Diary of Annie Adams Fields

Tuesday. Sepr 3. Cold winds still blow. Laura went away today.

Sepr 4 Glorious golden sunrise. We think of Laura on her way.

Friday we passed at Nahant. The day was cool and lovely. We brought Lizzy back with us. Saw Mr. Longfellow who showed me a book Mr. Sumner had given him. In it was an old engraving from a painting by Giulio Clovio of the moon in which Dante was walking with his companion. He said it was always...

Saturday. Foggy but later clear & warm. Summer is still here.

Sunday. Very very warm. Tea-party of Mrs Towne and her family & Mrs Wistar.

Sunday again—quite cold and dark as if we were months instead of one week away from last Sunday. Yesterday Mrs Stowe was driven over by Major Sturgis from the station at half past three. I did not expect her then but was glad enough to see her. She had read the night before for the first time...

Monday. 16th Mrs Stowe was to read in Lynn—so at ten o’clock in spite of the Equinoctial which was raging famously she and Lizzy started off leaving us to pack and leave for home at 2.50. Came as we went in a pouring rain. We have had such a lovely, satisfactory, summer, that we could not...

Tuesday 17th Jamie left at 7.30 for Hanover. Dartmouth College. I remained and enjoyed the storm, because of the privacy and opportunity it gave me for setting our house in order.

Wednesday. A lovely night—a busy day. Dear Jamie returned at night. His visit to Hanover was full of happiness. There is a social circle there to be proud of, inspired by a sincere love of literature and by a lofty sentiment of self control and true culture. How proud we are of New England...

Saturday. Last evening a Mr. Louis an English gentleman called here and delivered us letters of introduction. He is an inscrutable kind of mortal having travelled over the realms of knowledge as well as over the kingdoms of the earth and brought away a crowded mind whose curiosity is still keen....

Sunday Sepr 22. Dear Jamie took me with him around the beautiful public garden, rich as Asia in fast vanishing colors and strange eastern growths—afterward through the Common to Mr. Alger’s church at Music Hall, where he was preaching much more earnestly and simply but to a somewhat smaller...

Monday. Joaquin has been telegraphed for by his mother and has suddenly gone to Oregon instead of going at once to Europe as he at first intended.

Tuesday Longfellow came to town to see Jamie in one of his loveliest moods. The day was so warm and fine, such a day of dreams, that he proposed to him every kind of excursion. Come he said let us go to the tea stores and smell the tea: the warm atmosphere will bring out all the odors and we can...

Wednesday 25. Had been down town in the heat and wet of the afternoon and returned to find Mrs Stowe seated by the window. We talked of ghosts all the evening till I felt wakeful and shivery.

Thursday 26. Still very very warm—and wet. Went down town to make some preliminaries for Mrs Stowe’s first reading in Boston this evening. We talked somewhat during the morning, but she slept during the afternoon. At night however she put on her new dress and made herself look very pretty,...

Friday 26 [sic]. Mr. Emerson came in at 2 P.M. to lunch. He is talking of going out to Europe with Ellen to pass the winter in Egypt. Edward his son is not well and is alone in Germany.

Saturday. Went again to hear Mrs Stowe read in public. This time she achieved what she certainly had not done the first time, the difficult task of making people not only hear but feel. As I sat with her in the waiting room in that pause before beginning I felt the awful power of the woman...

Monday. Sep. 30. Mr & Mrs Macdonald & their son arrived unexpectedly as we were sitting at lunch with Mrs Stowe. It was a warm lovely day and they were full of happiness at arriving. They seemed in a mood to be pleased with everything. He is not a strong man, but one evidently overworked. She is...

Tuesday. Lovely weather and busy days.

Saturday. Octr 5. Mrs Stowe went away—first lecture on English Literature, the course Jamie instituted, by Mrs Cheney—hall more than full.

Sunday. Dr. Putnam’s church—an inspiring, noble sermon.

Monday. To Milton—lunched with the Silsbees; were driven by 4 glorious horses in a beautiful dray by Colonel Russell to call at the Hunts. Found both of them at home & all the children. Returning, Mrs Macdonald told me of the straits of poverty to which they had been at times reduced—after...

Chicago. Wednesday. October 23. We came in to this vast new world of experience last Sunday morning. Mr. Griggs publisher and bookseller a kind good man met us on the train. We were just endeavoring to recuperate after a night in the sleeping-car and were feeling heated, dusty and unrefreshed....

Sunday. November 3. 1872. Mrs Stowe is staying with us. Jamie is still at work on his Tennyson lecture which he gives again tomorrow evening. Tonight we take tea with Mrs Lowell Putnam. This rainy Sunday gives me a quiet moment at length. I knew it would come. If we could only be calm and...

Nov. 10. Just one week, and today I have to record disaster and sorrow. The most fearful fire New England has ever known has been raging since last night at 8 o’clock. Robert Collyer is here & the MacDonalds—the latter is ill in his room.