SD2662. Diary Entry of Annie Adams Fields

Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 365 (in part).

[Boston]

Dec. 10. [1863]

Visit from H. W. Beecher. He said of Mr Conway (Moncure) that he never knew a man before who could tell an absolute falsehood and be entirely unconsciousness [sic] that it was not the truth. He said (he C.) sat down holding his head in his hands after he had that extraordinary communication with Mason and said, what spirit possessed me to say I was authorized by government to say these things, by what Providence was I suffered to do this strange thing. Conway was looking very seedy in London with a torn and patched overcoat and as if he lived in an attic for a shilling a day.

Mr Beecher did not like Mr Browning. He found him flippant and worldly. To be sure he had but one interview and could scarcely judge but had he met the man by chance in a company he should never have sought him a second time. …

He was sure he could have liked Mrs Browning. So credulous, generous, outspoken. …

Publication: M.A. DeWolfe Howe, Memories of a Hostess (Boston, 1922), pp. 269–270 (in part).

Manuscript: Massachusetts Historical Society.

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