Diary of Annie Adams Fields

June 9th Dickens’s death day. Sent flowers to two Coffee Rooms and to the North End Mission. Went to the latter with Dear J. in the evening where we did our best to amuse the poor unhappy inmates. There are but eleven at present because they are getting the refuge in order out of town. They do...

Tuesday. I was tired last night and slept well. Today cool and lovely—superintending gardening and reading for a short time in peace as have hardly been able to do for a whole year. A noble article on George Eliot in the London Quarterly also a most interesting on Charles, Comte de...

Wednesday June 11. “The Tempest” went off better than I feared last night. It is so profoundly distasteful to me to read in public (there were about 250 persons in Mr. Clarke’s little vestry) that if it had been for any purpose but that Sunday School festival, I believe I could not have...

Thursday June 12. Dined last night with the Aldrich’s & Mr. Bugbee at Mr. Lowell’s beautiful old Elmwood. It was a perfect night, cool, fresh, moonlighted, after a muggy day of heat. After dinner I went into the fine old study with Aldrich where he showed me two or three little poems he has...

Friday June 13. Went to J’s office, found Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Greene, and we went together to see the lovely show of Rhododendrons, now on the Common. Mr. Greene is very feeble and Longfellow is attending upon him as if he were a little child. “I have heard two disagreeable things” said...

Saturday. Did not go out. Received visits from poor woman, Mrs Whitney of Cambridge, whose romantic life has caused plenty of scandal, (Miss Goddard, she always calls me Annie with a touching sense of relationship), Mrs Mary Lodge etc.

Sunday was exceedingly warm, did not go out.

Monday. Dear Lizzy came to pass a week with us. Passed the morning warm as it was about town and enjoyed it well: Coffee houses, Mrs Whitney etc.

Tuesday. We all three passed at Nahant. Mother is feeble, Sarah is very lame, Louisa has her pretty house and they are recruiting there for two weeks.

Wednesday. Lizzy goes daily to her studio. I gather flowers daily about ½ past 6 A.M.

Monday June 23. Manchester. Jamie was afflicted with Neuralgia so we hurried thither—yet why should I say hurried. Our rooms had been engaged, the question only remained why should we stay on the dusty streets and among city smells when we might come out among the clover. We packed Saturday...

Tuesday. Jamie stayed down. The skies were blue and clear, the clover just cut and we passed the day for the most part out of doors among these luxuries. Dear Sophie Darrah and the Bartols came to see us and we called upon Mr. Dana Senior. Charlotte & Miss Channing were there.

Wednesday. Another clear day. Calls from Mrs Dresel, Miss King, Mr. Dixey, Mr. & Mrs Bradlee.

Thursday. June 26. Mrs Cabot of Beverly and Miss Sever called yesterday P.M. Mrs C. a good true woman.

Friday. Jamie is almost ill with severe cold—obliged to give up our promised visit to Mrs Towne but we lay on the warm hay in the open field in the afternoon and read Mr. Adams’ fine Phi Beta address before bed-time. Drove into the woods in the morning.

Saturday 28 he is better. Getting ready for the Portsmouth centennial next week. Ah! the beauty of these summer days. Endlessness, boundlessness, wealth, & Summer, seems but synonyms.

Sunday 29. At last the earth has been wet. A fearful lightning and thunder bolt fell very near us. It struck Mrs Cobb’s house but most happily hurt no one. This was yesterday; today has been indescribably fair. We have passed almost all the time out of doors, save a little preparation for...

Monday—“J” went to town—another perfect day—the hay was not gathered in so I was able to lie in it and drink up sunshine.

Tuesday morning—a soft damp fog and mist for the first time, too, since our arrival. The old fog bell and bird voices. “The rest is silence”.

Thursday July 3. Left Manchester early for the Isles of Shoals. As we drew near Portsmouth which is quite as much our goal as the islands on account of the Centennial Celebration which is to come off there tomorrow, we found the little place gay with flags and already hot with excitement. Mrs...

Friday 4th of July. Jamie was up soon after four ready to leave for the celebration. Celia was up still earlier with the first peep of day. In spite of the fog which became terribly thick she sallied off after Convolvulus four o’clocks (their real name goes at this moment) and came back soon...

The day, Sunday, July 6th is one of the most perfect of the year. The rains have cleared the air and the fragrance and beauty of June has at length come in July. Whittier is just saying how much he enjoys the day and the sea. “I like to go to sea as St. Patrick went from Ireland to Scotland”...

Manchester. July 12. 1873. Our week of pleasuring at the Shoals seems already far behind us. We have been here in our delightful home two days. I cannot bear to let fragments of pleasant talks and sweet memories fade. I wish I could write down more about Celia, and dear Mr. Whittier. The latter...

July 18. The days drop silently away, happiest sometimes I think when they have no history. Today it really rains—the first storm this summer. The winds blow cold from the North East, the grass heads are bowed down, heavy as they are already with premature ripeness—the drought has been...

July 18 [sic]. Rain rain rain and a roaring sea. Jamie writes his lecture on fiction. I have Plato on hand just now. We are quiet and alone here, but everyday in the country brings its own variety of earth and sea, of flowers and of fruit.