Diary of Annie Adams Fields

Novr 21. Time walks forward with such awful strides only the immortals can overtake him. The days have been very precious of late—they have been mortgaged so far ahead that were it not for a heavy cold wh. has kept me quiet at home even this half hour would seem an impossibility. Jamie spoke...

Sunday Dec. 1st Yesterday visited several homes of sewing girls to see what was their condition. Found several Irish women on my list who did not especially excite my sympathy, one bright girl must be taken care of. I shall however arrange for them to come to me as far as possible that I may...

Sunday Decr 8th This is the last day of Robert Collyer’s visit. He has given up his visit to Providence today for the sake of rest and recuperation. Last evening Mrs S.R. Putnam our dear friend and neighbor came in to talk over the occurrences of the last few weeks, our future political...

Saturday Evening Dec. 14. Mr. Louis came and talked well. He also played a few of Mrs Taylor’s Brittany airs. Mr. Stanley, the Livingstone discoverer, came also and talked of his African life. He said the people among whom Livingstone was sojourning were 5000 feet above the sea. They were...

Friday Decr 20. Snow and rain and slosh & avalanche fill the street. I am allowed to stay at home. I am grateful to my having earned a little quiet by 5 hours of incessant work out of doors yesterday. Just read a bit of Alice Cary’s life—a model working life and a noble record. She was...

21st a charming letter comes from him today. There is a “screw loose” somewhere. I find him always most lovely & interesting personally but he is not careful to say the least about having money to pay when the time comes. We hope this experience will do him good.

Sunday afternoon—dear Mr. Collyer dropped in for a cup of tea just as we were starting for L’s.

December 31st What a long year this has been because it has been crowded with life & work. Every month has seemed like two—except those delicious months of summer which glide in an out as the hours most of what we call eternity.

Feb 1st A whole month has gone by, so rapidly, so full of life and endeavor that I have not a moment any more in wh. to write about living. Workrooms are at last opened for the women thrown out of employment by the fire. Poor women rush in for work and I am perfectly happy in the onset.

Feb 3. The value of Dumont’s life of Mirabeau appears to me today as never before. We see the weight of the individual upon his time—the dark cloud which hangs over those days makes it almost impossible for us to distinguish the motive powers—but in this book Mirabeau the motive may be...

Saturday Feby 15th Dined here—Mr. Longfellow & Alice, Dr & Mrs Eliot, Mrs Thaxter, Mr. Howells, Lizzie & Mr. Dresel. In the evening came Mr. Albee, Mr & Miss Eichberg. We had a very pleasant, happy social time. Dresel played. Celia stayed over Sunday—a snow-storm befell and we stayed in all...

Sunday. March 9 th A cold blustering day—it is peaceful inside, for we have no guests, wonderful to relate and Jamie is writing quietly upon his Professor Wilson paper, which he is making, to my thinking, most interesting and valuable. We are thinking much of Celia, who is at her Islands,...

Tuesday March 18. Left Boston for a short trip to New York. Jefferson the actor, famous throughout the world for his impersonation of “Rip Van Winkle” was on the train and finding us out per “J.” him [sic] came to our compartment car to pass the day. He talked without cessation and...

Wednesday, March 19. Went to Goupil’s and were sorely disappointed at the mass of bad, tawdry French pictures. The only good things were two or three French water colors by Zamaçois and Vibert. The clerk however gave us a card to a Mr Cutting nearly opp. Goupils, where we saw the finest...

Thursday, March 20. To the Johnson gallery where Allston’s portrait of himself and Spalatro as the bloody hand by the same painter hold a high place. Here also is Church’s Niagara and a beautiful Kensett and a fine Gifford; a beautiful Couture, a noble Zamaçois (the two confessors, full of...

Friday morning. L.W.J. & her daughter met us at the cars bound to go with us to Washington. A pleasant day’s journey we had of it with their friendly faces to accompany us and with Colonel Winthrop to meet us at the train. The evening of our arrival Jamie went at once to see Charles Sumner who...

Saturday morning I went in early with “J” and passed the entire morning with the Senator. Several colored persons came in as we sat there and those who were people of eminence were introduced. He talked of literature and showed us his own curiosities which appear to be numberless. Jamie was...

Sunday. Not well—kept my room in the Arlington Hotel all day; obliged to refuse to see guests also and dear “J” has gone alone to dine with Sumner. I had hoped to see his house once more and to see him among his peers. There is always a doubt of course but especially in his state of health...

We left Washington early Monday morning for Phila. where we immediately took a carriage to make a few visits. First to see Rebecca Harding Davis whom I had not seen for ten years. She said she thought I had changed very little and said it honestly which was a kind of unsuspected rebuke on her...

Saturday March 29. John Hay came to speak before The Young Ladies Club. His discourse was upon Heroic Days in Washington. He was formerly private secretary to Mr. Lincoln. A touching tribute to his master. He quoted Mrs Putnams words to Governor Andrew at her Willy’s funeral, but without...

Saturday April 5. Last night at a party at Mrs Hunt’s where was a brilliant collection of people of musical talent who seemed to succeed in disgusting each other. Mr Dresel accompanied Miss Liebe on the violin; the latter certainly played exquisitely, but as later in the evening she played...

Sunday April 6th Heard brother Bartol in the old church and walked home with Mrs Putnam whose whole soul is bound up in the political life of nations. She lives for and longs for a wider republicanism, believes in the hopes of Spain and watches with an eager eye the ruler who held the views of...

Easter Sunday. Snow on the ground—gulls careening over the stormy sea, flowers and music in all the churches, silence and love at home.

Sunday April 20. 1873. Spring is at last here—beautiful clouds stain the soft sky, boats float up and down the river, and the calm which the longer days give one, the absence of all sense of hurry, begins to possess our spirits; the forerunner of summer days.

Monday 22 [sic]. to the dentist—a job no one likes, but when I remember how I suffered at 17 and how fine my teeth are now and how seldom I am obliged to go, I am filled with gratitude.