Diary of Annie Adams Fields

Today Saturday 25, dear J. goes to town to the Club dinner. We have been here two weeks quite alone but should have found it a[s] perfect as ever if the poor Darrahs had not considered themselves thrust out. I suppose the more prominent positions persons fill in this world, the more difficult it...

Sunday August [sic] 26. There were 12 gentlemen at the Saty Club yesterday. When Jamie appeared with his little handbag significant of having come from the country for the purpose—dear Emerson said glancing at the bag, “good boy! good boy!”

Friday July 31. Glorious sunny summer weather “when clouds are highest up in the air!” Dear J. has gone to Rye to see mother and the children—so I have a day which looks like what Goethe says it is “an infinity of time” when he is away.

Sunday August 2. Jamie & I found Lizzy at the station Saturday night but not quite well. She is better for coming at night; we drove after a wonderful shower to Magnolia where Mr. Ellis preached beautifully. The sunset, the sermon, the drive home under the stars are all to be remembered.

Monday J. went to town and E. & I rejoiced ourselves in the green pastures beside still waters.

Tuesday. Passed the afternoon on our hillside; in the evening came brother Darrah to whom J. read his lecture on Choate.

Wednesday. E. returned to town—we sat under the umbrella tree where I read J. “The Patriots’ Birthplace.”

Thursday Jamie has gone to Nahant to see Longfellow. A letter from Mrs Stowe yesterday assures me of her brother’s innocence—in which she says, all good people believe. It is pretty much so.

Monday August 10th—Jamie has gone to town today, Poor boy! He had an attack of acute rheumatism yesterday which alarmed me it was so severe. He was still suffering this morning when he went to town but I thought change of air and occupation might do him good. He needs a little more society...

Saturday 15. After long rains the sun shone resplendently at noon—in the afternoon we drove to Beverly to see Miss Howes & Mrs Cabot—only the latter was at home but she is so calm and self-forgetful in this first grief of her widow-hood that we are touched and interested in her apart from...

Sunday—were all day looking for our architect who did not come after all. Jamie read Mr. Collyer’s excellent sermon “for Yeshua says so” to our neighbours.

Monday 17th. Dear J. has gone to Boston. I was sitting alone reading Goethe’s Autobiography (wh. is nearly ended) when who should I see pass the window but Longfellow and his daughter Edith. They were looking for us. They bore their disappointment at not finding J. very well. I carried them to...

Sunday August 23. Drove to the Townes to take up Robert Darrah & carry him to Magnolia to hear Mr. Frothingham but he had not yet arrived—then took up Miss Bartlett, Mr. Gilbert’s niece, who was glad to go. A beautiful discourse closing with Goethe’s words in Wilhelm Meister about the...

Tuesday 25. Dear J. went to town—first to the dentist who performed a severe job 2 hours long—then home where Mrs Bell & Mr. & Mrs Pratt came by appointment to hear his address on Choate and tell him if he had made lapses or should make omissions.

Wednesday 26. We all started early. Whittier to go to see Lucy Larcom—we at 10. to go to Uncle Willard’s funeral.

Monday August 31. Though I have before recorded the beginning of our house, the slow-coming spade did not touch the earth until today. The stone cutters turned in with a will and less than two weeks will show the approach pretty well advanced and the cellar done.

Tuesday Sepr 1st The weather is supremely beautiful.

Thursday the 3d. Dear Lizzy is ill at Rye. Expected Mrs Hunt according to her own appointment with [illegible name], there was no one at the station so Jamie and I went into the woods alone together—they were never more beautiful, we went to the Dana place where we could sit under the pines...

Sepr 9th This is the finest part of the season this year, ripe and warm, humming with insects and pleasant country sounds—the grass is green, the fruits are ripe, the pastures shine in untold glory. I am very very sorry to go—but the prospect of our beautiful home here another season quite...

September 10th. Warm and beautiful, the warmest day indeed of the whole summer. Left Mrs Dame’s as we suppose forever. Everything was in the ripest and fullest beauty, but we were made glad and thankful by the knowledge that Thunder Bolt Hill is ours and we are soon to have a permanent summer...

Saturday. Remained quietly in our beautiful room at the hotel all the morning. The large windows overlook the river and the valley and up towards Prospect Mountain and along the swelling range of hills towards Sandwich.

Sunday. Walked up one of the neighboring hills and sat in a wonderful and lovely solitude overlooking the valley & the river—rested for a while on the piazza of a half finished house. The farmer, its owner, told us he was burned out at West Campton and almost everything he owned in the world...

[The following paragraph is a fragment.] We clasped her hand and then drove rapidly to the railroad station. The rain was falling heavily and we just escaped a good wetting.

Left Sepr 19. Saturday. Miss Sanborn accompanied us as far as Boscawen where the Webster family still keep a beautiful estate. She was very sprightly and entertaining without coruscation or fatigue. We kept on till late afternoon to Greenland hoping to go from there to Rye—no vehicle, raining...

Passed Sunday 20—quietly with them at Rand’s cottage. “J” read W. Everett’s sermon on Christ and Socrates. Mrs Blake and her little family, Mrs Greer d[itt]o.—in the evening came the Stearns’s—Lizzy’s lovely flower paintings all around us.