth to a picnic in Mr. Albee’s grounds at Newcastle, composed chiefly of Mr. De Normandie’s congregation, the Unitarian clergyman of Portsmouth. Celia Thaxter was there, and Jamie read an unpublished poem by Longfellow written this Spring called Lady...

Wednesday. July 12. “J.” went to town, met Howells and worked over the A.M. two hours—saw Emerson and accomplished other business. I wandered over the beautiful shore which was drenched by rain, and palpitating under the advancing heat. Then home to Measure for Measure.

Saturday July 15. Half way through this gracious month of Summer. Yesterday “J” went to Wheeler’s Point near Gloucester where Hiram Rich and Mr. Babson, “Tom Folio” are camping out. There he took Chowder with them looking down upon Coffin’s Beach. There was a sudden and thick fog...

Wednesday July 19. Jamie has gone to town. I wander and read as usual. Am going forward with Shakspeare’s plays.

Thursday July 20. A deliberate rain. The drops stand on the leaves of the tulip-tree and the air is full of brooding stillness. The wells are low and water is needed so we are all glad to hear the pattering feet of the rain.

Saturday July 22. Our household is quiet although it is hardly more than ten o’clock and for the most part sleeping. The weather is cool now a days and in strange contrast with the excessive heats of last summer. The country has not yet entirely recovered from the droughts of last season....

Sunday Morning. I sat up last reading—reading the last published fragment of Hawthorne’s Journal in Rome. It brought not only his presence back to me with great vividness but also the places which he describes so minutely. Nothing has ever made me comprehend more vividly the fullness of the...

Monday morn. A young girl in a wagon under my window and unconscious of anything but utter village solitude is sitting waiting and singing to herself—nothing could be prettier—the undertone and constant repetition, the careless attitude, her sweeping hair, are all most lovely—they are a...

Sunday July 30. A whole week has gone again since I wrote. We have rain and mist and fog now-a-days—but all nature rejoices in having the sun veiled. Morning and evening and in the night when I awake & everywhere I go over the beautiful landscape all day long I hear the solemn light house bell.

Sunday August 6. Summer with luxury of warmth is at last here. We have been on the hillside where I have read The “Children of Lebanon” to J. this morning. I have been a little ill this week & J. has read aloud to me Hawthorne’s novel Septimius. It appears to me one of his greatest...

Monday. August 7th We passed yesterday P.M. in the Dana woods and by the shore. Towards night, while the red sun hung like a fire-ball in the dusky sky we stopped at the old house which has now been standing here 26 years to see the family. There was nobody down stairs as we entered from the...

Tuesday. It rains—and now nearly a week has passed and I have paused all that time in my work, doing nothing. I have been ill and unfit for work—so all things have wrought together for good.

Friday afternoon. Drove in the “phony foeton” along Beverly Shore and called at the beautiful place of William Loring to see his motherless daughters. The place was beautiful as fairy land—the brook fringed with ferns under the shadow of pine trees and the glorious sea beyond all. Then to...

Sunday 13 August. Breezy autumnal day—crickets on the wing. Golden-rod in bloom everywhere. Passed the P.M. with dear J. on breezy promontories in the Great Pasture, choosing the spot we should most desire if we might choose our habitation there.

Monday. Rain approaches—a soft clouded dawn. Walked a little in the morning but being overcome with weakness and languor was obliged to remain perfectly quiet the rest of the day. Read in my room. Dear Jamie sat with me in the evening while we enjoyed an hour or two together. He is the most...

Tuesday. No rain yesterday—indeed the clouds broke before noon and everything was breezy and beautiful. This morning the fog shut down again and now and then I hear the distant light-house bell. Mr. Bartol went off to write his book this morning but with the feeling that he had nothing to say....

August 26. All these days have gone by! Lissie Adams has been here passing a week. Morning and afternoon I have been in the pony-chaise with Mrs Darrah and herself, sitting with them in beautiful places while they made sketches. Mrs Darrah’s are very fine. I wish I could say as much for...