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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: January 17, 1894 - July 24, 1894
Text: 17 Read of Frank Bolle's death this morning. Was much shocked. Saw him once, Dec. 1892 and liked him Something clean-cut and pleasing about him -- red hair and sandy complexion Some of his out-door sketches interest me, and some do not. He was hardly a poet, or thinker. -- Write what you feel, not merely what you think. One may think anything and everything; he can only feel certain things. What he feels is vital to him. When I think I grope, and do not always know where I stand. What I...
Show more17 Read of Frank Bolle's death this morning. Was much shocked. Saw him once, Dec. 1892 and liked him Something clean-cut and pleasing about him -- red hair and sandy complexion Some of his out-door sketches interest me, and some do not. He was hardly a poet, or thinker. -- Write what you feel, not merely what you think. One may think anything and everything; he can only feel certain things. What he feels is vital to him. When I think I grope, and do not always know where I stand. What I feel I see, and what I see I feel.Clear and sharp this morning, like Nov. Ground bare; grass yet quite green. Mercury down to 24 degrees this morning. 18 Mild with SW wind. Julian and I have our first skate on the river; ice less than 2 inches. 19 Like an April morning, clear, still, mild; raindrops hanging to the limbs and grapevines. Objects steam in the sun like a morning in summer. Sounds very noticeable. Rumbling of wagons, barking of dogs heard from over the river. Very few birds this winter, except crows. Now and then a large flock of goldfinches. Few English sparrows. On anopen winter like this the birds disperse over the open country. A deep snow would drive them about our habitations. 20 A bright and beautiful day. How naked the world seems, no snow, no verdure, no clouds. A fine skate on the river; condition all perfect, a glare of ice, a medium temperature, and a still air. Not a breath of wind. I fly up and down like a bird. At night, Julian and I skate an hour by moonlight, a rare treat. How we dash off into the dimness over the black smooth surface. -- These days I am hacking away at my Whitman matter, cutting, burning, rewriting. My matter mproves under my heroic treatment, but I doubt if I can make it worthy the subject. Health not very good past two weeks. 21 Mild, overcast, with sprinkle of rain in P.M. Signs of fog. The steam from the passing train swells and increases and stretches far behind in a long, tapering window. 22 Cleared off in the night as silently as usual. The weather is in a most gentle and placid frame of mind this winter. The storms sprinkle a little, or spit a little snow and then fold their tents like the Arabs and steal away. Fog this morning. P.M. Clear, warm, still likeIndian summer -- insects dancing in the air -- a day to walk through the fields and stand long by the bars, or lean upon the wall and look long and long over the brown, weedy lifeless fields. Almost brings the bees out of the hive. 24 Another attempt at a rain from the South, with only a slight sprinkle. Mercury up to near 50 degrees. 25 Cold wave last night, clear and lovely today, but sharp. Julian and I go to Black Pond skating; fly like birds over the glassy surface -- a fine time. Not a speck of snow to be seen. 26 Mercury down to 12 degrees this morning. 27 Winter again. The snow came like thief in the night, about 5 or 6 inches, and is still at it, from the North, which means that the storm clouds really came up the coast. 28 Bright and lcear adn sharp. Mercury down to 10 degrees this morning. The large opening on the river in front closed up this morning. -- That Death awaits you and me and all men is of little account. But that the race is to become extinct, that the earth is to grow old and die, and the sun itself wither like a leaf and be blown about the barrens of infinite space -- this strikes one dumb, and paralyzes the soul -- this is the abyss of science into whic e cannot gaze. What bow of promise spans it? That the very soil which hold out dead must become lifeless meteoric dust! Human monuments must perish, but the solar system is to be disrupted. How many times may this have happened in the past eternities! I see no reason to doubt that this game of the gods may not have been played over and over, and that even you and I may, in effect, have lived many times on other worlds, and may live again. The same results, culminations, must go on forever and ever. When great clock runs down, it will wind itself up again and strike the same hours as before.-- Forty years ago was my last winter at the old school-house in West Settlement. Of my schoolmates at that time I recall eleven who are dead, Walter Elliott of Bovina was teacher. In the spring of 1854 I left home to teach school in Olive; taught there fro mApril to middle of Sept. at 10 or 12 dollars a month and boarded around. Went to Ashland to school in Nov.; lefft there in Sprinng and went to Jersey in April in search of school; failed; came home and stayed all summer, working and studying. After haying started for Jersey again; stopped in Olive to visit; was again hired to teach same school at 20 dollars a month; taught till spring. In spring (April 20) went to Cooperstown seminary. Left therein July; worked in haying and went West in Sept. Tom Kniffin with me. Stopped at Dr. Allaben's in Polo. Engaged the school there and taught till spring of 1957. Came back home in April; stayed home till June or July when I engaged to teach at High Falls in Ulster County. Was married that fall September 13. Taught till spring. In July went to Rosendale to teach. Got interested in a patent buckle; threw up the school and went to Newark, N.J. Buckle failed and engaged school in Jan. 1859 at East Orange. Taught there about 2 years. In fall of '60 took the school at Marlboro on Hudson; taught there till spring of '62. Went home in April. Stayed all summer. In fall went to Olive to study medicine with Dr. Hull; heard of a school atButtermilk Falls, secured it, and went there to teach probably in Jan. 1863. Taught there, and began there the study of birds and flowers, stimulated to the latter by Prof. Eddy. Taught there till fall of '63 (made the Adirondack trip in August of that year) when I threw up the school and went to Washington (in October). On Jan. 4, 1864 I was appointed to a clerkship in the office of Comptroller of Currency. Continued a cleark till Jan 1, 1873 when I left W. and came to Middleton, N.Y. as Receiver of the Wallkill Nat. Bank. Wound up the affairs of the bank in 3 or 4 years. In Aug. '73to about '85. Built my house in '73 and '74, moved into it late in Nov. '74. -- Capt. Steven Burroughs was born in Bridgeport, Conn. in 1729. Died in 1817. A man of unusual mental endowments, ship-builer and astronomer: said to have invented the system of Federal Money. He had 4 brothers, Eden, John, Edward, and Ephraim. The latter was my great-grandfather, his son Eden was my grandfather. Ephraim died in Stamford, in April 1818, and nwas buried there in a field which is now under cultivation. He was born near Bridgeport (Conn.) about 1735. He hadsix sons and several daughters. His sons were Eden, Curtis, William, David, Daniel, and Ephraim. Eden, father's great uncle, was the father of Stephen, the notorious. Eden was a Presbyterian minister. 30 More snow, pretty heavy, about 10 inches now on the ground. Weather mild. 31 Bright, mercury 40 degrees. Feb. 1 Showing again this morning. Storm center seems south of us. Ver deliberate, evidently means business. -- Snow turned out only about an inch of hyperborean chaff. 3 Mild, overcast, mercury 42-- How common in literature is the sin of over-writing. It strikes one as vulgar, like over-dressing. The piece has a studied, formal, artificial air. Simple things must be simply said -- all things must be as simply said as possible. A man must work a long time to get out of the ambition of writing of inflating and bedecking what he has to say. I think this was at times or of the sins of Franis Parkman. I judge so from extracts I have seen of a sealed paper, giving an account of his life, which he left with a friend, and which was opened after his death. It is full of the balancing of period and is more like an amateur than like a master. 5 Cold wave; down to 2 degrees above this morning, clear and still. 6 Down to zero this morning. Bright and still all day. Had a skate on the river. -- In saying that Homer and the Bible are not literary, I mean they do not savor of literary or artificial culture, or of conscious literary art. They savor more of the larger culture of life and nature. From this point of view Tennyson is more literary that Wordsworth, Longfellow that Bryant. Milton than Shakespeare, the later novelists than Scott and Fielding. There is a deeper seriousness in Wordsworth than in Tennyson, in Whittier than in Lowell, a More profound humility and religiousness. It is not mrerely the seriousness of the scholar, the poet, it is the seriousness and humility of the man. I would have the unadulterated man, or human, flavor always predominate, as it does in the greates works. The Bible was not written with a view to literary edification as The Princess was, or Maud, or the Fable for Critics were; but for moral and spiritual edification. The literary spirit must always walk behind the spirit of universal love and sympathy, the spirit of man as man and not as a literary expert.8 Milder, a thaw at hand. -- Just finished A Window in Thrums, a delicious piece of work -- would rather have written it than all Mr. Howell's or James have written. How one loves these characters! because the author himself loved them. If Mr. Mowells only had this girft of love! P.M. Thermometer up to near 59 degrees. Bees out of the hive. 9 Snowing, moist and heavy. Mercury up to 36 degrees. 10 Deeply saddened by the death of Archdeacon Ziegenfusz, a man I had come to love. Only a few weeks ago he was here and passed the day in this room with the rest of the "Gang" as he called them -- the picture of health and good nature. His chances of long life seemed vastly better than m own. His wife died only a few weeks ago, and this calamity seemed to have broken him up and killed him. He was a man to love for his genial good-fellowship, as well as for his fine mind and character. I feel a keen sense of personal loss. Going over to the station last night I said to myself, Here have I lived in this place 20 years, and am not yet wonted to it. Twenty years of youth here, and these hills and valleys and river would seem like a part of myself; now I look upon them with alien, reluctant eyes. I seem only a camper for a day and a night. So much more plastic and impressionable are we in youth! As manhood is reached we begin to harden, and by and by our affections will not take on new shapes at all. 13 The boss snow storm of the winter so far, nearly a foot of snow, much drifted. Mercury down to 18 degrees, began yesterday afternoon. -- Attended the funeral of Ziegenfuss yesterday. A great crowd. Saw the body in the morning, looked like life -- never saw Death counterfeit Sleep more perfectly. No emaciation, no pain. His old mother came while I was standing near. Dear old woman! how her heart was wrung! how I wanted to comfort her! How the past must have come like a flood upon her! She remembered him as a babe in her arms, as a child by her side, as a ladwith his books and playthings, as a youth going out into the world, as a young man entering upon his career. How pathetic, how overwhelming! Oh, the inrrevocable past! Bishop Potter spoke well -- a metropolitan man, stamped with the air of a great city. Conventional, precise, dignified, clean-cut. Not a large, homely, original nature, but a fine-trained talent -- an epitome of better New York. Ziegenfusz himself was a true democrat. I loved him much and shall always carry a sweet remembrance of him. How mysterious, I heard several say, that such a man should be taken; the bishop said so, too. It is mysterious when weLucky if here and there on a writer's page we catch the scent of fresh new soil. Once in a while Carlyle, Goethe, Arnold, go in to the and we are exilarated, dilated; and then, again it is scratch, scratch. Rocks and stones with Carlyle and hard-pan with Goethe, or roots and weeds with Arnold. 15 More snow, 5 or 6 inches, this morning; half leg deep now. The cloud cows have had good grazing lately; they pour down their milk like cows in June. Well, they went dry early in the fall, and it is time. As the sun comes North he drives the hot moist air of the tropics before him, and we get the benefit. -- I never read a newspaper but I way, What a poor editor I shold make, according topresent standards. Nine-tenths of this stuff I should leave out. It is useless for a newspaper to try to be a private correspondent of every man woman and child trying to tell them the news about the people they know, and the matters they are concerned in. It should aim only at real news, important news for all, and when there is no news, it shold print a smaller sheet, just as it prints a larger sheet when there is extra news. Printing the same number of columns daily shows the absurdity of the whole business. If there is real news one day, and noe the next, then chaf must take its place, and readersbe robbed of their time. Does any same man more than glance at the editorial page? He knows before hand that he will find no honest, disinterested discussion there, but only lis and make-believe. 17 Cold, cold 8 degrees or 10 degrees below this morning, yet the air looks as innocent and genial as in summer; a soft, bluish haze veils everyting. Sun bright, sky blue, the steam whistles have that split shrill minor character of every cold weather. 18 Rain this morning from the south, mercury 40 degrees. Truly a weather spasm. The grip of Winter is not sure when these happn. P.M. cleared off; mercury 5024 Very cold. 10 degrees below this morning. Bright sunshine all day. Mercury only 2 degrees above at noon. Ice-men on the river suffer much. 25 Still colder, 14 degrees below this morning. But now at 10 A.M. temperature recovering rapidly. A storm evidently approaching. The past week has been free from storm. Cold wave began on Wednesday, the 21st. 26 A driving snow storm from the North -- that is from the South -- mercury about 15 degrees. Winter grown robust and desperate in his last days. -- Took down Carlye's Past and Present last night and leafed it over for half an tasting it here and there. I was glad I did not feel abliged to read it again. It is hard reading. I confess I did not want to be bruised and bumped about by a ride over this rough road. Run the eye over the page and bumped about by a ride over this rought road. Run the eye over the page and see how rought and thorn it looks, and it feels no less so to the mind. The great classical turnpikes, how different! In Carlyle's prose, at its worst, as in Browning's poetry, the difficulties are mechanical; it is not in the thought; it is in the expression. There is fire and intensity about it, but a blow with a club will make you see stars, or a sudden jolt give you a vivid sense of real things. Oh, do level and roll your road a little, Mr. Cor I fear travellers upon it in the future will be few. we do not want it made easier, but simply do not want to be bruised. Carlyle will never be forgotten; he is one of the few monumental writers but probably he will be named and referred to oftener than he is read. A book that one cannot read a second or third time -- A man's private storms and whirlpools and despairs and indigestino ought to appear in his work only as power, or light, or richness of tone. It is near 50 years since Past and Present was written, and none of its dire prophecies have yet come true. Yet I love this Scotch Jeremiah as I love few men. 29 Four or five inches of snow yesterday. Mercury down to 8 degrees this morning. -- Milton's poetry, for the most part, is to me a kind of London Tower filled with old armor, stuffed knights, wooden chargers, and the emblems and bedizzlements of the past. Interesting for a moment, but dead, hollow, moth-eaten. Not a live thing in one of his poems that I can find. Yes, there is a nightingale and a few flowers, and a human touch, here and there. But half a dozen pages would hold all that any man need read. The "Sampson" is said to be in the Greek spirit, but what business find he, a Puritan of Cromwell's time, writing in the Greek spirit?Why did he not write in his own spirit, or in the Puritan spirit? the 17th Century spirit? What business had he masquerading in this old armor? He put no real life under these ribs of death. His "Paradise Lost" is a huge puppet show, so grotesque and preposterous that it is quite insufferable. Milton seems to have been a real man, but he stands there in English literature like a great museum of literary archeology. He seems to have had no experiences of his own, and rarely to have seen the earth and sky, or men and women with his own natural eyes. He saw everything through the classic eyes of the dead past. Who reads him? Professors of literature, I suppose. He was a great craftsman no doubt, but he has been of no service to mankind, except a literary service; he has helped us to realize the classic spirit of letters, and the absurdity of the old theological dramaturgy. He spoke no word to any man's real moral or spiritual wants. March 1 Welcome, thrice welcome the first day of the almanac's spring! Bright and warm, a sap-day. May tempt the bees out by and by. Mercury down to 25 degrees last night. Snow a foot or more on the ground. Ice-men at work on the river, with 10 or 11 inch ice, half of it snow-ice. 2 Warm with signs of rain. Light shower in P.M. Wind shifting to N.W. and cooler. 3 Warm and clear, a day without a cloud, a real blue day. Stiffened up a little last night. but hardly touched freezing-point. Gentle breeze from the North. No spring birds yet. River opened last ight. 4 Sunday, Still bright and sprin-like. The spring birds this morning; bluebirds before sunrise, and robins and purple finches a little later the latter singing in chorus. The perfection of sap-weather. Snow running very fast. 5 Clear and warm, snow runs rapidly. 6 The bright spring days continue. Mud and slush very bad. But little frost at night. 9 Fine spring days, without a break till today. Snow nearly all gone. Excellent sap-weather. Sparrows in song. Turtle-dove on the 6th. Clouds today and sprinkles of rain in P.M. Gilchrist came last night on his way to Vassar. Rather too good an opinion of himself and work. 10 Still warm with sunshine. never remember ten days of March in succession so spring-like. Down to freezing only two or three nights. Near 60 degres some days. G's lecture at Vassar not a success, and I told him so. 11 Sunday. Cloud and fog this morning, but no frost. Sunshine in P.M. River opened night of the second.12 A little frost last night, calm and cool this morning. No wind yet this spring. Only a little floating ice on the river. Can the spark be said to sleep in the flint or the steel? No, only the condition of the spark sleeps there. The spark, the fire, sleeps in the arm, or inthe power that brings the flint and steel in collision. The motion, the force is converted into heat. 18 Sunday. The end of another week of remarkable March weather, April weather, in fact. In the past twenty years I remember nothing equal to it. Sunshine most of the time, and only a little frost. Showed on Thursday about 1 1/2 inch; all gone by 3 on Friday and mercury up to 55. On Friday my four friends from Poughkeepsie came up and spent the day. A pleasant time again. Yesterday Julian and I spent the day over by Black Creek after ducks. Killed no ducks but had a delightful day. Many signs of life in the air and water -- two or three kinds of butterflies, weveral moths, and occasional piping frog, insects in the air, newts and water bugs in and on the water, nuthatches calling, sparrows and robins and bluebirds everywhere. Not a breee stirring. Black Creek like glass as we floated or paddled up and down its length. Only a few ducks here and there. Only a few patches of old snow in the woods. Roads getting dry and vineyard calls us to work.My new man, Auchmoody, moved in yesterday. Buds of the soft maples swelling perceptibly. Saw my first snake and did not harm him. P.M Mercury up to 64 degrees, too warm. Hazel in bloom. Bees carry in pollen. Crocuses piercing the turf. Julian and I walk along the creek and back on RR. Arbutus buds swelling. Phoebe bird today. Standing after night fall now anywhere on the lawn one hears a slow stirring or rustling in the leaves and dry grass. It is made by large earth worms coming up out of their burrows and ruching out over the ground, whetlere for feeding or breedingI know not. My boy calls them "night walkers". In summer he hunts them at night to make bobs of. They are very sly and jerk swiftly back in their holes on the slightest sound. I suppose they feed your footsteps on the ground. 19 Warmer and warmer, up to 69 degrees. A sprinkle of rain in P.M; the fairest April weather. The little piping frongs in full chorus tonight; the whole tribe in full cry, also clucking frogs and the long-drawn Tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r of the toad. 20 Cooler this morning, north wind. 22 Another big storm flashed in the pan. The fourth or fifith storm that had started from the West failed to reachus. Only a little dash of rain and mist and fog. Warm this morning, like lat April; grass greening and the plow at work. A cold wave said to be coming. No rain to speak of in over a month. -- A passage omiited on second thought from my essay in last Critic on the Sapphic Secret. "Discursive and experimental writers like Mr. Thompson and myself - the mere nibbling mice of Criticism, shoud temper their wrath when they sit in judgement upon the great ones -- the lions who make the paths through the jungles of the world. It is no fault of theirs that they are not micebut is it not a fault of ours that we do not see them to be lions?" 23 Rain set in P.M. and continued all night. Julian and I spend the day at Black Pond and Creek after ducks. See a few but no shot. Cook and eat our dinner on the miniature island, 8 x 10, near outlet of lake. Very pleasant time. The first warbler singing in the trees near us. J. has his new canvas canoe. 25 Overcast, storm threatened. 26 A white-was of snow this morning. All gone at night but getting colder. 27 A cold wave, down to 20 degrees this morning. Begin foundation of fruit house. A typical March day fo the chilly sort. 28 Like yesterday, with wind shifting to southerly in P.M. A storm approaching. How true it is that we want something untamed and untamable in a poet -- a strain of the original savage man. It is this salt that gives the tang to his poetry and that keeps it. No matter how great his culture and refinement if he only strikes back through it to his original uneducated nature and draws from that. He must be a poet before he has ever seen or heard of poetry. No doubt we strike here on one source of weakness of much modern poetry -- it does not smack at all of the soil, or simple, unlettered, human nature. The singers are poets mainly after what books and art ahve done for them. Their works are an intellectual and not an emotional product. Even in such a poet at Lowell, the original man is deeply overlaid iwth the scholar, and with literature. Which shall lead -- the emotional and intuitive nature, or the reasoning, intellectual nature? 31 Wonderful Aurora last night, beyond any I have ever before seen. Once while a boy I saw someting approaching it. The wonder of this display was that it made a complete circle all around the horizon. We stood in the midst of a greattent of streaming aurora. The ghostly flame shot up from north, east, south, west, and came to a focus just a few degrees south of our meridiam never before have I seen it rise up from the south. The apex of this tent was the scene of constantly shifting and vanishing forms of light. It was fairly apochryphal. At times it seemed as if the heavens opened at this point and troops of angels and winged horses came straight toward us. A pencil like Dore's would have caught many suggestions. Sometimes the electric clouds would gather at this point liek foam over the point of escaping fluid and whirl about. Sometimesthere would be curious openings through it where the black sky and the stars would appear. A deep crimson flush would appear here and there near the horizon and spread upward to the zenith. at 8:30 the motion of the streamers was hardly perceptible, but at 8:45 they were leaping up and very rapidly, the sublty impulses traveling up precisely like flame; and such ghostly flame! Never was anything more spectral and unearthly then the whole display. It was a wild dance of many-colored sheeted ghostly forms! What an impression such a phenomenon must have made upon rude primitive man. I myself could hardly keep down an emotion of superstitous fear.A warm fine day with summer clouds and wind. Work all day on the new foundation walls of barn. April 1 Warm and breezy; mercury about 50 degrees in morning. Grass quite green and all buds swelling. The spring three weeks ahead of time. Hepatica today out probably a day or two. 2 Bright, dry, cold. A day to burn brush and rubbish. 3 My 57th birthday. Clear, sharp, dry; mercury down to 20 degrees this morning. The sky so clear and dry that the cold air falls down upon us. House painters here this morning. Julian resumes scool. Settle up P.O matters with S. Health good, spirits ditto.8 Sunday. Ground white with snow this morning. We had an April March now we are having a March April. The week has been rather cold, quite a freeze two or three nights. -- What a difference between the artist's interest in a picture, and the public's interest! The people are interested in the picture, in what it tells them, in the subject, in what they see in it that agrees with their experience, or their ideals. The artist is interested in the art of the picture, the drawing, the coloring, the handling -- in the form and not in the substance. Which is right? The artists do not much respect the popular verdict. An artist will greatly admire a portrait that is not a good likeness, while the first thing that the layman demands is that it be like the original. If it is not like, he has no further interest in it. It is the old story of art for art's sake, and not for what it tells. The professional view of a doctor whom he met rubbing his hands with delight because he had just been called to a chase of some kind or other that was "beautiful" -- just according to the books, every feature was perfect. The book or the picture that has not something besides its art to recommend it, will not carry very far. -- Prof. Huxley says the ethical process and the cosmic process are at war -- the former combats the latter. And yet if your ethical process is not in keeping with the laws of nature, if it be not really founded upon the cosmic order, will it last? will it carry? Can the settled order of the Whole be combatted? Do we combat it in setting up the moral order? Certainly not. The conflict is not fully cleared up by Husley. Our benevolence, our humanity prompts us to interfere with the law of natural selection, the survival of the fittest in seeking to prolong the lives of the unfit. We do prolong them, but evidently to the detriment of the stock. Moral value, moral goodness -- what are they? Are they founded in the constitution of things? Self-denial, self-sacrifice, heroism, mercy, forgiveness, etc. are these things contrary to the eternal verities? Man confronts Nature and puts her under his feet, but only within certain narrow limits. He does not make the tide rollback, but he utilizes it, rides it. He cannot change the nature of lightning, but he can use it, control it, (not tame it.) We say Man tames the lightning, or tames the elements, but that is only a figure of speech. They are untabalbe. He measured them and adjusts his wants to them. He tames the animals; he subdues them. He tames them his own animal nature; he lets the ape and tiger ide. The cosmic process of course includes man and lass his doings, since he is part of the cosmos, and the ethical process is at war with the cosmic process only as the lever is at war with gravitation. A new element is introduced, the will of man, which sorks upon and uses the old order. Man uses Nature and is part ofher unconsciously, while the animals do not. He is an animal plus a developed (more or less) moral consciousness. By reason he uses Nature. (The lamper-eels use Nature also when they go up stream for the stones which the current helps them float down to their nest.) The moral order is opposed to the animal order -- is not that about all? Must think further on this matter. Is the ethical process analogous to the cultivating and improving of the surface of the earth -- draining, clearing, shaping, fertilizing? Is the farmer at war with Nature? In one sense; but unless Nature favors him, where is he? 9 Windy, chilly. Froze some last night. Sheets of snow all day yesterday and a very chilly air. -- Dick Martin just dropped in to show me a handful of young 'possums, very young -- 16 of them -- likely newly-born mice. The mother was picked up dead on the RR, head and one leg cut off and these young were in her pouch each clinging to its teat dead. The connection seems almost as vital as when they-- When I am flollowing my plow over a refractory piece of ground, and see it dip in here and come to the surface there, now and then the turning of the soil fairly, but as often only making a mark, I say that while that is not good plowing it is about as good as the best writing, so rarely do even the best authors more than turn up fresh soil here and there -- a steady uniform furrow, opening up virgin soil -- who turns it? We arewere in the mother's womb. They are born in about two weeks after gestation begins, and placed by the mother in her pouchm where they fasten upon the teats. The teats, Dick says, are long and slender like a little skunks, 'possums, muskrats, woodchucks, and foxes. The red foxes seem to be run down by the fast night trains. 11 Forty years ago to-day -- how appalling that sounds! -- I began my first school, Tongore, Ulster County. A driving snow storm from the North. Winter again in earnest. Moved the wagon-house today, and now call it the fruit house.12 Five or six inches of wet snow yesterday. Flurries of snow in the air this morning, with north wind still blowing very chilly. Mercyry a little above freezing. -- Some natures are essentially moral, the categories to which they refer all things are those of good and evil; others are intellectual; their categories of reference are those of the true and the false; still others are esthetic; they see only the beautiful and ugly, only poetry or prose. 15 Lovely day, the world flooded with light; warm, dry, north wind. A luxury to be out doors. Fine yesterday also, with some cloud. drive to Sherwood's in PM.-- How curious, almost startling, the thought or discovery that there is such a thing as light or sound -- these two universal phenomena that play such a part in our lives. That they are sensations -- merely, physiological effects of vibrations in the ether. But what causes the vibratons in the ether that causes our sensations of light? some material force certainly. The same with sound; the waves are there, if the ear is not. Light effects even the rocks. So there is an influence, an emanation from the sun or the lamp which is real, and which makes the conditions for the sensation we call light. There is such thing as sweet or sour, hot or cold; these are sensations. The universe is an illusion, a creation of our own after all. 17 The fourth of the charmed days. Bright, dry and warm. The yellow redpoll warbler today. Walk up to the creek for suckeys but get none, but how beautiful the full, clear, cold stream rushing along in the sunlight! Began plowing vineyard to-day. 20 Two days of cloud and blue vapor -- veiled, soft, quiet, moist orodous April days. 21 Shower with thunder last night, and light rains during forenoon. Bright and warm in PM, and rain again at sundown. 22 Rain with thunder in morning and cooler. Misty all forenoon. The April drought fairly broken.Notes for an April poem: The soft maples are crimson and the buds of the elm swarm like bees in the branches, The bee comes home with golden thighs from the willows, and honey in her bag from the arbutus. School children pass with their hand full of hepaticas and arbutus. The newly-lpoughed fields glow like the breasts of robins. I walk in the new furrow in the stron sunlight till it is photographed upon my spirit. The farmer strides across the brown field scattering the seed oats at steps alternate. The sparrow, the robin, the jay, have nest-material in their beaks. The kinglet pipes his fine lyrical strain in the evergreens -- he flashes his ruby crown to his mate. The white-throat sings on his way northward. Long and long the highhole calls fro mthe distand field. The first swallow laughs down to me from the sky. From the marshes rise the shill, infantile chorus of the little piping frogs. From the trees above them comse the o-ka-lee of the red-wing. The song of the toad tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r is heard in the land. The first dandelion lies like a gold coin upon the greening turf.Something delicate, prophetic, spiritual is in the air. The bud-scales are falling from the buds -- some are fragrant and gummy. The light shower fills the air with wild perfume, The bluebird lifts and flickers to his mate his cerulean wing, In the twilight the robin-racket is prolonged and intense, The cow bird sits beside his dusky mate on the top of the tree and pumps up his liquid, glassy notes. In the leafless woods the pedestrian partridge beats his drum -- his own inflated breast. Amid the alders in the moist bottoms, the marsh marigold have the effect of coined sunshine. Here and there is the moist bottoms, the marsh marigolds have the effect of coined sunshine. Here and there is the tree-dotted landscape, the greening rye fields delight the eye. Ere the month is ended the shad-blow makes a white mist, here and there along the forest borders.27 A week of fine April weather, slowly warming up till to-day it is nearly summer heat. Again the maples have shaken out their fringelike blossoms, again the cherry trees are white. Season much earlier than last. A few days ago the air was filled with a dleicious wild perfume, a pungent, stimulating, bitter-sweet odor. I could not trace it to its source. It seemed to be general and to fill all the air. Was it from the just-bursting buds of the sugar maples? I know of no toher likely source. Tops of the trees over in Langdon's woods just faintly etched in opening leaf-buds. Currants blooming. On the night of the 24th went to Kingston to hear and see Ingersoll Much stouter and redder than when I saw him last May; much too much belly. Can drink whiskey, he says, but not wine. Wine makes him throb and throb. He ate his supper in his room after the lecture; drank iced-milk and iced-water freely. Lecture full of telling points, much sound argument, and many eloquent passages. He said, in talking with me in his room, that he was by no means sure that immortality was desirable; he would name conditions before accepting it -- unconditional immortality he would refuse.28 A lovely day, feminine day, veiled, tranquil, almost voluptuous. Mercury at 78. A little rain in afternoon. -- Had a glimpse of father the other night in my dream; we were at the table and a plate of trout was passed around, and I was father pick out the big one, as I have so often seen him do. I smiled in my sleep. 29 Clear and cooler, with North wind. 30 The last of the April days, clear, warm, still, with just a tinge of vapor in the air -- the beginning of brided veil ofSummer. Cherry and plum trees in bloom; pear trees spring and apple trees showing the pink. Carpenders began the new barn t0-day. May 1st May day shads in warm soft, wind southerly, wide hazy clouds in the sky. Wood thrush to-day in my grounds. The first big run of shad yesterday. 2. Hot and dry -- 88 degrees in shade to-day. Apple trees leaping into bloom. 3d Cooler this morning; North wind. Leaves half out; a tender mist of green over Langdens woods. Grass and grain need rain.-- In P. library I glance over Mr Grosses "Note on Walt Whitman" in the New Review for April. Must read it at my leisure some time. Gross is a very clever, but a very small critic and man -- has spent his days in overlading and sorting and inspecting the small potatoes of Enlish literature (and no literature has more small potatoes) How much he knows about [crossed out: English lit] said literature that is not worth knowing that it would be a mere weariness to know. He is a man of details and of deft careful workmanship, but entirely superficial. You never strike a great thought or a fresh thought in his workand his criticisms compare with Arnold's, or Scherer's as a vine compares with a tree. The professional critic, if he be not a large nature, can make nothing of Whitman. A man like Gosse, trained in the schools and overtrained is in literature, much like the orthodox theologian in religion. How the latter snorts at the idea that there can be any religion outside the church, the dogmas, the forms, the Bible etc. The former in the same way snorts at the idea that there can be any poetry outside of or in opposition to the rules and models and schools. He sees nothing but a barbarous, unregenerated poetic nature in W.W. Mr G. thinks the secret of W's attraction for certain minds is that they see themselves in him etc. Well, a poet in which such men as Stevenson Symonds, Emerson, Thoreau and others see themselves, must be something and somebody to be sure. In Mr Gosse's poems we see only little Mr Gosse. When we can all see ourselves in him [crossed out: we] he will have increased immeasurably in size and importance. 10 Lovely May days without a break, nearly summer tem-perature. A brief shower on Sunday the 6th getting pretty dry. Showy orchis in bloom and fringed polygala. Leaves all out. Trees clad in their under garments, tho' some of the maples look fully clad. Go to N.Y. to-day to attend Authors Club dinner at night. 12. Back home to-day from N.Y. Still dry and warm. Apple bloom all gone. The last run of shad (apparently) in the river. Was greatly shocked on my arrival home to learn of the sudden death of my neighbor Mr Hathaway yesterday morning. While I was at the authors club, speaking or eating and making merry, he was struggling with death. He has been my neighbor there under the hill for 10 years and I shall miss him much. I could almost look down into his chimney and I shall greatly miss the smoke from his fire going up into the air on winter mornings, and his friendly voice and manner. A blameless, good natured, rather intelligent man, without childrenwith a wife fearfully neat. A deacon in the church, a cooper by trade, and in all ways a kind and brotherly man. My last word with him or vision of him was last Friday the 4th of May. He had lived many years in Brooklyn working at his trade. Came here 10 years ago to look after the big ice house. Age, 67. To-day is his funeral day (Sunday 13th) -- The [crossed out: onl] main difference between a precious stone and a common stone is not in the substance, but in the arrangement -- the crystalization. In substance the charcoal and the diamond are one, but in form how widely they differ. This crystalization is not an easy thing. It requires almost an eternity of time. 19 Weather the last week warm and dry till last night, when a fine shower fell, nearly one inch of water. 19 Go home on morning train take up some shad; reach home at noon. How green and fresh the old spot looks, how the bobolinks sing. all are well. Stay home till Wednesday, the 23d Wind and light rain till last day, the bright and warm. I go fishing over in Meeker's Hollow; take 33 trout to the song of bobolinks. A hot pull home at 12. Take a few trout from West Settlement stream on Monday. Return home in afternoon. 24. Began raining last night from a depression in Va, yesterday, and has rained steadily all day. No let-up for a moment. Easily an inch of water has fallen. Grape arms 2 feet long and begin-ning to break some. 25 Rain continued all day and all last night, and is still at it; threatening to be a regular debauch of the rain godsStill my drains are not running. The earth was very thirsty. Grape arms dropping off this morning. -- Slow rain nearly all day. -- I do not seem to have made any proper record of my visit home from the 19th to the 23rd. Heavy East wind with light rain most of the time. I strolled about in the usual way, listening, looking for something I could not find. I sat for an hour or more on two occasions on the top of the hill above the house looking over in West Settlement and listening to the shore larks singing far above me. Twice after supper I walked out on the hill and looked long and long off east into Montgomery Hollow and trying to conjure up the old days I poked about the grave yard on the hill and found the grave of Obadiah Scudder, 1804, the oldest date I could find. I watched the boys draw dung and tried to get up courage to takea hand in, but could not. One afternoon I went down into the hemlocks and wandered along the little stream, all much changed since my boy hood. How green and fresh the country looked, with a sort of pathos over all, the pathos of my vanished youth. 29. The big rain of the season thus far yesterday; began about 2 P.M. and rained nearly all night, nearly 2 inches of water in 10 hours, drains all running this morning; broke the grape arms badly. I find they break less in stony, gravelly soil; the worst breakage is in the soft sandy soil. Bright and cool to-day. 31. Another rain set in last night from the N.E. a hell of rain seems imminent. The locusts have dropped their bloom. Daisy has come again and clover. June 1st June comes in like a huzzy, cold and sour-- clouds with spurts of rain. 3d A fine day at last but very cool. Dr Bucke and wife here. The 17 year locusts are coming out think in places. 4 Rain again last night and this morning. Clearing off is no good any more. Before you can turn around the rain is upon us again. It is "water affirmative" as Goethe says. No matter where the wind is it rains. Where two or three clouds are gathered together it rains. This is the third week of rain every day but one. 5th Threatens rain again. Coldand sour. We go to West Point. Actually clears off in P.M. and we have a fine day. 6 Cold and sour again threatening rain. Hellish weather, worse than in England. Barn not yet finished. Straw-berries just ripening a little. A cold wave coming from the N.W. with frosts in its course. In P.M. walk over to the weasel swamp. Find three interesting things -- The 17 year locusts coming out all along the borders of the woods; some little bushes loaded with them. Under certain trees find their little earth mounds [crossed out: thick] many of them yet sealed up, or with only a peep hole in them. Saw a little moth that evidently imitates bird droppings on the leaves. When disturbed it would fly a few rods and alight on [crossed out: the]a broad green leaf, spreading itself out perfectly flat, simulating the droppings of a bird. It was yellowish with a faint dark brown etched upon its wings. It would not move till touched. I have read of a moth or butterfly found on some island of Oceanica that exactly mimmicks the excrement of a bird upon a leaf -- this of course for protection. Found the nest of the worm-eating warbler beside the path in the edge of the woods. As I came along down the path on my return a small brown bird started up from the ground a few feet from me. From the glimpse of it I had, I took it to be the oven bird. Looking to the spot [crossed out: from] whence it started I saw another bird with a striped head standing on the edge of a nest in the side of the bank with the droppings of one of the young birds, whose heads I saw beneath her, in her beak. My appearance upon the scene was sudden and the mother bird was surprised while waiting upon her young. She stood motion-less, half turned toward me and kept the white mass in her beak, neither of us stirred for a minute or two, when I withdrew and sat down a few paces away. The male bird now became quite uneasy and flitted from bush to bush and uttered his alarm chip. The mother bird never stirred. I could see her loaded beak from where I sat. In two or three minutes she dropped or otherwise disposed of her unsavory morsel, but kept her place above her young. Then the male bird, seeing that was the game, quieted down also and dis-appeared from view. After long waiting I approached the nest and pausing 10 feet away, regarded it some moments. The bird never stirred. Then came nearer, and when I sat down within 4 or 5 feet of the nest the parent bird flew out upon the ground 3 or 4 paces from me and began trying that old confidence game of the birds upon me. She was seized with incipient paralysis, she dragged herself about in the ground, she grieved and tottered and seemed about ready to go all to pieces. [crossed out: The male now sudden] seeing this game did not work she began to use her wings and to scold sharply. The male now suddenly appeared upon the scene, and, ture to his name had a worm in his beak. Their scolding brought avireo upon the scene, which they seemed to regard as an intrusion. The nest was composed mainly of dry leaves. The young were probably a week old. I shall visit them again. 7. Cold and sour; almost a frost last night. No heat since April. We greatly overdrew our a/c in that long succession of bright mild days in March and April. 9 Weather still fair and beginning to warm up. Nearly 80 to-day. Grape arms have broken very badly this year. Met poor old Mrs Green last night trudging down from Esopus to take train here to go to Newburgh to see her son fatally hurt on the R.R. Poor old mother, I could have wept with her. Son a worth-less fellow, hard drinker, better dead than alive, but his mothersheart could not give him up easily. There were tears on her brown wrinkled face as we talked. It was very hard for her she said, so old, so much trouble, so much hard work as she had seen. [???] children, a drinking husband and sons, poverty and yet the old woman tries to keep up a cheerful front, and has preserved a certain innocence and sweetness. The methodist dominie went down and prayed beside her son; went on purpose, she said. "It was showing him a good deal of respect" said she, and she was touched by it. Probably the first mark of respect the poor devil had ever seen. I have known her for 20 years and yet she cant get my name right; calls me Mr Burrell generally. As she stepped along alertly to get on the train I saw how pinched and crooked her old back looked, bet. 70 and 80 10 No clouds to-day. Summer heat over 80. A lovely June day. Walked to the woods. Found nest of water thrush, and came near another, the brood had flown. Locusts in full chorus to-day. How warm and fragrant the breath of the meadow I passed through. A very little grape bloom to-day under the hill. 11. A still dim day of great heat, 90 in shade. 12 Still very hot; sky veiled with vapor or smoke till noon. Go to Vassar. A heavy shower at 6 1/2 P.M. 13. Hot, with streaks of sunshine cooler in evening. 14. Bright, cooler; grapes blooming. 21. Very warm the past ten days, from 80 to 90. Light thunder showers. Grapes done blooming yesterday, except a few stragglers, about the same as last year. Currants earlier. The 17-year cicadas humming and flying everywhere. Buildings at last finished and painted. 23. Heat continues, 92 to-day on north end of house. Began the currants. I do not remember such a hot June. July 1st No let-up in the heat, from 86 degrees to 91 degrees every day. Only light dashes of rain; getting dry. Finished currants yesterday, about 4 tons. Prices low.2d Mercury 90 degrees to-day. Start for Snyder Hollow, Julian and I. Reach Larkins about 10 A.M. Stay there in the camp till Friday the 6th A delicious time -- never had better, Julian a good camper out. Great pleasure in being with him in the woods and teaching him wood craft. Took [crossed out: ???] and ate about 90 trout from 5 to 10 inches. Began to get cooler on the 4th. Stopped at Phoececia and caught 2 fine rainbow trout. In the ice-cream saloon the boy asked us, "Will you have it in brick or in bulk?" "If the bricks are bulky," I said "We will have it in 'brick'"? "But what is the difference?" "In the brick it is all in a cake, and in bulk it is shovelled out.""'Shovelled out sounds good", we replied, "we are very hungry for cream;" we will try it both ways" which we did, and liked the shovelled out plates the best. Reached home Friday night. 10. Very cool for past few days and very dry; things begin to suffer much for want of water. 12 Start for Adirondacks to-day on invitation of Mr Chubb. Very hot. Stay at White Hall over night. Reach the Willey House in Keene Friday P.M. Stay one week. Very cool and delightful. The grandest mountain view I ever saw.Like the Chubbs much. Give a talk on Nature in Parlors on Saturday night, and one on Whitman on Sunday night. On Monday we climb Hurricane Mt. The view amazing for extent and sublimity. Meet Prof Davison and some of his philosophers; the Prof. an old time student and thinker -- lives on the past. Nothing new or vital in him. (The new is always vital, and the vital is always new). Return home Friday the 20th; heat terrible -- 94 in the cars all day, 96 in Albany and Troy stations. Very dry, -- a light rain last Sunday the 15th. 22d Cool and cloudy, about 1/2 ich of rain last night.Strays the drouth, but does not cure it. Grapes and all things suffering. A summer of great heat and dryness so far. -- I can well understand the feelings of the old Romans that prompted them to thrash and flog their gods when things went wrong with them. I never knew of a god that did not deserve flogging every day in the year. Take the god of rain, for instance. What a mess he makes of it, always drowning some part of the country and burning up some other part. 24. Cloudy, misty, getting hot. A hot wave near by no rain to speak of. Getting ready to go out to old home, Julian and I.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: April 13, 1888 - March 4, 1889
Text: April 13 A day of great brightness and beauty, but sharp; froze hard last night. While waiting for the little boat plucked my first hepatica, a small handful of them down by the river. Dear, welcome flower. Very happy these days improving my new lot. Blessed is the man who has a lot to improve, or who has some real occupation. How trivial and flitting the new generation seems to one -- of no account. The people whom we find upon the stage when we come into the world -- the old established...
Show moreApril 13 A day of great brightness and beauty, but sharp; froze hard last night. While waiting for the little boat plucked my first hepatica, a small handful of them down by the river. Dear, welcome flower. Very happy these days improving my new lot. Blessed is the man who has a lot to improve, or who has some real occupation. How trivial and flitting the new generation seems to one -- of no account. The people whom we find upon the stage when we come into the world -- the old established people, they seem important, and like a partof the natural system of things. When they pass away what a void it leaves. Those who take their places, the new set, how inconsequential they seem . But they are for the most part the same class of[crossed out: people] persons, and will seem permanent and important to others as the old people did to us. So it goes. -- The Andover Review says that "in Christ God reconciled the world unto himself" How curious and absurd this jargon of the theologians does sound to an outsider. And jargon it is. Theology and the theological view of the universe is precisely thehe antipode of the natural or scientific view. There is no sense or reason in it. It comes down to us from the dark ages. It ruled the minds of men before science or the rationalistic view of things was born. Think of what trouble poor God took to reconcile [crossed out: him] the world to himself; what a curious and intricate scheme he concocted -- worthy a theologian He got himself born of a virgin, then grew to manhood, then became an itinerant preacher, then got himself crucified by the Romans and buried, then came to life again etc. etc. -- all to reconcile the world to himself, that is to appease his own anger20 April continues cool with very beautiful days now and then; no warmth yet. Last night I found the last remnant of snow bank on my grounds, no bigger than my hand. Very busy and happy on my new lot. Work hard all day, and sleep pretty well at night. The fox sparrows sing all about and cheer me. And the purple finch -- how finely he sings these days. The death of Matthew Arnold which came without warning the other day, has been constantly in my thoughts since. does it give a sad tinge to this April, or does April beautify and render more significanthis death? It does really seem to put a seal upon him as I think of him as I go about my work and hear the happy birds and see the grass springing. April can make even death beautiful. I look upon Arnold as the greatest critic of English literature, such steadiness, directness, sureness of aim, and elevation, we have not before seen. He had the best qualities of the French and he had something the French have not. He was not at all a miscellaneous man; he stood for certain definite things; he was like a through train always on time and only fetching up at important points. His poetry is wonderfully good, only for some reason it does not melt intoone and stick to his mind, as it ought to. As with all first-class men, his death leaves a vacancy that no one else can fill. April 27 The perfection of April days. Yesterday and today were and are ideal days. And a perfect day in April surpasses all others. Its sweetness, freshness, uncloyingness, and a sort of spirituality can be had at no other time. Still, brooding days, when every sound strikes musically upon the ear. The high-hole now his long loud call comes up from the fields on all sides. At night the full moon rises red and warm and the toad begins his long drawn and to me musical tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-rVery busy these days setting out currants. This morning the river is like a great mirror. This labor in the field gives me a keener relish for Nature. I get such glances from her, stolen glances. One may have too much leisure. But the laboring man does not get sated with Nature. He has not time. To him she is like a mistress who never fully indulges him. April 29. Sunday. Very hot, 85 degrees in the shade; hot and dry [crossed ou: all the] since Wednesday. Julian and I get our first arbutus to-day. Several of the little warblers here. Oriole came yesterday, but silent.May 1st Overcast -- light rain, cool. Go to P. to meet Mulford. He does not come. 6th A cool week with frost one or two nights; getting dry; no rain to speak of for several weeks. Very busy at the new lot. The summer birds are arriving fast. Wood thrush yesterday. A walk through the woods with Mr Buck and Mr Mason. Violets in bloom. The adders tongue unusually late this season. Often find it before arbutus. Maples late. These things vary much different seasons. Shad trees in bloom.22d A cool May so far, and very dry up to the 12th; then a fine rain. Apple trees in bloom for a week past, just beginning to drop their petals. The world very beautiful now, like fairy land. Still at work in the fields, and quite well and happy. One cannot keep his love for the land, the soil, without work. Work brings him close to it; he embraces it and loves it and strikes his roots into it. 24 Still cool with light rain. The apple bloom is beginning to strew the ground. My spring work about done; begin to feel as if I could lay off a little.On the whole it has been better for me than a trip to Europe. Every drop of sweat I let fall into these furrows came back to me in many ways. My sleep seems restored and my interest in things is much keener. -- One reason why this country is uninteresting to the cultivated foreigner, is that it is mainly the work or result of the modern industrial democratic spirit, while Europe [crossed out: is the] was mainly fashioned [crossed out: by the] during the age of poetry and romance, the age of chivalry, of lords and ladies, before the "average man" with his industries and rail roads and prose had come to the front.All the vest[crossed out: a]iges of that previous age are profoundly interesting to us, because we see [crossed out: it] them afar off; [crossed out: it] the age belongs to literature and poetry and art and romance. Man had not then lost the perception of and the desire for beauty. In this country the mass of the people are [crossed out: ???] entire strangers [crossed out: of] to the sentiment of beauty; they deform whatever they touch. Will it always be so? -- I believe mind to be just as insep[crossed out:e]arable from matter as Electricity is; it is not matter but a property or quality of matter. Electricity is not a thing; it is probably a mode of motion, of molecular motion.May 30 Go home to-day on morning train. Walk up form station with a burden of shad. Reach home at 11 1/2. Hiram and his men are seated on the stone steps waiting dinner. The old place looks green and fresh, apple trees just blooming. In afternoon walk over to Curtis's place to see Abigail. No one at home. Sit a long time on the door steps wrapped in thoughts of the past, and in gazing upon the familiar landscape about me. It is all sweet and good and I enjoy being alone at such a time and place. Walk up through the woods, the dog following me. He trees a woodchuck up a small smooth sapling.the chuck keeps his hold as long as he can, but presently his feet begin to slip; he can keep up the pressure no longer, and down he comes into the dogs jaws. -- 6:45 p.m Out on the hill in the woods on my way again over to see sister Abigail, the fresh green familiar scene about me, the hermit thrush singing in the mountain above me, the bobolink in the meadows, the air still and delicious; sky nearly overcast, robins warbling here and there, cattle lowing, orchards in bloom, fresh plowed land all about the distant landscape. Oh, that hermits flute, how it pleases me! 31. Warm and still. I walk up the road early in the morning to hear the bobolinks in the meadows, how they do sing, and very nearly song of my boyhood, only some slight variations. But the song up there towards the sky above the hill meadows is new; it is the song of the shore lark; presently my eye discerns the happy singer 2 or 3 hundred feet in the air flying round and round; when he utters his crude halting lisping song he flies in a peculiar manner, tail spread and very conspicuous, and wings slowly flapping. The song is only a faint copy of the sky larks. The bird sings 5 minutes after I [crossed out: see] discover him, then nears theEarth singing at intervals till within a hundred feet of the ground when he plunges straight down in true sky lark fashion. Then I go up on the top of the big side hill where the boys are plowing, dragging and sowing oats. Here I sit a long time and immensely enjoy the scene. Charley Grant is there and with his blind eyes sees the landscape in memory thirty years back. I tell him what is in this direction and what in that, and he seems to see it all again. Hiram sows the oats, and while waiting for the plow, sits in deep meditation on the wall. Then I go up to the Old Clump and spend [crossed out: a couple of] an hour on the top; three hermits are in song as I go up. The spring beauty in bloom on the summit. In the afternoon I go attended by a throng of memories, over to the stream below the school house and fish a little, and dream a good deal; take three fine trout, which are as well as three hundred, I walk over [crossed out: ???] about the site of the old school house and in the field where we used to play ball 40 years ago, and think of many things. I am tempted to go up to the spring where we used to get water, but I do not go. The spring is doubtless there, but where are the childish faces it used to mirror? Dead, many of them and scattered far and wide, the others.I return by Angie's house and sit [crossed out: and] an hour with her and John, then home again. June 1st A bright lovely day rather cool. At 9 a.m. I leave home and go down through Chase's fields and woods to the church yard. I sit a long time at the graves of my dead. It seemed for a day or two afterward that I had seen father and mother, so vividly did their images rise up before me. Two men at the stable across the way finally disturb [crossed out: me] and annoy me much. One was telling the other about his bakly horse, his voice was harsh as a grater and he keptthe air blue with oaths. I moved away and after a while came back again. Just such June days thousands of them they had seen, but not here they lie. I noted that [crossed out: Aunt] Aunt Olly died on the 2d of June 1839. The new made grave of H. K. Jr beside fahter's makes me remember that I had half hoped, half feared that my own place would be there. At 11 am I walk up to the village and pass the rest of the day with Smith and Emma. S. and I walk up the copper mine in the late afternoon. Then we try for trout, but get none. I stay all night and take early trainfor Homer Lynch's in the morning. Find Jane well; Homer in the lot dragging, not so well as when I last saw him; he is fast breaking, klled by overwork, or reckless work and exposure. In the afternoon we drive to Edens, Ursula with us. Edens folks well and at supper when we arrive. Margaret looks bad; she too is breaking. 3 Sunday. Cool and bright. Chant comes over with Hirams team and I go back with him, a fine drive over the mountains. Stay at Hiram's all night. 4 Leave home at 7. Hiram and I. H. walks down with me to the village, where I take the train for Olive.As I enter Father North's door I see him sitting in a chair looking old and feeble. It has been over a year and a half since I have seen him. He looks up an recognizes me, and is very glad to see me. He can hardly walk. I help him up and into the other room. We sit here several hours to-gether. He talks of the past and of the time he used to cradle and reap, and gets quite animated over it. Also of wrestling; back hold was his favorite hold. As I help him walk across the floor, he says, jocosely, that he is done dancing.June 20 Go down to West Point and with Denton and others make an excursion to tamarack swamps. A hot day. The great purple fringed orchids in bloom in the swamps, very fine. Am taken with a bad head ache; go home with E. P. Roe, who keeps me over night and treats me very kindly. 24 Very hot and dry. June has been a pretty dry month. Showers all around us to-day but only a sprinkle here. 28 An old fashioned rain from the N.E. and N. began in the morning slowly and has rained moderately till this midafternoon. Drew in the last of the hay yesterday. A good year for clover. Never saw more clover. A great dealof white clover, and being pretty dry, the bees have made clover honey. 30 A bright cool morning, June rounded and full. Curr[crossed out:e]ants nearly ready. This mornign the bees are busy in the chestnut trees gathering pollen. The trees by the road near Gordons, hum like a hive. A cuckoo calling a long time this morning in the old apple tree by the house; had a good view of him, the black billed species. In calling his manner and motions are much like a dove or pigeon in cooing. I have often noticed a certain resemblence to the pigeon in his eye and head, and now the resemblence is confirmed by his way of calling or cooing. He inflates his throat quite as much as the dove does and makes a visible effort to produce the notes. His tail moves at every note. The remote ancestor of the cuckoo is nocturnal in his habits, which the pigeon is not.July 7 Go with Mr Van Cleef up to Balsam Lake and spend three days; a very agreeable time. Cool and delightful. Eat and sleep at a great rate; take about 50 trout from the lake in all, nearly as many casts for each trout as it takes bullets to kill a man in war. On Sunday the 8th, go to top of Balsam mountain and get a glimpse of my native hills from the observatory there. Heard the hermit thrush; about the lake heard the veery, olive-backed and wood thrushes, the latter most common. On Sunday while fising on the lake saw some small objectswimming across the glassy surface. As I came near I saw it was a mouse, the meadow mouse. He dipped beneath the water as I came near, I saw it was a mouse, the meadow-mouse. He dipped beneath the water as I came near, but came to the surface again in a twinkling. His legs went so swift I could hardly see them. I put out my oar and he crawled up it. Then from the oar he came to my hand and cuddled up in it as if he was cold fixing his feet and cleaning himself and eyeing me keenly. After holding him awhile I put down in the boat where he remained nearly an hour, when he got disconcerted and boldly plunged over board and set out for shore again. The meadown mouse is quite at home in the water, only he cannot stay long beneath the surface. 12 Eventless days, mostly occupied in pulling weeds, hoeing and lounging about; full of sad thoughts about Walt Whitman, expect each day to hear of his death, and trying to taste the bitter cup in advacne so as to be used to it when it really comes. How life will seem to me with Whitman gone I cannot imagine. He is my larger, greater earlier self. No man alive seems quite so near to me in many ways. 14 A letter from Walt; he is better and my spirits revive. Weather very dry; no rain to speak of since early May.19 A fine pouring rain [crossed out: the] to-day, began at 4 in the morning; how delicious it was to hear it come down. Rained till nearly noon; then a smart shower at 6 p.m. Wet the ground pretty well. July so far very cool, especially the nights 24 Digging our potatoes for market, price high (3.75 dollars) but yield poor, owing to dry weather. May get back the expense and a little more, in which case the fun of the thing will not have cost me anything. All my hoeing, watering, killing of bugs, on Sunday and nights, will not costme a cent Nights still very cool, getting very dry again. In the potato patch a big spider with a young toad, body of toad about one inch long, spider has fangs planted in the back of the toads neck, toad soon succumbs, spider easily drags him along; when the toad is dead he leaves him and retreats into the shade under a weed. Toad soon turns dark color. Did the spider suck his blood? He did not come back and claim his prey. When Johnny was cultivating the grapes, one of the native mice starts up with her young clinging to her teats and scampers away. 25 Whitman still improving, so says a card from Phila. A great load is lifted from my spirits. -- Think of the myriads of peoples that fill the past, the great ocean. There in that sea of faces I see father and mother; how precious they look to me. Oh if they could only draw near and speak! -- The little mouse I saw swimming in Balsam Lake did not get as wet as a domestic animal would have [crossed out: done]. It was quite dry save on its legs and belly. Its fur shed water like a duck's feathers. 26 the July days go by and bring me little pleasure or interest. I pull weeds by spurts, read a little, and look after the farm work. I crave and need above all some one to talk to, some comrade, and quite a different home life from what I have, not the least companionship seems possible between me and wife, and Julian is still too young to meet the requirement. Aug 1st A warm day after the rain of last night, a stingy rain, considering our needs. A great downpour in P. and in R. but only about 1/2 inch here. All summer the showers have [crossed out: went] gone round us, as theydo nearly every summer. We get the skirts of the showers that go south and north, but seldom does a shower strike us fairly. Digging potatoes to-day, and pulling weeds, and long sitting i the summer house with book or magazine. But little relish for reading and none for literary work. 2d A cool, still smoky day, a real August day with a hint of fall. 3 I miss the indigo bird this summer; have hardly heard one; usually [crossed out: their] his not is very noticeable the long August days. I hope no ill has befallen him.4 A smart thunder shower after a very hot forenoon. It came black and portentious out of the north west, a very carnival of thunder and lightning. Have not heard such rapid explosives for many a day. Certainly no before this season. An inch of water fell in a brief time. -- How completely the world was once dominated by theological ideas, but how surely these ideas and ideals are passing away, and the world is coming under the sway of an entirely different class of ideas -- the ideas begotten by physical science and naturalism.The Evangelical churches [crossed out: ???] are slowly but surely giving up their theology, outgrowing it, getting ashamed of it. It is [crossed out: ???] moribund. [crossed out: and] They are trimming their sails to catch the new forces. Only the old mother Church, the Catholic, still abates not her superstitions. She has faced and weathered many a storm and she thinks she can weather this one, but she cannot. This is the flood, the deluge, and she must either float or be buried beneath the waves, or to vary the figure, it is not merely a change in the weather; it is a change like the going off the ice ageAug 5. While walking amid my new vineyard and lamenting the damage done by the rain, my attention was attracted by a [crossed out: bi] strange bird note high in the air. Presently I discovered the bird circling around as if undecided which way to go. It seemed lost. After a moment I know it to be an English sky lark. Its size, flight, and strong, harsh call note, were those of the lark. It finally went northward. We have not bird that looks just as that did as it flew swiftly across the sky.6 Wet and drizzly; no work today. Read Stedman a little, but soon tire. There is something fine and choice about his prose, and yet it does not ventilate the mind like that of the great writers. On the contrary the air is rather close and the view narrow. But such a poem as his on John Brown really makes a breeze in the mind. 12 Rain, rain, and cool. 15 Dr Burroughs and family came to-day. Immensely tickled to see him, a man to love and follow.16 A trip to the falls in the woods. Spend a couple of hours with the Doctor Julian and Johnny. Weather very hot and muggy. 17 Lawyer Proctor of Brooklyn calls and spends the day. Has some new things to tell me. He says some birds Earth them selves and some wash, and a few do both. The English sparrow does both, says that the mass of jelly like spawn in the pools in spring is by the liz[crossed out:z]ard; that it swells up after being deposited. Says the young of the box turtle keep under the ground till they are a few years old; are dirt color. A young farmer in N.J. told him this, which hehas found correct. That is why we never see any small ones of this species. He has switched a garden snake when a boy and seen the young come out of her mouth, and then run in again. He saw a cross between a monkey and a cat, and a cat and a rabbit. He is very prolix, but has real knowledge. He is a bachelor and says he has never known woman. 19 A delicious August day. We go to church in morning, and take a row on the river in the afternoon, a sweet day. 20 The good doctor and family leave to-day. Of all my relatives he it is whom I love most.23d A clear, bright, vig[crossed out:e]orous morning with a decided feeling of fall; must have come near a frost last night back in the hills. Sleep nearly perfect these days, and general healthy very good. From 24th to 27th at Onteora Park in the Catskills, a pleasant restful time. Sept 1st Alone in this house once more. Mrs. B. and Julian at Hobard since Thursday. A heavy rain last night and this morning. Warm, with breaking sky now. -- There seems to be some spirit or presence in the soil to whichvegetation acts as a sort of draft draught, just as the chimney is draught to the air in the room. This spirit or force finds an outlet and expression in vegetation. Hence when a tree or plant or vine gets established, how difficult it is to make anything grow beneath it. The current of growth seem to be all going out through the established vine. It is not merely a question of moisture and fertility, but the soil is preoccupied; its attention is all diverted into the old channel. Hence seeds lay dormant in the ground for years, with plenty of moisture and fertility about them, and only the vital force of the soil wanting. This finds an outlet through the other growths, check these andthe seeds germinate and spring up at once, like soldiers, to take the place of their slain comrades. 7 Very cold; a frost in some places back of the hill last night. Busy these days shipping grapes. 8 A heavy rain and warm. Go to P. to-day. -- The new book or essay must either add to our knowledge, or else it must tell us what we already know in such a way as to make us enjoy it afresh. If it is neither new in matter, nor fresh in treatment we do not want it. Can my books stand this test? I believe they can. 19. Start for Camden to-day. Spend a few hours in N.Y. and then to Camden about 4 p.m. Walt is lying on his bed when I enter his room. He looks and speaks as usual. I stand by his bed side a few moments, his hand in mine, and then help him up and to his chair, where he sits amid a chaos of books letters and papers, as usual. He talks and looks almost the same as usual. Is alert and curious when I speak. I note his hearing is poorer than when we met a year ago. I stay an hour with him, and then, for fear of tiring him, go over to Phila. to see Gilchrist. Come back at night and find Walt bright and ready to talk as ever. But we soon tire him, and so leave.20. This was one of Walts poor days and I do not see him, tho' I call twice. Go to the grave of Franklin, and gaze at it long through the iron fence from the side walk. How much it calls up and suggests. Visit the old State House and indepencence Hall also for the first time. In the evening see Walt for a moment to say good bye. He is partly undressed and ready for bed. He presses my hand long and tenderly, we kiss and part, probably for the last time. I think he has in his own mind given up the fight, and awaits the end.21 To Brille on the Jersey coast three days with the Johnsons. Beautiful country, like England, and the sea roaring away there in the distance. Weather cool and fair. 24 Back home to-day and find that Mrs. B. and Julian came back the day I left. Oct 6. Weather cool and wet; an unusually wet fall and cold, more rain I think, than even last fall. Health good these days, and my interest in the place, in grapes, and my vineyards etc. keener than ever.10 The first glorious October day, full of light and beauty. Spent it on the housetop mending my chimney. How my eye did rove from the work in hand. 14 Still cold and wet; rain, rain, and yet no severe frosts. Too much cloud for frosts, but when shall we have our beautiful autumn days? 15 A glorious day, too bright. 16 Rain, rain. -- After all would one not rather be a poet who could not be narrowed into a Cause, so large and sure and easy that no one could dispute him, tho' they might be indifferent to him. To excel on the common ground and with the accepted means and tools -- that is the best -- "The Whitman Cause" sounds provincial. 18. Fine day, full of color. 19. Rain, rain, rain. 20. Fine morning, clearing after the rain and quite warm 21. Clear and windy, and cold. 22. Mild, partly over cast. 23. Cloud and mist and light rain. 24. Rain in the morning, clearing at noon. 25 A lovely day, still warm, and brilliant, too fine to last. moving stone wall, and plowing etc. 26 Fair day of cloud and sunshine. 27 Rain and mist and fog. 28 Fog and mist and little rain, the ground covered with just fallen leaves. Signs of a cold wave.The gusts of wind bring down the leaves in great flocks. They look like the alighting of immense flocks of little and big golden birds. Maples will soon be stripped, some of them are so already. 29 Clearing weather 30 Bright and fair. 31 Fine day. go to P. in quest of a house for wife. Nov. 1 A lovely day at last; a perfect Indian Summer day. Thermometer above 60 for the first time in many weeks. 2 Still fine. Myron Benton comes at 4 1/2 P.M. Suddenly the world and life looks different to me, so glad am I to see him. For a moment the atmosphere of long gone days is over things again and the old joy in life comes back. 3d Cloud and light rain, clearing cool and delightful in afternoon. We go to P. 4 A perfect Nov. day, bright, cool still, no cloud, no wind, charming. 5 Fine day. 6 Warm, cloudy, threatening rain in fore noon, clearing in afternoon. Election day. Vote again for Cleveland; long since sick of high tariff. 7 Fine day. Election news bad. 8 Cloudy; slow rain in afternoon. 9 Warm, with slow rain in forenoon. 10 Mist, fog and rain. I notice that the wild carrots blooming this fall are quite pink; shows how a cool mild climate gives more color to the flowers as in England12. Go home to-day to see about Hiram's affair; an overcast Nov. day; drink again at the old fountain of youth; look again upon the dear familiar scenes. Walk over to Curtis's old house and down to J. S. Carroll's in afternoon. 13 Down to Olive this morning to see father North, doubtless for the last time. The old man on his back in bed; tells me he is almost gone. But he gets up in afternoon and sits in his chair, jokes a little and looks at times quite like himslef, and his mind seems unchanged, except a weaker memory. Slowly his sun is setting, and in a few months at most must vanish in darkness. A bright lovely day. the soft grindstone cuts the steel faster than the hard. It gives itself away more liberally. Nov 25 Sunday. The past week cold, clear and hard. Tuesday night the mercury fell to 18 degrees. Wednesday was clear and cold, Thursday the same, Thursday night another cold wave which sent the mercury down to 10 and froze over all the ponds, and made skating. Friday clear and cold and dry. Saturday, still, overcast. To-day a fierce wind from the north, almost a gale with snow which set in about noon. The flakes drive horizontally throughthe air. If this is but the introduction to winter, what prospect before us. If these days are the foothills, what are the mountains to be? How chilling the river looks through the veil of snow, lashed and foaming down there. The past week and part of the week before, at work in the old house, George R. and I. Have it now nearly ready for the masons. Dec. 2d Bright and lovely. I sit a long time on the old elm tree out by the spring and gaze upon my new land and plan and speculate about the future of my vineyard. In afternoon Julian and I go over to Sterlings and walk with Henry overhis land, advising him about planting vineyards etc. Coming back old Mr Sterling walks ith us and shows us the old road through the woods. the old Scotchman, I felt tender toward him, Scott and Burns and Carllyle walked beside me in him. 9 Much dark damp cloudy weather the past week, but no severe cold, and no snow. Plastered the old house. 10 A melting snow all day; an inch or two remaining on the ground. 14 Ground bare and hardly frozen, mercury down to 16 degrees this morning. A cold wave upon us. 15 Bright, clear, sharp, exhilarating move some trees.-- The best prose, the best criticism of whatever sort, is always creative like the best poetry. A page may be eloquent and brilliant and not be creative, I think Lowells prose is seldom creative. Matthew Arnold's is much more generally so. Arnold often quickens and satisfies one's deepest sesne. Goethe's criticism was often creative, so was St Beuves. Mr. Stedmans? I doubt it. Emersons prose at its best is creative. This is the test or proof that it is good prose. It feeds and stimulates the spirit. Creative prose gives me a sense of life and reality like that of nature. Ones mind is brought in contact with someting [crossed out: real and wo] palpable and warm. Mr Birrell comes nearthe creative touch at times, but I am not certain that he really has it. Indeed, I am not certain that any British critic, now that Arnold is gone, has it. I note it at times in Amiel's journal. The writer of creative prose always in producing it, experiences a kind of intellectual orgasm, as does the reader, if he be capable of it, in reading it. Vital prose is but another name for creative force. -- How many of the notions of mankinds are like the common one that the sun puts out the fire. The sun does put out the fire to the eye, but not to the pot above it. Its [crossed out: own] greater light eclipses the lesser light of the fire,but in no way does it check it. 17 Heavy rain of 36 hours or more. Ground chock full of water and frost all out. One of my tile drains unable to carry off the water. Last night Julian finished his school composition, and sat in his chair by the stove and read it to me. It is about "Papas Dogs", he has been at work on it many days. It is quite a production. 19 Bright sharp days, floating ice in the river; no snow to be seen. 21. Bright and pleasant. Go up to the school in afternoon to hear the speaking, compositions, etc. Julian is very anxious I should be on hand to hear him. He is quite embarassed when his turncomes, but he does well, decidedly the best of all of them. He speaks two pieces and reads his essay. His essay made them laugh. It was the second one he has written. His other described his tramp from Highland home two winters ago. It also made them laugh, he said. I am glad to see his mind take this turn. He does not look far off for a theme, like the other boys, but writes about something near at hand, that he actually knows about. His essay was in my own vein, and vastly more promising than anything I ever did at that age. It was areal piece of writing about my dogs. How curious it was to me to see him stand up there and read an original essay!22. Clear and cold, mercury below 10 degrees. Ice on the river stationary this morning (11 am). The bare naked earth aches with cold. 23 Bright and milder. 24 Lovely day without a cloud, looks like Indian Summer. Drive to P; roads dry and dusty. Thermometer about 40 degrees. 25 The mildest, finest Xmas I have seen in many, many years, soft and mild as October. Bees out of the hives. Thermometer 50 degrees on north side of the house. Feel well and enjoy standing about in the genial warmth and looking out into the soft hazy day, and upon the brown earth. 26 Still warm and pleasant. Bluebirds call in the air.27 A warm rain out of the sout hwest threatens to be severe. Reading "Tom Brown" to Julian these nights, and get very much excited over it myself. J. seems to think much about Martin, the "madman" as the boys called him. Dec 30. Day of great calm and beauty. A perfect winter Indian summer day. Here and there a floating mass ofice in the river like a stray cloud in a summer sky. 31. A mild cloudy day, a sprinkle of rain in morning. Drive to P. plenty of mud.1889 January 1st A bright warm lovely day, [crossed out: the] a copy of Xmas, no frost in the ground, no wind. Thermometer about 40 degrees. 2d Last night came Willie. Glad to see him, Eden's only child, about 23 years of age. To-day cloudy and mild, sun almost got through several times. 3d The mild gentle weather continues. Hardly a cloud to-day. Thermometer about [crossed out: 50] 44 degrees. At no time during the fall did we have ten days of as fine weather as the past ten have been. This weather was due us long ago but got delayed somewhere. Outlook for ice on the river very poor.1889 January 4 Still clear and mild. A strange winter calm. Is nature holding her breath, which will come by and by with de-doubled force? 5. Mild, overcast, with rain from the north at night. 6 Cooler, cloudy, with some rain. An eagle sat this morning a long time on the top of a tree down by the river. He looked as big as a turkey -- I notice that in the shallower water along shore the time turns much quicker than out in the deeper channel. 9 The 5th anniversary of father's death; Sat in my study and wrote. Warm rain from 11 to 4.10 Heavy rain again yesterday. Thermometer 50. Down to 40 to-day with high wind No frost in the ground, no ice on the river; river as free from ice as in May. The rye grows perceptibly. Mrs. B. and Julian start for Poughkeepsie to-day to board, the rest of the winter. It is my plan that we keep house here no more. I am to stay here a week or so and try again to write something. 15 A day of sun and calm, a kind of heroic Indian summeer, mercury down to 17 degrees this morning. No snow, not a speck of ice on the river. The little steamer Black resumes her trips to-day I [crossed out: ???] sit in my study by the open fire and look over some essays with a view to printing a new vol. "Indoor Studies". In afternoon I burn brush and help about hauling stone. A great calm over all Nature; not a cloud in the sky. Much worried about my dog, "I-know" who disappeared very mysteriously Monday morning during my absense in P. 16 Another lovely mild, Indian summer day. Thermometer 40 degrees. "I-know" turns up at Dr Gills where there are two sluts in heat. I thought surely he would come home with me, but no, he is crazy, like a man desperately in love, there is not spot on earth like that one. 17 A warm rain from the S.W. last night and this morning. Sudden heavy spurts this forenoon. Bees out of the hive. Clear at night with a full moon. 18 Day like a dream; the river a mirror, the sky a benediction. Florida days almost. Bees lively about the hives. Few birds this wintter so far, only a lot of gold-finches about, a few snow-birds, chickadees, and nuthatches and now and then a troop of blue birds. No ice in the river for ten days or more. First considerable snow about the 20th -- 8 inches, which drives me to Po'keepsie. Spend the rest of the month and all of Feb. in P. writing most of each forenoon; write another essay on Science and Theology, and a paper on Lovers of Nature, and some miscellaneous stuff, mostly of a theological cast. Feel pretty well, but one bad head ache and one attack of winter cholera. Mrs B. in one of [crossed out: hr] her tantrums the last of Feb. Weather a moderate uniform winter temperature, but little snow and no severe cold; thermometer down to 3 below once or twice. River closed up about the 1st of Feb. ice 6 inches thick. March 1st A bright lovely day, a good sap day; really feelslike Spring. Snow nearly gone. Walk over on the ice to Highland and back. Still life does not look very inviting to me. 3. Warm and spring like, rain in forenoon, only little patches of snow and ice left. 4 News this morning from Scotland that my friend Robert Scoular is dead. Made his aquaintance at Alloway in 1882. He visited me here in summer of 1886. A most hearty enjoyable Scotchman, a boy in enthusiasm and in his delight in life. While in this country everything he saw delighted him. Full of blood and spirits and health. I thought he would live to be 80. Some sudden stoppage of his breath by pressure on the bronchial tubes, probably from fat. What a delightful Sunday we once spent together on the "banks and braes of bonnie Doon", lying on the grass and strolling through the groves, listening to the birds!
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: October 1, 1897 - April 4, 1898
Text: Oct 1st The month comes in bright and hot, 88 degrees. 4 Bright lovely days, and cooler. 5 We start for Boston to day at 10. I go by way of St Albans and wife to B. I reach St. A. at 8 P.M. Spend [crossed out: 3] 2 days there pleasantly; weather cloudy and chilly. 8 Reach Boston to-night and Julians room at 8. Very happy to see the dear boy again. 9. Go with J. to hear two lectures and in P.M. to see football bet. Harvard and Dartmouth. Bright lovely days. 10 To church -- use three -- a flat,...
Show moreOct 1st The month comes in bright and hot, 88 degrees. 4 Bright lovely days, and cooler. 5 We start for Boston to day at 10. I go by way of St Albans and wife to B. I reach St. A. at 8 P.M. Spend [crossed out: 3] 2 days there pleasantly; weather cloudy and chilly. 8 Reach Boston to-night and Julians room at 8. Very happy to see the dear boy again. 9. Go with J. to hear two lectures and in P.M. to see football bet. Harvard and Dartmouth. Bright lovely days. 10 To church -- use three -- a flat, insipid sermon 12 Warm to day with showers in P.M. 14 Bright lovely days; we start for home at 8,30. Julian goeswith us to the street car on Harvard Square, in the clear crisp morning light. He stands there in the pave-ment as we move off and waves his hand. I look back and see him run quickly across the street toward his hall. I dare say my heart is much the heaviest. It is the October of my life, the May of his. We ride all day through the sunlit golden land; reach home at 7 P.M. 15 Still bright and cloudy; foliage all crimson and gold. But oh, how sad it all is to me; the thought of Julian constantly in my mind. Distance does contain a little bitterness of death. 16 Very warm. 90 degrees on my porch a brisk S.W. breeze; dry 17 A change in the night with brisk wind from NW. No rain. Much cooler, and clear.-- As a rule I think the men who deny Christ now are the men who would have accepted him in his own day. They are men who believe in the present hour and man. They live in to-day and not in yesterday. Is the converse of this true also? namely that those who accept Christ to-day, are the ones who would have denied him had they seen and heard him? I believe it is mainly true. To accept the new man, the Christ of to-day, requires different endowment from that which accepts the theological Christ, or the theoretical Christ of the past ages. The Christ is always unpopular or denied by the mass of his contemporaries. 18 Bright and sharp. A severe frost last night. "The fact revealed by the spectro-scope, that the physical elements of the earth exist also in the stars, supports the faith that a moral nature like our own inhabits the universe" An example of false reasoning by analogy. We know the stars exist; we see them, and the spectroscope reveals to us that the elements we know here on earth are found there. But this moral nature like our own -- this is assumed and is not supported at all by the analogy. The only legitimate inference from the analogy is that beings like ourselves inhabit the stars or their planets. As our sun has planets it is legitimate to infer that the other suns have planets. As our sun has planets, it is legitimate to infer that the other suns have planets, and that they have or have had, or may yet have beings like ourselves upon them. The above quotation is the opening sentences of an article in The Forum of last May, on "Fallacies Concerning Prayer." The conclusion of the writer is that prayer is answered by or through its reflex action upon the petitioner; he rises to the height of his prayer. If he prays earnestly for health the [crossed out: mind] psychic effect may help cure the disease; if he prays for more faith, he already by that act of will has it. This is the new conception of prayer that science has brought about. Yet this writer a Reverend, has his little fling at science. But it is doubtful if mankind will continue to pray if they once come to take this viw of answer to prayer. 23. Still bright and mild and dry Go down to Summit to-day to visit Mabie24 Cloudy and chilly, light rain. Mabie and I walk in the morning. A pleasant family -- new house excellent taste -- books by the thousand. In P.M. Whittridge the artist comes in; like him much; the plainness and simplicity of a country farmer. We take to each other. 25 Rain and wind to-day -- storm coming up the Coast. Start for home. 26. Home this morning; no rain here; clear and dry. 27 Still clear and dry. Katy-did last night. 28 Hiram goes back to Hobart to-day. 30 Colder, go down to West Point. Meet Alden of Harpers. Something very good and sweet about Alden. See the West Point team tie Yale at football.Nov 1st Warmer. Slow rain this morning from S.W. No rain to speak of for six weeks. -- How high the clouds sail above the mountains; their long uplifted ridges seem no barrier to them. Yet the mountains, so fixed and inert, surely cast a spell upon the clouds. They rob them of their rain; they hold the summer shower as with a tether, or they fix the boundaries of the storm. 2. Rain all night pretty heavy and now at 9 A.M. still at it; over one inch of water. -- Shall we say then that literature is not matter or substance, but a quality of substance? A true literary genius shall make literature out of the most [crossed out: normal] ordinary or commonplace subject by passing it through his heart or emotions. He imparts to it some quality from his own genius [crossed out: as the] An image or analogy that perpetually recurs to me is that of the bee and her honey. What the bee gets from the flower is sweet water to this she imparts a drop of formic acid, secreted by her own body. In like manner the literary artist imparts to his matter some quality or effluence of himself. -- I think it is a very just remark [crossed out: which] or Criticism which Arnold makes in a letter to Norton of Lowells essay on Democracy -- namely that it lacks body and current, and that its bright sayings and points cannot make up for the want [crossed out: lack] of these. It is more or less true of all Lowells prose, it seems to me; his essays have not body and direction; too much force is spent upon wit and verbal detail. They lack simplicity and rapidity of movement. There are no leading ideas that shed a light over the whole. Arnold himself had this virtue in a pre-eminent degree; there are in his writings no verbal fire-works to distract the attention; he moves right along; we follow him easily; he is as lucid as the day. It seems to me this is the highest merit; motion, motion, simplicity, and the clearness that comes out of them. -- As soon as a work is conscious-ly literary, its value is gone. This is the fault I find with much of Walter Paters work; the effort is too obviously a literary one; the style takes note of itself. When a man is consciously religious do we not question his sincerity? The style that standsbefore the glass has fallen from grace. "Behold the lilies of the field" etc. Let your style be a real blossoming like theirs, a grace from within and not an adornment from without. Indeed, there is hardly a maxim true in morals or religion that is not equally true in art. Literature is a much broader term than science; it is not the thing itself but that which embalms and preserves the thing; it is an atmosphere, an effluence. A work may have a high literary value that has not a rag of literary adornment, and that never thinks of itself as literature at all, as the Bible. The utterencs of illiterte men under certain pressure, may have a hight literary value. Literature is not this or that, but it is the flavor, the quality of this, or that. We are apt to thinkthat the moral, or religious, or philo-sophical value of a work is quite independent of its [crossed out: relig]literary value. But it is not. Its literary value rises out of tis moral or other value and is great or little as it is great or little. The most moving passage in the sermon is for that very reason the best literary passage. The most effective political tract is good literature just in pro-portion to its effectiveness. To say a thing so that it goes to the quick -- that is the demand of [crossed out: good] literature. Grants Memoirs and many of his despatches from the field of battle have literary value. Lincolns Gettysburg speech has high literary value, tho it never for a moment takes thought of itself. Everetts speech on the same occasion was a literary effort, but poor literature for all that. Literary efforts -- who does not want to steer clear of them in his reading. Give usan effort to speak a sane and truthful and sincere word. Huxleys writings have a great literary value because the effort is never a literary one, but a real one. When the preacher forgets that he is a preacher and is intent only to speak some real word but of his life and or experience as one soul to another soul, we listen to him gladly. When the editorial writer in the daily paper has some real conviction burning within him, and not merely a column to fill up, we warm up as we follow him; he is making literature. Real indignation, real anger, real love, real sym-pathy, real insight, real convic-tion -- out of these things comes literature. 4 Day of great beauty -- all gold, mild as early Oct, no wind, the river a great mirror. Some Poughkeepsie people on their wheels in the P.M. Night all silver. Suffering from my first cold for 3 or 4 years, -- I have often tried to define to myself what it is that makes good prose. I suppose one might as well try to define what it is that makes a good apple or a good melon. It is a complex result, or the result of complex causes. One mans prose may differ vastly from that of another, and yet be equally good. There must of course be a sense of maturity of ripeness, as in the case of the apple; and there must be savor, quality, the thing must be real and vital. [crossed out: 9] 7. Fine day, cool and bracing; drive over to Sherwoods with young Arthur. 9th Cloudy, foggy, slow rain all night and part of yesterday after noon; chilly, a typical Nov. day of the negative sort, clears in P.M. Colder and windy. -- How much more valuable to a man is an instinct for the truth than any special gift or accomplishment. If he craves the truth alone, he will not be disturbed if his theories and systems fall in ruins about his head. Then I must find a larger and deeper truth, he says. What an instinct for the truth had Darwin. When facts appeared to be against him, how he wel-comed them, when they became his friends. How often we see men of brilliant part who achieve nothing of permanent worth because they have not this instinct for truth. A man with a system or theory to uphold is handicapped, unless he has an instinct for the truth like Darwin. Taine's criticism is less valuable than it would be had he no system to uphold. They are free indeed whom the truth makes free, because the truth finds them free. 15 Nov. still rather mild. No snow yet and not much frost. Nearly three inches of rain this month Discouraging news from Julian, low marks in his studies. He has no talent for languages; in consequence he may have to give up College. Overcast, threatening rain 16. Storm over; clear and warm like early October; air hazy. -- The day inevitably comes to every author when he must take his place amid the silent throngs of the past, when no new work can call atention to him afresh, when the partiality of friends no longer counts; when his freinds and admirers are [???] when gathered to their fathers the spirit of the day in which he writes has given place to [crossed out: another ???] the spirit of another and different day how, oh how will it fare with him then? How is it going to fare with Lowell, with Longfellow, with Emerson, with Whitman? How will it fare with poor me? 19. First snow to-day, all the forenoon a quiet fall of large light flakes; they lie on the grass and weeds and trees like tufts of cotton or wool, an inch or more. 20. A white wash of snow over all; still a seamless cloud. No wind, no sun, chilly. 23 Our second snow last night, nearly 3 inches. Bright and still this morning. -- What is only a bud in the father often becomes a branch in the son. -- When I write upon any literary theme I have to write and write till I get a sort of fund or capital to do business on. 25. Thanksgiving day. Mercury has been down to 10. Chilly to-day, ground white. 26 Rain and warmer. Snow all off. Go to P. 27. Rained nearly all night, clearing and colder this morning. 28 Clear and bright with sharp biting air. -- Emerson is a poor singer [crossed out: but] with wonderfully penetrating tones; it seems to me ha has no equal in this respect. And it was these tones that he valued most in others, any aeolian strain caught his ear at once. -- I see that the success of my little poem "Waiting" is not on account of its poetic merit, but for some other merit or quality. It puts insimple and happy form some common religious aspiration, without using at all the religious jargon. People write me from all parts of the country that they treasure it in their hearts, it is an anchor to windward. A celebrated N.Y. preacher writes me that it steadies his hand at the helm. A woman died the other day in P. with these verses, as it were, in her hand. They had been the consolation of her life. Pure poetry never affects people in this way, but poetry alloyed with religion does. Burns's best poem, "The Jolly Beggars" is not so popular as "The Cotters Saturday Night." The old people had their favorite hymns in the hymn book -- some verse or verses that spoke to theirparticular case or experience, or aspiration. But the impartial disinterested reader would be compelled to judge the hymns by their poetic quality alone. Because this alone is permanent and universal. This we never out grow as we do the religious views and feelings of the past. The religious thrill, the sense of the infinite, the awe and mys-tery of the universe, is no doubt permanent in the race, but all [crossed out: cr]expression of it in creeds and forms addressed to the understanding, or exposed to the analysis of the understanding, are transient and flitting like the leaves of the trees. My little poem is vague enough to escape the reason, sincere enough to go to the heart, and poetic enough to stir the imagination. Dec 1. The month comes in cloudy and cold. Am writing on criticism, etc. I must write and write and decant my thoughts till it is clear and satisfactory 5 Sunday. Clears off mild after an all nights rain and two cold cloudy days. Mild as Nov. Walk to S.S. in afternoon. Finished Macaulays life and letters to-day. A great omnivorous partisan mind -- not fine but solid and strong -- oratorical, always pleading or arraigning, or eulogizing, alternating from invective to panagyric. Coarse like British oak and loyal and strong. His style antithetic, lucid, sweeping. Indeed he is always the orator, never the poet or the true critic. One of the strangest things in contemporary literary history is that he and Carlyle should not have seen and known each other. 6 Clear and mild, only two or three degrees of frost last night. 8 Overcast, still, hazy, mild. Spend the day at Slabsides with Booth and Lowne. 9 Air loaded with smoke and vapor. Still, partly overcast, mild, mercury 35. Insects in the air. No ice, no snow. I predict a mild winter. -- Soft moonlight night [crossed out: with] veiled with Indian summer vapor. No frost to-night. 10 The river hidden by haze and vapor; the call of wild ducks come up out of it; the belated Troy and Albany boats go by. Crows fly high [crossed out: in] where the air is clearer. Clouds high and slow moving. A mild Nov. day. Sore Soar throat and slight indisposition to-day.Day gets warmer -- 62 at Slab-sides; warm all through the West. The bee is out the hive to-day and that is fatal to the winter. 11 Still warmer and April like, wind S.W. mercury up to 60 -- The Causes of poverty in modern democratic communities? Why, it is simple enough. It is because society is organized on a selfish basis, allowing each man to have all he can get, and some are able to get more than others. It is a scramble in which the quick, the strong, the bold, the unscru-pulous, get the most. Life is a struggle, business is a struggle, and every thing that tells in a struggle tells here. There are only two ways to abolish poverty -- abolish inequality in men intheir endowments and opportunities, or else regulate society as you would a hospital, or your stock yard, or anything else where each individual is allowed only one share. 12 April weather continues. Soft clear moonlight when I went to bed; rain in the morning with a cooler breath from the North. 13 Still April like -- nearly clear; only a light frost last night. 14 Raining this morning from NE. -- J. as he comes up the hill of life on one side, I go down on the other. I suspect I am as near the botton as he is the top. Oh. if we two could have climbed and descended nearer together! -- Is no criticism as much self-expression as poetry? and in the same way. The poet is prohibited from expressing his private personal griefs and joys unless he can easily relate them to the griefs and joys of all men. He must make his experience my experience. His passion must be intense enough and famil-iar enough to kindle the same passion in me. The personal note is sounded in every good lyric, a cry of joy or pain, or aspiration, which comes out of a private heart and goes to the private heart of each of us. The personal estimate in criticism is the real estimate when the personal element is overarched by the impersonal. We prize the flavor of individualityis criticism as much as in anything else, but this flavor of individuality is like the flavor in fruits, it is a subtle quality that escapes our analysis. The universal intelligence taking form in a particular and definite type of mind, [crossed out: that is what we want], and surveying life and letters from a definite stand point; that is what we want. Not Smith or Jones served up raw, but S. or J. clarified, sublimated. The verdict of the disinterested critic differs from that of prejudice and half culture as refined petroleum differs from the crude -- the more personal, accidental elements have been taken out of it (We do not want the crude petroleum to burn in our lamps nor [crossed out: personal prejudice] theheat and fumes of eulogy or invective to read our books by. Criticism must shed a pure dispassionate light. Such it does not shed in the mass of British critics. The light is purer in Arnold than in any man before him Arnold was perhaps the most completely emancipated from cliques and parties and John Bullism of any British critic of his time, much more so than Macaulay or Carlyle in both of whom we get fumes or highly colored lights; highly colored in Macauley, intense and bewildering in Carlyle. We must purge ourselves if we would give a clear steady light. Self-expession, yes, but it must be your better self -- the self that relates you to the best in me and in all other men. 15. Rain turned out very heavy, 3 or 4 inches of water; ground overflowing same as last July and August. Foggy, still, warm this morning, like April. -- Just read Prof Raleighs essay on Style, a kind of invertebrate book, no back bone -- no central idea or ideas from which it radiates. Choice diction, a connoisseur of words, but his ideas are thin, elusive. His flour is too finely bolted -- his matter too sublimated. Or we may say the rays he gives out are too near the violet end of the spectrum; We [crossed out: want] rarely get strong white light. 17. April weather contintues. Cloud and rain sprinkles. 18 Clear, colder; down to freezing this morning. Killed 11 rats in horse stable.19. Clear and sharp; down to 20 this morning. To a Young Writer -- always attack your subject from the rear if you can; that is, approach it from some deeper question, some broader gen-eralization. You shall then find that you overlook it and command all its aspects. If you attack it from the front, or from its own level, you shall find that it will yield to you only the fragments, a piece now and then, but get under it, or back of it, and see how it gives way. You have just read say, the life of Macaulay and want to write about him; so you draw up in front of him as it were and fix your attention upon Macaulay. No, go behind him, fix your attention uponupon some type or principle of which M. is an illustration, and the oratorical type, the great middle class mind etc. and thus get a vantage ground from which to survey him. 20. Cold this morning and [crossed out: read] red in the East. Mercury down to 10. Long, long thoughts of father and mother this day. Fathers birth day and mothers death day. Light snow in afternoon, and warmer. [crossed out: 2] It is curious that Wordsworth should have liked only Burns'es serious poetry -- like "The Cotters Saty Night," his little amatory songs he said we must forget. Tennyson, on the other hand could not tolerate the serous poetry, but liked immensely the little "amatory songs" The moralist chose in W. the artist and true critic in T.24. Cold, clear, windy; down to 9 this morning Julian home yesterday from Harvard. I meet him at Esopus and we walk down the track. How delighted we are to see him. He looks well and a little more manly than 3 months ago. How he blots out everything else for the time being. How I pity those who have no boy to come home from College at the holidays. He is full of the life there. How poetic and romantic it all seems to me. To day he is off a hunding with Jimmy Acker. -- To be roiled up is an expressive phrase. If the river is muddy I observe that it shows the most plainly when it is angry. In a calm you hardly notice it. 25 Xmas; bright, sharp day; a light skim of snow -- mercury down to 5 in the morning; thin floating ice on river. We have our Xmas turkey at 2 P.M. Mrs. Binder comes in the evening. 26 Milder. Light snow nearly all day -- about an inch. No wind. Julian takes a row up the river in PM. 28. Clear sharp day, down to 10 this morning. Julian goes up the river in his boat after ducks. At 3 P.M. I go down to the river and am alarmed at the condition of the ice; vast masses of it grinding on the shore; seems impossible for a boat to live in it. So I start up the river bank hoping to see him coming back. The ice roars louder and louder and jams and grinds harder and harder, and I becomemore and more alarmed. The farther I go the more anxious about the boy I become. My imagination begins to work and I am soon wrethed indeed. At last I reach Esopus dock, but no Julian in sight. But a man tells me he saw him go up about 2 P.M. It is now 4. The man, who is an older river man and duck hunter says the ice makes it dangerous, he was himself afraid to go out on such a day. I worry more and more Darkness will surely come on, and the boy with his canvas boat will be ground to pieces and frozen fast in the ice. I tear on up the river and reach Pells Dock a mile farther up. The I fancy I see him in an open canal of water near the [crossed out: ???] "quarry dock". He does not seem to be rowing, and the ice is shutting up the opensouth of us faster and faster. Bill Obrien joins me and we look and speculate, and try to put in his boat and go to the rescue, but it is too heavy. Then I tear along the shore again and when within a quarter of a mile of what seems to be his boat I shout to him. Just then his gun goes off, and I see he has been stalking a duck, and is not alarmed and in no hurry. I shout to him and he rows along much amazed to see me. No danger he says and laughs at my anxiety. The sun is down and the tide nearly slack. I try to persuade him to put the boat ashore at Pells and come home with me on foot, but he refuses and says he can beat me home. Says there is open water all along shore, as indeed does seem now to be the case, and as indeed allhe found. Nip and I take the road for home; the good level walking is much a change from our scramble along the river bank, that I am less tired than I thought and make good time. At ten minutes to 6 we are home, and a few minutes later J. reaches the dock. I go down and am greatly relieved to see him safe back again. All my worry was vain but I got a big walk and ought to be better for it for days. 29. Down to 4 this morning; trees all feathered out with frost feathers, ice fast. Now at 9 A.M. ice is moving down, leaving a clean open space in front. -- Spencer's rely to Huxley is very pertinent. "If ethical man is not a product of the cosmic process, of what is he a product?"-- Extract from a letter from Mrs Woodworth of St Albans Vt, "I met Miss -- from Boston the President of the W.C.T.U. for the U.S. etc. She asked me if I had seen your paper on the Re-reading of Books in Nov. Century. She told me how she had enjoyed it. She had noticed too what impressed me, the sad note through it all. Why, my dear friend, the pathos of that paper is enough to break ones heart. Did you realize yourself how pathetic it was? As if you had tried everything in life and found it all only dust and ashes at last. I find that note in most of your work now, so sad, oh, so sad." I knew there was a plaintive tinge to the essay, but did not dream it was really sad. It came of the retrospection I suppose; the past is so full of pathos to me.31. Heavy snow storm, about one foot of damp heavy snow from N.E. 1898 Jany 1. Real winter at last -- deep snow and colder; bright day. Julian clears the walks of snow etc. 2d Sunday; down to 6 below this morning, 10 and 12 below back from river. River all closed in front. Julian returns to Harvard on morning train. Expect now two or three days of moping sadness His 10 days at home have been bright ones. He hunted 3 or 4 days, 4 quail, one partridge, 2 ducks. 3 Bright clear day. 4 Colder again, zero this morning. -- In ones thinking how much difference it makes whether he has a thesis to maintain, or is simply hunting for the truth. Only he who is pledged to the truth aloneis a free man. He is disinterested The most eminent example I know of an honest truth-seeker, who yet had a system to uphold, was Darwin. His first service was to truth and not to theory. -- Oh, the mystery of the universe, how it presses upon one at times. It pressed upon me to-night as I walked to the P. O. through the darkness. The stars up there, I here, what is back of it all. My father solved the mystery by accepting the old faith -- this made it all clear to him. But to me, born in a later time, this is no solution; it is a child's dream 5. Fine even winter weather down to 16 degrees this morning. 7. Light rain last night; water on the ice this morning. Prospects of cooler 9. Sunday; bright mild days lately, snow melting, ice wasting, only two or three degrees of frost at night. I keep well and work away at my essays on Style, Criticism etc. "Absurd" I say for me to waste my time on such barren themes, but they haunt me. I can not drop them, and so I keep on. Well, some things are made clearer to me than when I began to write. I have to serve a long apprentice-ship to every subject before I master it. I have to begin at the stump and work up, and the process is a slow one. Dreamed of father and mother last night. This is the 14th anniversary of father's death.12. Still mild spring like weather, only a few degrees of frost at night. Ice still hard and smooth on the river; not much power in the sun yet; two months later at the same temperature how his rays will rot and disintegrate the ice. Madam is passing through the winter solstice of her temper. Nip and I may soon have to take to the woods. Fog and light rain in P.M. and at night. 13. Bright and spring like this morning, mercury 40; a thin sheet of water over the ice which puts a smooth familiar face upon the river. It reflects the shores as in summer.14 As I started out for the P.O. this morning I heard the nuthatch calling in the trees near the school house. When I returned he was still calling, calling. It was only the middle of January, but the ground [crossed out: snow] was getting bare in places, the air was mild and there was the look if not the feeling of spring. I heard the nuthatch with the ears of youth. To have heard him with the ears of to-day, or as if for the first time, would not have been much. But I was a boy again in the old sugar bush at home; the great kettles were boiling, the tin pans glistened at the feet of the big maples, the little new born rills went murmuring by, the air was soft and full of awakening soundsand not the least of them was this soft nasal call of the nuthatch, as it came from the near trees. Why do all such sounds refer to ones youth. It seems as if then only did things make a lasting impression upon us. The call of the bird as I heard it there in my boyhood was a part of the season and it carried that time and scene deep into my heart and became one with them. 15. Still mild, but snowing this morning. 19. Two or three cold mornings -- down to 12 and 14. Much worried these days about Julian. Hiram came back to-day. Stormy weather in the kitchen The domestic furies have worried me the ast week almost beyond endurance. Sleep poor.20. Snow last night, turning to rain, becoming heavy this morning. heavy all day. -- The dog does not know enough to turn his back to the fire to warm and dry that side also. Yet when my dog tries to cross an enclosure which he has entered by a gate, and finds no egress on the other side, he runs swiftly back to the gate by which he entered. He works all around the fire but will not turn his face from it. 23. Snow last night turning to rain, heavy all night; probably 2 or 3 inches of precipitation the last week. Warm to day, 40 degrees. 24. Clear windy and getting cold -- probably a cold wave. 26 Snowed all ngiht; about 8 inches this morning and not yet finished.29 Colder the past two days -- down to 4 above. Mrs B. leaves for Pouhgkeepsie to day. Hiram and I with the Ackers 30. Bright and cold -- 6 below this morning -- the prospect of the ice harvest brightens. Still writing on Style, Criticism etc. 31. Began snowing this morning, very fine, and below zero. Feb 1st The biggest storm of the season; over one foot of snow. 21 inches now on the ground The country buried in snow, and all trains delayed, cold and windy. 2d Bright and cold -- 6 below zero. All roads cho[crossed out:a]ked up with snow. Rugged winter weather. 7 Fine winter weather the past few days, warmer yesterday and the day before, colder to day -- down to 6. Still and clear, air full of frost mist. Ice men opening their canals to-day.8. Start for Cambridge this morning at 6:20; reach Boston at 3,50 and Harvard Square at 4,30. Julian is on the spot to meet me, happy and well. We have ten days to-gether again. I occupy his chums room till Sunday, when I take a room with Rodman Gilder. [crossed out: We] I take my meals with him at the Fox Croft. I like being among the boys, and seem really to share their young eager life. I read in the library here, and many days go to Boston and read in the Athenaeum library. I am soon in excellent health and spirits We dine at the Suters and the Pages, and make several calls. One night we go to Boston to the theatre -- see "The Heart of Maryland" -- poor stuff.19 Last night I said good bye to Julian and this morning at 7 am up and off to Boston; take train at 8,30 and reach Poughkeepsie at 4,50. 20 Heavy rain all night and nearly all day -- probably 2 inches of water. Came up home to-day. 21. Still raining by spurts and colder. Tom Riley died suddenly while at work on the ice the morning I left. I met him near the station as I was going for the train; he was on his way to his work. In two hours he was dead, from heart disease. Rest his soul! 21 Thunder to-day and sudden sharp shower A freshet in the streams 22 Still densely cloudy with spurts of snow and rain 23 No signs of clearing yet, snowing this morning and thawing.27 Fair weather at last, clear sharp air from the north, freezing at night. Blue-birds to-day and yesterday. 28 Still clear and sharp. March 1st Clear and colder, ten degrees of frost -- wind north W. Hiram and I walk up to Esopus to Town Meeting; road muddy, with here and there a dry streak or a streak of snow. 2d Still clear and sharp; clouding up in P.M. 3d Light snow last night, snowing a little yet this morning. Ice on the river slowly moving up this morning. It lifted anchor without the usual warnings. 6 Weather continues fine. Clear bright days and moonlight nights. Ideal sap weather to-day, mercury 42. Sap runs very fast, mercury down to 24 in the morning. First birds slow in arriving. 7 Still clear and fine, perfect sugar weather. First sparrow song this morning. Mrs B returns to-day from P. gone since January 25. 8 Glorious spring morning, soft, hazy, more sparrows. The first robins, a band of 50 or more fly over my head, their faces set northward, as I go to the P.O. They shout out as if in greeting. First meadow lark to-day, seems to say "Come to me, dear," the last word long and plaintive. Boiling sap on the old stove in the open air, and still working on my essays on Style, Criticism etc. 10 The April like days continue, mercury above 50. Sap-run about over; ice nearly disappeared from the river. I have boiled down 8 or 10 pails of sap in a wash boiler on an old stove set here in the wood pile near the Study. In the interval I read Sainte Beuve -- a spirit like these genial lucid March days. Not many birds yet. A college President writes like this: "Experiment and inference are the hook and line by which Science fishes the dry formulas out of the fluid fact. Art, on the other hand undertakes to stock the stream with choice specimens of her own breeding and selection," Hyde. The artis says La Farge, always gives to Nature the character of the lens[crossed out: e] through which [crossed out: you] he sees it. No absolute Nature, the man is always the main question. 11 The wonderful weather continues, mid-April days, milder and milder, no frost last night. Clear this morning. But few robins yet; one black-bird this morning. Sap all boiled in. [crossed out: Was]La Farge says that ten men sketching the same view, and not seeking self expression, will make ten different pictures -- each will lay the emphasis on a different feature. 12 Cloudy, hazy, soft, rainy this morning. Warm as mid April, ice all gone from the river; snow all off the fields. Sparrows singing everywhere. -- What a thorn or sheaf of thorns Walt Whitmam is in the side of Edgar Fawcett. Poor Edgar. I hope W. does not keep him awake nights. I think I have seen at least half a dozen spiteful allusions to W. from his pen the past year, and now in the last Colliers Weekly, he has a long, carefully worded outburst. Think of it. This rude uncouth bard of democracy hailed in Europe as a great poet and prophet and poor Edgar, with his faultless verse not hailed at all! If faultless verse, Edgar, made poetspoets would be as plenty as black-berries. But it requires a man too, and in this respect, I suspect you are not much. 13. The third day born of the S.W. wind -- warm ([crossed out 54 or 5] 66 at Slabsides at 3 P.M.) hazy, cloudy, opaque, vague, dissolving, rain-spirnkles or on the point of dissolving, full of earth odors, full of sparrow notes and songs, (fox and song) melting the snow in the woods, the ice on the ponds, the frost in the ground, [crossed out: the] bringing out the angle worms, the caterpillars and the first butter-flies, stopping the flow of sap in the sugar maples; quickening the roots of grass under ground and causing them to push up the first [crossed out: folded] green leaf, bringing out the toads and frogs and hunting the joyous season of Spring. Phoebe, this morning. Toads and frogs last night. 14 Cooler, clear, breezy, lovely, wind from N.W. mercury down to 34 this morning. Men tieing grape vines to-day. Health excellent all winter and spring so far, mind active and fruitful. -- my out-door and bird papers could only have been written by a country-man and a dweller in the country. But probably my literary critiism and essays suffer from this very cause. They should have been written by a dweller in cities, a mover and [crossed out: ???] among the throngs of books and men. This would have helped to give them snap, decision, brevity, point. The intellect, the judgement are sharpened in the city, the heart; the emotions, the intuitions, the religious sense are fostered in the country. (Is this true?)18 The wonderfully fine March weather continues; nearly clear each day; only a light frost at night. Frogs in full chorus, birds ditto. [crossed out: W] Hazel nut in bloom two days ago -- a great display of masculinity, and a feeble display of femininity. How modest and shy as it were are all female blossoms, the hazel, the hickory, the alder the oak, the butternut etc. How I pity the dweller in town these days. The fox sparrow that I am now hearing, the musical clatter of the juncos, the trill of the song sparrow -- how sweet and inspiring, and the song of the toad at twilight -- that long drawn lulling tr-r-r-r-r-r and the chorus of the little frogs filling all the valley with a maze of musical sound -- what is there in town that can make up for that Yesterday I heard the first highhole announce his arrival -- send out his challenge to the spring -- how it stirs my memory. The fields and open spaces have a sudden new attraction. My thoughts go and scratch with the hens amid the dry leaves; I pick up as much as they do; they nip the short new spears of grass with the geese, they follow the migrating ducks northward; they hover about the farm and garden fires about me; they career away to the sugar maple woods where the sap is [crossed out: dripping] making music in the tin buckets. I have trouble to keep them here at my prosy tasks. 19 Dark and showery this morning with thunder, warm, air blurred with smoke and vapor.22 Quite a heavy rain from S.W. with some snow in the air. More rain at night. 25 Wonderfully fine day. Clear and still all day 26 Some frost last night. Nearly clear to-day, wind shifting to southerly. 27 Overcast, chilly. Grass greening, arbutus just opening. Never knew arbutus to bloom before in March in this climate. In Nature it is the middle of April. -- Kipling [crossed out: is] has a fine talent but not a great nature [crossed out: or passion]. We admire his things more than we love them. He does not quite reach the soul. He has no atmosphere. He is not a great poet, but a wonderfully clever one.April 1st Clear and sharp; froze last night. In afternoon Hiram and I move over to Slabsides and again begin our life there. Arbutus, blood root, and hepatica in bloom, at sunset a winter wren sings briefly in front of the door. 2d Cold, quite a freeze again last night. Cloudy, to-day with snow flakes in the air, and then a dash or two of rain. Clears off at sunset. 3d Colder last night, froze hard, fear for fruit, our delayed March weather at hand My 61st birt hday. Health good after a winter of good deal of mental activity. Grows colder all day with flurries of snow on the Catskills. A severe cold wave.4th Hard, bright, cold, cold -- down to 20 this morning, colder than any time in March. No doubt peaches and cherries are all killed.
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Date: April 4, 1898 - October 31, 1898
Text: -- We shall probably have to class Henry George with the men of one idea -- or men with a hobby. It is to me, evidence of how narrow and limitted his judgement was, that he should have believed there was a panacea for the ills of modern society -- that he should have thought the disease so simple that the remedy could be named for it, and was within easy reach, -- or that he should have thought it a disease at all, instead of a crudeness, an immaturity. Go in the woods, in the fields, any...
Show more-- We shall probably have to class Henry George with the men of one idea -- or men with a hobby. It is to me, evidence of how narrow and limitted his judgement was, that he should have believed there was a panacea for the ills of modern society -- that he should have thought the disease so simple that the remedy could be named for it, and was within easy reach, -- or that he should have thought it a disease at all, instead of a crudeness, an immaturity. Go in the woods, in the fields, any where, and you see the same struggle the same injustice, the strong oppressing the weak, failure, defeat, starvation, imperfection, etc. Its the law of nature, and is as operative in societies as [crossed out: in] among plants and animalsThere are two ways to abolish poverty, abolish inequality of talents and oppor-tunity, or run society on the plan of a hospital, or poor house, or penitentiary -- regulate every-thing and see to it that all share like and like 5 Like December; light snow from N.E. nearly all day, about one inch; breaking in P.M. 6; Down to 19 this morning and clear. A winter landscape. 7. A little milder and clear. 8. A few degrees of frost last night. Clear to-day. Good sap day. Spring seems picking herself up again after being so rudely knocked down by winter.-- How much more youthful and sentimental and unsophisticated the country was 40 years ago than it is to-day. Think of the popular songs then in vogue -- "Old Dog Tray", "Willie we have missed you" and the many negro melodies Since the War there have been no negro melodies. Life is too serious a matter now with our colored bretheren. The heart of the country is hardening. We have more business, more science then 40 years ago, but less soul and senti-ment. -- Literary or artistic truth appeals to the taste and the imagina-tion, religious truth appeals to the religious sense, scientific truth appeals to the reason and understanding. Emerson appealsto the two first. Huxley to the first and third. There are others who appeal to that rather indefinite or hard to define, sense called the intelligence. 11. Cloudy nearly all day with sprinkles of rain. Drive to P. to exchange the horse. I do not forget that 44 years ago to-day I began my first school. 12 Frost last night but clear and lovely this morning. Water thrush and chippie and bush sparrow yesterday. 14 Warmer -- above 70 yesterday. Still. Cloudy, warm this morning. Shad tree and spice bush just blooming. Sowing the onions to-day. 15 Raining. Go to P. to speak at High School in P.M. and before teachers at night. More rain at night. Julian comes home at 9 P.M. 16 Clearing off and warmer. Reach home on 10:16 train and rejoiced to see Julian. 17 Warm fine day. Julian brings the Primus stove over to Slabsides. Spend the day here, and very happy. 18 Julian and I row up Black Creek. A bright day and cool. J. shoots two ducks; one disappears under the water and we lose him. Eat our lunch at the old mound.A rare and happy day. We return to Slabsides at 6. Find all the early flowers in bloom. 19 Cloudy and cold with spits of snow and rain and hail. 21 Julian and I again row up Black Creek [crossed out: to the] and up into the inlet of the pond. J. fires at some ducks but misses them; to many brush. A raw windy day but a happy one. 22d Warmer. Mr and Mrsd Booth and Mrs Patten up to Weuns Spend part of the day with them. 23d Warm, Cloudy, threatening rain. Expected company from Vassar do not come. 24 Heavy rain last night and this morning; probably 1 1/2 inches. Julian leaves on 10.16 train. Looks well and happy. Come, come, do not be sad over it.-- Ed came down Wednesday and is "doing off" a room [crossed out: f] a guest chamber -- up stairs. Ed adds much to our company. April [crossed out: h] so far has been cold and sour. I have not got much out of it -- yet it brought me Julian for a whole week; is not that enough? Cherry trees in bloom for a day or two. 25. Rain contintues, cold and nasty from the north. The whipporwill Saturday morning, the 23d 26 The miserable rain continues -- rained slowly all night, and still raining with prospects of continuing all day. One of those streaks of weather that make one want to flog the weather gods. Cold, wind N.E.27 Partly clear and a little warmer. 28. Cold N.E. wind continues with dense clouds. 1 P.M. began hailing and raining and continued heavy till sun down. Cold. Cold. 29 Still cold and cloudy from N.E. Storm probably spent. Ed returns to-day 30 A lovely day at last, clear and warm -- above 70. Worthy of April. All day in the woods. May 1st Still fine and warm. Lowne and I row up black Creek. Worthy of May. 2d Cooler with slow rain. Hiram sick. Great news from our fleet at Manill. 6 Rain and cloud confined till this morning. Nearly clear and much colder [crossed out: this] now. Hiram better.-- Some men wield their talent like a tool, [crossed out: like] as the woodsman his axe, or the fencer his sword. They are always equal, they are always effective. With others again their talent is more a part of themselves like their hand, or eye or ear. What they achieve is more a direct outcome of their character. They sustain [crossed out: an] a more intimate relation to it. Their life blood is in it. 13. Much rain and cloud the past week. But little sunshine. Heavy thunder shower last night or series of showers. Clears up this morning. A fine day at last. Hiram starts for Hobart. Orchards in bloom. I go down to Rogers to lunch. 14 Cool night. Bright and lovely to-day.15. The damnable rains upon us again; rained slowly all day. 16 Still raining. Oh for a chance to flog these drunken weather gods! 17 Cleared off in the night after a slow rain nearly all day. Very bright and fresh and lovely this morning. Wind N.W. 18 Cool night, -- fine day. The chestnut sided warbler seems to say, "we, we, we, wee-sir," or is it, "cre-cre-cre creature?" 19. Shower in morning, very warm. Series of showers at night very heavy with much thunder. Mrs Hall and Mrs Segue here 20 Bright after the heavy rain warm 82. 21 Still warm with some cloud. 22 Cloudy 23 Rain nearly all day but not heavy. 24 Warm, muggy, cloudy, with showers in afternoon. This weather is enough to kill one. 25. Rain nearly all night and again this morning till 9 o'clock. Gleams of sunshine in P.M. 26 Still cloud and rain from the North now. No matter where the wind is the rain is sure to come. I have seen heavier rain but never so persistent in May. Every storm lasts three or four days. This is the fifth day of cloud and rain this week, and no signs of clearing 27 More and more, harder and harder, nearly as bad as last July; more cloud, but rainfall not so sudden and heavy. Rained all last night and allyesterday afternoon. Ditches full this morning; water, water everywhere. Came from N.E. Since one week ago the wind has been in every quarter and brought rain from all. No change of wind, or temperature or moon makes any difference; the rain comes, a hell of rain. The rainly season over due in Cuba and Jamaica has apparently drifted North. Paper reports another depression due to-night or to-morrow. 30 Sunshine Saturday afternoon. Cloudy again yesterday with light rain. Clearing and warm to-day. May be the wet spell is broken. How long before we will be cursing the dry weather gods? 31. Lovely day. Go to N.Y. to Whitman dinner.June 1st Lovely day and warm. 2d 3d Some cloud and a little cooler. 4 Fine and warm 5 6 light shower. at 4 P.M. 7 Hot, 88. 8 light shower at night. 9 10 11 12 light thunder showers nearly all night, very little rain, mercury 89 today. 13 Hot, (89). Hiram again groaning with ague. Heavy shower in P.M. over an inch of water 17 Fine weather. Johnson came to-night18 Windy; we go fishing. 19 Heavy shower in afternoon 20 Clear and cooler; lovely day. 21. Rain nearly all night without thunder from S.W. Cool this morning with signs of clearing Rain again this afternoon, but not heavy. 22 Fine day. 23 do. Warm. 24 Miss Emerson comes to-day 25 Hot, we all go to muck swamp to see the cyps. 26 Hot and fine. 27 hot 28, 29, 30, All hot days, above 90. July 1st Hot -- 94 2d 92. 3 Very hot 100 at S.S from 12 o'clock to 4; dry, air like the breath of a furnace. The hottest day I have ever seen here. Our boys in Cuba fighting inmuch greater heat. My thoughts run that way constantly. Rain needed. I fear a drouth. Now at 5 P.M. Mercury stands at 98. 4 A little cooler 92 and 94. I spend the day at Slabsides. The Taylors come over. Clear and dry. In evening Julian and I go down to Taylors. A walk in the cool moonlight at 12. 5 Much cooler; and dry. 6 The destruction of the Spanish Fleet is the one thought and makes every body rejoice. 7. Cool night; bright and dry to-day and getting warmer. Hiram was here yesterday and day before. 10 Cool and dry. 11 Monday, Julian and I start for Roxbury. A cool bright day Reach home at 5 P.M. All well and in the midst of the haying. A large and excellent crop of hay. Drought not so severe here as on the Hudson. How pure fresh and sweet the air and fields seem! Very cool at night, a little frost reported. Curtis and his family unchanged. 13. Signs of a N.E. rain; very heavy clouds with long crooked keels sweep over the mountains from the east, presenting a very singular appearance. In one case a vast mass of vapor is spun off across an open spot to another mass like flax from a distaff. A sprinkle but no rain. In P.M. clouds slacken their speed and grow thin [crossed out: at sun] the sky comes out at sunset they flush and all signsof rain vanish. 14 Much warmer. The storm turns out to have been heavy along the coast and in lower Hudson. A singular storm; wind seemed to come from storm centre. It blew in from the ocean. I fancied the storm was west of us, but it was east contrary to the general law of storms. The clouds shot out from the sea over the land and seemed to lose their rain before they crossed the Catskills. As the day advanced they seemed to lose their impulse and gradually failed. What drove them at such speed from the storm center? I remember nothing like it. 15 Clear and warm. A hot night last night. 16 Warm, tranquil, dry summer days; ideal hay weather. A large crop of best quality of hay isbeing gathered on this farm and on all other farms in this town. To day the boys are mowing and drawing over on the other place. I learned of the surrender of Santiago yesterday. Walked down to the station for a paper. 19 Light shower yesterday and again last night -- relieves the tension of the drought somewhat -- very warm for this altitude. -- A nest of young robins in the maple in front being fed by chipping sparrow. The little sparrow is very attentive -- seems very fond of her adopted babies. The old robins resent her services and hustle her out of the tree whenever they find her near the nest. She watches her chances and comes with food in their absense. The young birds are about ready to fly and when the chippie feeds them her head fairly disappears in their capacious mouths.She jerks it back as if she were afraid of being swallowed. Then she lingers near them on the edge of the nest and seems to admire them. When she sees the old robin coming, she spreads her wings in an attitude of defense and then flies away. I wonder if she has had the experience of raising a cow bunting? 20 The robins are out of their nests and little chippie continues to feed them. She approaches them rather timidly and hesitatingly as if she feared they might swallow her; then thrusts [crossed out: ???] her tid bit quickly into the distended mouth and jerks back. Still hot for this climate. Hiram came up yesterday. It is the afternoon of a hot day of mid summer; the midsummer ripeness and tranquility are in the air. I sit from three to four with my back against a moss covered rock or ledge between two springs at the edge of the woods that cover the mountain where I lookdown upon a broad sun light land-scape many miles in extent. I can see the hay makers at work on nearly a dozen different farms. With my glass I can see a woman apparently raking after the load in a meadow in Mont-gomery Hollow 4 miles away. At my feet about 50 rods below me the boys are at work in one of the home meadows. Ed and By are drawing. By swearing and jawing at his horses incessantly "God damn you, you are old enough to know better than that Get up there, you lazy old Cuss, there is where I want you to go." etc. Julian and Curtis are "heaping up". J with only his shoes, hat, and short rowing pants on. I shout to him this choice bit from Emerson: "Little thinks you [crossed out: assed] bare legged clown Of me from the hill top looking down." Several times I take a drink from the spring near me where I often drank as a boy. How cold and sweet it is. By and by Olly appears with lemonade for the thirsty men. I see her hand the pail up to By and Edon the hay rigging, as they back the team out of the barn. Then she comes to the meadow and serves Julian and Curtis. Her red dress, big straw hat and tin pail make a bright bit of color in the landscape. I hear the rattle of Johnnys horse rake, where, in the other meadow he gathers to-gether what the fork has left. I hear old Wilder barking loud and long some-where below me; he probably has as a wood chuck in the wall. Julian and Curtis finish the heaping up, when J [crossed out: goes] starts for the field around the old house where Johnny is now raking. Presently I see him with all the dogs about him working in an old stone row under a tree. He is after the wood chuck that "Wilder" [crossed out: had] has been baying so long, my glass brings him and the dogs near. He looks more than half nude. I hear stones rattle and see him at work removing them. Presently Nip sets up a fierce barking and I know he can see the"chuck". He fairly spreads in his ex-citement. I can see a white spot where [crossed out: his] I know his rear end protrudes from the [crossed out: ???] cavity in the stone wall. The other dogs move about and leap from side to side of the fence. Once they fall to fighting when Julian parts them. Evidently there is great rivalry and excitement among them. Momentarily I expect to see Nip or T??? or Cuff or Wilder drag forth the chuck but he does not appear, and after a long delay J. abandons the hunt and returns with his fork to the hay field. He shouts to me that [crossed out: the] he has not more time to fool with the chuck, he is too deep in the wall. I take another turn at the spring and start across the hill for the house. 21 Another very hot day. Again I sit on the hill side under the woods and look down upon the hay makers as I did yesterday. Great cloud shadows drift slowly over the landscape and up the mountain sides. The rock is cool at my back; the cooler air of the mountain flows down upon me; it pours upon my uncovered head [crossed out: like] in a gentle current. The dogs find a wood chuck in the ledge near by. Nip goes far in out of sight and barks fiercely. I see the chuck in a crack on the rocks and try to dislodge him with a pole, but he keeps out of reach of the dog. The indigo bird, the vireo and the bush sparrow sing here and there. The spring at which I drink does not seem as cold as in my youth. Ice-water and various iced things sophisticate ones taste. 26 A rainy morning at the old home after three weeks of drought. Began in the night, heavy at times. The mountains are all blotted out as I so often have seen them, fog clings here and there to their sides and top and to the lower land scape, the rain pours steadily, thetrees stand motionless. The boys are in the wag[crossed out: g]on-house talking and chaffing [crossed out: each] one another, or lounging upon the hay. An inch or more of rain has fallen and still it comes down. The barns look wet, the road full of puddles and coursing runlets. The thirsty ground takes it and it tastes good. I know it does. I read Scott, or lounge about or loaf with the boys. 10 A.M. Rain over apparently. A good dose at a good time. A little sparrow here has 4 different songs, one of them suggests the words, come, come, come, don't you wish you were me-e-e? with rising inflection. I hear and see the bobolinks in the meadow, old and young in groups or small flocks, getting ready to migrate. No song now, only "pink", pink." 28 Another gentle rain early this morning 3 or 4 hours. Very warm, another heated term. 30 Curtis and I drive over to Edens. Find him nearly all well again. Hot weather. 31. Hot. After dinner we drive to Homer Lynch's. Homer very feeble. Can hardly understand what he says. He shakes like an aspen leaf. Cannot get up out of his chair. Says he has no desire to live longer. Jane well and getting stouter each year. A sad house no help on the farm. Jane has a terrible hard lot, not a gleam of sunshine in her life [crossed oug: as] that I can see. Yet she does not com-plain. Oh, how I pity her and Homer too. [crossed out: We left] Aug 1st We leave for home this morning, Jane is weeping and Homer, too. A sadder house I never saw. Hot and sticky weather. 2d Julian and I return home to-day. On the boat coming down from Rondout a little girl, 6 or7 years old seemed attracted by me. My glasses interested her, and she took great pleasure in looking through them. She was the daughter of a travelling showman and with her father was going to "New Gipsy" which I found out meant Po'keepsie. There was something very pleasing about her and her frank childish ways. She hesitated a little in her speech, said her home was in Chicago, she said she was hungry, and every time the pilot signalled to the engineer she thought it was the dinner bell. Had I had dinner? Yes. It fairly made her mouth water. Was there no dining room on the boat? No, but she went to look for one. When we were about to leave the boat she said she wished she was going home with me. Aug 2 and 3d Very hot and murky 4 A terrific thunder showerlast night about midnight. A tropical tempest. Incessant lightning and thunder [crossed out: ???] crash and peal. A tremendous fall of rain 1 1/2 inch. Washed the vineyard badly in places. Nearly clear to-day, with prospects of cooler weather. 5 Cooler weather did not come, but more rain and thunder. A brink shower at 6; then rain from 11 till morning. An inch and 1/2 of water last night. Wind N.W. this morning and clearing and cooler. 7 Hot and sultry. 8 with sharp, [crossed out: viscious] vicious shower at 5. 9 Cloudy and sultry, but cooler at night. 10 Cooler with slow rain. -- There is no such thing as chance in the world, all events are determined by law. But with reference to my will and purposethere is chance. If I cast a stone in the dark, so far as my will is concerned, it is a matter of chance where it strikes. I may chance to be on the train when there is a smash up; inexorable law control[crossed out: l]s the event and brought me there, but to my will and conscious purpose, it is a matter of chance. Where the seed born by yonder floating thistle-down will fall, is not a matter of chance. If we could see all the forces that act upon it and will act upon it, we could tell accurately where it will lodge. What seems chance to us is the result of our ignorance and impotence. 17. Still warm and sultry, with lucid intervals now and then A brisk thunder shower last night at 6 1/2 -- One must work at his [crossed out: paper] essay till it is ripe -- till all stress, stiffness, formality, are worked out of it, and ease, and a kind of indifference take their place, [crossed out: so that he] and he makes his point without seeming to aim to. This is mastery -- to do a difficult thing with ease and with reserve strength. 19 The rotten weather continues, rain every day, tho, not heavy, but the air reeks with moisture all the time and the least exertion starts copious perspiration. The very ground will rot by and by. How mushrooms and mildews do flourish. Yet the grape rot seems about over; not serious in my vineyards, but very destructive in many others. Rained till noon and then broke away 20. Clear and much cooler. How long will it last? Hiram returned Thursday, the 18th. No echo of the war in my journal, yet what an absorbed spectator of it I have been, and now that it is ended I feel a great strain taken off me. I no longer rush for the news paper in the morning, nor tarry impatiently at the station for it at night. I shared the popular feeling about it and wanted to see Spain kicked out of the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish blight and mildew have rested upon those fair islands long enough. If the races there are not worthy of liberty and self-government we will put a race there that is. What a brilliant spot the war has made in our recent hum-drum history. Out of a corrupt mammonish time, given over to millionaireism, emerge these heroes, plenty of them, vying with [crossed out: each] one an other, courting death as a bride. How their example has electrified the whole country, and fused us and made us more completely one. It makes us realize that we are a country, it has begotten an enthusiasm of nationality; henceforth we are a worthier and a nobler people. This heroism at Santiago is enough the leaven the whole lump. Oh, war, so cruel, so mad, so destruc-tive, yet how can a nation be knitted and compacted and expanded without thee! It is like the heat that helps make iron into steel. It transforms the baser metals. So selfish and yet so unselfish! It is the plow and harrow of God. It tears and destroys, yet a quicker, fuller life follows. A battle between men is brutal; a battle between nations is often divine -- not from the personal point of view, but from the point of view of history. Spain will ultimately be better for this war as well as this Country. "He maketh the wrath of man to praise him." -- A chimney swift just now came down my chimney with its beak stuffed with food for its young, and was caught by me It held a large wad or mass, as largeas large as a small chestnut, of flies, house flies, and larger flies, some of which were still alive, and other insects more ma[crossed out: s]cerated, in its lower mandible. Thiss mass gave a stuffed and distended appearance to its throat. As I tried to [crossed out: oppe] open its beak, it [crossed out: disgor] ejected this mass and I let it fly away. I wonder how soon it will be back. I hear [crossed out: the] already the impatient chippering of its nearly fleged young. These fell down my chimney last night at 2 o'clock, and set up such a squeaking and chattering that I was compelled to get up and put them up in the throat of the chimney and then stop it up with news papers. The mother bird in her haste or carelessness in some way fell down through or between these papers. 24 Hot wave began Monday. 94 to-day on my porch and air loaded with moisture. Thunder shower last night, two of them. Another to-night nearly an inch of water both nights. A season prodigal of heat and rain. How long oh Lord, or Devil, will it last? Saw vinyards all ragged with grape rot [crossed out: ye] to-day near Highland. -- It seems to me in vain for Tolstoi to combat the idea that pleasure, [crossed out: wor] worthy pleasure is the aim or effect of art. Unworthy pleasure, like that aimed at by much French literature -- no. To convey what one has really felt and experienced to others, that is a pleasure, worthy if the feeling is worthy, if not, then not. But the art is in the manner, not in the matter(?)28. Very cold last night -- down to 50 this morning. Clear and bright. Only a little rain since the 24th. Hiram and Ed topping the onions yesterday. -- Denton told me again of his adven-ture with a weasel. He was passing along the road early one morning between Highland falls and West Point, when he heard something squealing just over the wall by the road side. In a moment a rat came hastily over the wall and in hot pursuit a weasel. The weasel overtook and seized the rat before it reached the wall on the other side. Denton with his cane rushed to the rescue of the rat. He struck at the weasel several times and was dodged. Then the animal dropped the rat and turned upon him, jump-ing up before him nearly on a level with his face and within reach of his cane, its eyes gleamingfiercely. He struck at it repeatedly and was each time avoided. Denton seems chiefly to remember how the little [crossed out: fierce a] murderous eyes danced and twinkled and shone in his very face and he could not strike the owner of them. He began to back off. Then the weasel seized the rat again. Then D. tried stoning it, but each time the weasel dodged the missil. Presently a soldier joined him, and they both stoned it, and finally hit it and mad it loosen its hold upon the rat. It took refuge in the wall and thrust its head out at them and dodged every stone they threw. Sept. 1 Terrific heat all over the country -- began two days ago. Hottest 1st of Sept. ever known in N.Y. 107 at Herald office -- returned soldiers prostrated. Hiram and Charley topping onions. On the shady side of a stake stuck in the muck near them, mercury marked 102. On the porch 96. Clear, calm. This will be remembered as the hot summer -- the hottest three months I remember in this latitude. In the vineyard the grape cutters nearly melt. At night my eyes are inflamed by the sweat -- and not cool wave yet in sight. 2d The day begins as hot or hotter than yesterday. Shower at night. 4 Still in the nineties, abortive showers in afternoon. The clouds rotted in the sky. Great electric display at night.7. Still hot, but the heated term is slowly wearing itself out. Mercury keeps well up in the eighties. Brief shower last night, with much lightning. Muggy to-day with [crossed out: si] increaseing signs of more showers. P.M. Heavy shower -- 2 inches of water -- rained half the afternoon. 8 Clearing and much cooler. 9 Bright and cool; felt like frost last night. 17 Warm and dry for the past few days. Finish most of the grapes to-day -- about 28 tons. Mercury 86 to-day. 18 Hot and dry. 19 A little cooler and dry. 20 Clear, cool, dry smoky Julian starts for Harvard again to-day. Again I wheel his trunk over to the station, filled with the old sad thoughts and retrospections. He is not very well and this too troubles me. How well that childrenthink less of their parents than parents of their children. If it were not so sons and daughters would never leave home, families would never break up and scatter as Nature meant they should. The old cry to the young, "Oh, do not leave me!" But the young are full of hope and courage, and the future and not the past sways them. Until[crossed out: l] they have become parents themselves, and tasted the pathos of life, do the [crossed out: yo] children know how their parents suffer. 22. To Asbury Park to-day., Wife and I. Reach there at 7 P.M. Heavy rain at night. 23. Mild bright weather. The untiring sea, how it draws me. I spend most of my time upon the beach. 29 One week by the sea; weather superb most of the time. I gain 4 pounds in 5 days; then bathe once in the surf and lose one pound. HowI eat and sleep! The sea is as kind and medicinal to me as of old. 30 Back home to-day. Weather warm and fine. Oct 1st Pretty hot, above 80. 2d Bright and warm. 4 Still summer heat. 84 to-day. Wind S.W. 5 Heavy rain last night, over an inch of water. Still hot and sultry this morning with signs of more rain. 8 Slow rain to-day. 9 Bright and cool. 12 Mild weather continues. Fine rain last night in the middle of the night. Bright and warm this morning 15. Pretty heavy rain last night. Windy and colder to-day. Go to West Point and see the foot-ball game. Cold and wind.Pass the night at Dentons. 16 Sharp and windy. A long walk, Stay in P. with Mrs B. 17 Home to-day. Clear and sharp. Our first considerable frost last night. 18 Milder with signs of appraching storm. A gloomy day to me. Headache in afternoon. Boys working ditching the swamp. I burn brush. In evening Hiram and I sit before the fire, with long periods of silence as usual. Hiram soon to leave me for Del. Co. 19. Cloudy, with light rain. A bad night -- headache. Woods getting yellow -- but little orange and crimson yet 22. Rain last nght, about 1 inch. Mild to-day, 66. Clearing off cooler in afternoon. Forests all all golden now, with touches of orange and crimson. Katy dids last night. 25. Bright golden day. Hiram leaves me to-day and goes back to Del. co to stay. As I help him on the 10 o'clock train with his bundles, Lolita Gill and Mrs Strong get off to spend the day with me. It pained me to see Hiram go. Nearly three years has he been with me -- a fragment of the old home. Shall I see him no more coming along the road here? [crossed out: h] or hear his hammer no more in my shop? Spend the evening in P. to attend the 60th wedding anniversary of Mr and Mrs Combs -- Both 82 years old and well and hearty. Especially the woman. She looks about 70. The woman outlasts the man on this home stretch. The change brought about by old age is not so great in the case of the woman as in that of the man. The current of her life goes on nearly the same. She sews and knits and helps about the house. She has always been in doors and she does not pine. But with the man the chane is more radical. He is done with active life, he keeps in-doors, he pines, he rusts, he is useless, and he dies before the woman. Mainly, I think because of this greater change. 26 Rain to-day and all night. Warm 27 Clearing to-day with wind and falling temperature. Miss Segue and Miss Haviland here. 28 Quite a severe frost last night. 29. Cloudy. Mrs B. returns to-day from P. gone 17 days. Prof. Bracq and wife and the Gordon girls here in the after-noon. 30. Cold slow rain. Stayed at Riverby last night for the first.31. I make my last entry in this [crossed out: journal] month to record the death of my beloved dog Nip, which occured yesterday afternoon at 4.40 by falling through the high R.R. bridge over black creek. We went on a walk up the track as we have done a hundred times, I stopped at this end of the bridge to look down upon the creek. Nip passed over. I heard a train coming [crossed out: up] down the track and called the dog back. He came to near the end when he paused and in some way, his hind feet slipped off the tie and he fell through before my eyes. He struck heavily on soft ground, got up and ran crying a few yards, and fell in his death agony. When I got to him he had ceased to breathe. It was one of the worst shocks I ever had, and quite stunned me For a moment the whole universeseemed bereft and my whole outlook upon life changed. I laid his limp body beside the abutment of the bridge and came home in the twilight to pass a sleepless night. When I was not thinking of him I was dreaming of him. I dreamed of sending two girls for his body with a pole to chile they were to tie it. I got the strings and pole for them. Then I dreamed the R.R. men had buried him and had shot him before doing so. Mrs B. guided me to the spot in the road, and I dug him up. This morning I brought him over here in a basket and laid him down once more beside the fire, that my eyes might behold him [crossed out: once more] again in his old place. What a conterfeit of sleep. I did not know I loved the dog so. Now Hiram is gone, he was my only companion. I shall bury him here near Slabsides -- almost a part of myself.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: July 1, 1890 - April 6, 1891
Text: July 1 Hot and dry. 2d 3. Sprinkles of rain from S.W. 4 Cooler. A shower last night, 1/2 inch water. P.M. Two pretty heavy showers this afternoon Rain enough. Spend the day at home. Pick two crates of rasp this afternoon. 5. Clear and cool, a lovely day. 6. Clear and beautiful and very cool. Almost too cool to sit insummer house this morning. My sleep has been as good as of old for some weeks now. My life quite uneventful. No thoughts, no company, but little correspondence, no new books and...
Show moreJuly 1 Hot and dry. 2d 3. Sprinkles of rain from S.W. 4 Cooler. A shower last night, 1/2 inch water. P.M. Two pretty heavy showers this afternoon Rain enough. Spend the day at home. Pick two crates of rasp this afternoon. 5. Clear and cool, a lovely day. 6. Clear and beautiful and very cool. Almost too cool to sit insummer house this morning. My sleep has been as good as of old for some weeks now. My life quite uneventful. No thoughts, no company, but little correspondence, no new books and but rare reference to the old ones. Julian my only companion. Begin girdling grape vines yesterday. 8 Great heat. 15 Hot day after a cool streak. heavy shower at 5 1/2 P.M. 16 Grape rot begins. 17 Go to Highland. 18 Begin spraying vines to-day. Too late, no doubt; expectto lose entire grape crop by black rot. Hell wihtout and hell within. Black rot on one side of me and a "brawling woman" on the other. 19 Cold and showery; showers light. Rarely see it so cold in July, doubt if it checks the rot. 20 Too cold this morning to sit in the summer house. My hands were cold this morning as I went for milk. Mecury 52. 21st Still cold, 50 degrees Highland this morning. Bright and dry to-day. Rot still at work slowly.24. A visit from Dr John Johnston of Bolton, England, a modest quiet, interessting man, 36 years old, born at Annan; went to school in the Academy where Carlyle once taught. A canny young Scotchman. Like him first rate, not much of a talker, a great lover of Whitman whom he had just visited. Mrs B. would not sit at the table with us, nor hardly be civil to Johnston. The devil in her was especially active. He had a pictures of his father and mother, and of his wife. Goes to Canada to-day to visit relatives and then home. 25. Rain sets in and continues all day slowly. 26. Rains again to-day till noon. About 2 inches of water since Thursday night. The grape rot is happy. Expect to see it sweep the vineyards now. 27. Sunday, still, muggy, hot. 31 Go to Sherwoods and spend the day. Very hot, in the nineties. Shower at night. August 1st Hot and wet. 2d Hot and muggy. 3d Hot, wind S.W. much humidity. 4. Hot and oppressive, wind S.W. Expect every day to see grape rot start anew.6. Hot and muggy. Improving in afternoon. A delicious day in the woods. 8 The funeral day of old Mr. Sterling, my Scotch neighor and friend; died suddenly two days ago; got drunk and never got sober. Born in Rutherglen near Glasgow 80 years ago; lived long in G. and worked at his trade of carpentering; worked in the Arcade. Came to this country 30 years ago and settled back here in the woods when his wife died 10 years ago. Came froma great city to a rocky solitude, and was apparently content. A racy, canny Scotchman, with good deal of dignity of character at times. His one failing a passion for strong drink, which got the better of him at times. I was always glad to meet him and shall miss him much. 16. Our first shipment of grapes last night. Cool and dry. 21. Shipped Moors Early to-day. 24. Heavy showers the past week at night. To-day cold, over cast, autumnal. Yesterday likewise. Frosts in N.W. Girdled Champions all off, and part of rest.27 Heavy down pour last night, heaviest of the summer; ground full of water this morning. This P.M. bright and warm. Began shipping warden grapes to-day. Cut 280 lbs. Moors E. and champion all off. Cut one crate of Delawares also. Sept 7. Sunday; Very busy all past week getting off the grapes weather favorable till yesterday afternoon when we had a tremendous down pour which washed the side hill badly -- a thunder shower without any thunder -- the heaviest of the season. Del. and Wordens about all off; Concords about half. Prices high. Best peaches 4 dollarsSept 13 A wet warm week; rain 3 or 4 days, a disgusting rain and mist. Finished Wordens and Del. first of the week. 17 A clear fine day after nearly ten days of rain. One of the wettest Sept. so far I remember in a long time. Rains very heavy and protracted all over the country. In H. in afternoon. 21. Still fair, and getting cool and fall like, about the last of the Concords off yesterday. -- The bee does not gather his honey from the flowers; it is mainly his product; What he gathers from flowers issweet water -- diluted grape sugar. Out of this she makes [crossed out: his] her honey by a kind of digestion and assimilation. It is not honey till the bee is added -- something special and peculiar to itself. It is precisely so with the poet. He gets only the raw material of his poetry from Nature -- himself must be added, his spiritual and emotional quality before it becomes poetry. Indeed it is so with true literature of any kind. Tis what the man himself adds to his facts or truths or teaching that makes it literature. Sept 24. Start for N.Y. to-day for 10 days vacation. Pass a few hous in N.Y. with Gilder, then to Johnsons at Bay Shore at 3 P.M. Day fine. 25 and 26 At J's have a pleasant time. Eat and sleep like a boy. Meet a Mrs Mapes who was saved from death last winter by skillful surgery, a bad case of pneumonia, both lungs invaded. When they saw and she felt she was dying they pumped oxygen into her lungs -- only a small space at the top not congested. She said her feelings were, "Oh do let me die, do not prolong my agony. I am dying, nothing can save me, leave me in peace" Then tumors formed upon her lungs and they opened her through the back, put in pipes and drew the pus[crossed out: s] and water off, and thus faught the disease and conquered. For many weeks afterward she was out of her mind, ideed a maniac from the [crossed out: use] effects of the morphine administered. Gradually she came to herself and is now quite well again. 27 Go to Camden to-day to see Walt. Find him eating his dinner and eating like a well man and looking like one. Am quite shocked at the chaos amid which he lives and which seems to grow worse from year to year. Never saw anything like it in my life. Itfairly stuns one. The table at which he sat was piled up with books and papers and letters as long as they would lay on apperently pitched on with a fork. The dishes holding his dinner were pushed into this mass, how I do not know. All about him the chairs and other tables were piled full and the floor was covered nearly knee deep, an avalanche of litter, dust over all. Another Such room perhaps the world does not hold. It is so terrible that one feels as if he may have to be judged as a poet by that room. The effect was depressing. He is better than for 3 years past except his locomotion and hearing, which are failing. I sit and talktill Horace Traubel appears at 5, when I go home with him to tea, and then to Harneds for the night. 28 A bright Sunday. See Walt again at 11, in the lower room, where more order reigns and where in his big chair by the window he looks as of old. At 5 he comes to dinner at Harneds and we have a fine time. He eats and talks as of old. At 7 he is wheeled home in his chair and I walk by his side and take my leave of him. Then to Church (Unitarian) and listen to a bloodless sermon and nearly fall asleep. How we love the concrete, the real, in poetry, in literature, in art. Indeedwill have it. No wonder then, the people want it in religion. Something tangible and real that takes hold of their concrete natures. Hence the vitality and power of the old creeds. It is not moonshine, however false. It seems real. Such airy nothings as the Unitarians offer can never take hold of the people, or of me either. The old theology outrages one, the new starves one. 29. Bright day. Back to N.Y. Oct. 1st Lovely day. 2d ditto. 3 Rode all day through Mass. From Boston to Po'keepsieAm truly astonished at the look of this famous state; not till I struck our own state in Dutchess Co. did I see a good farming country. It seems to me that less than 25 per cent of the land I saw from the car window was under cultivation, or was worth cultivating. A flat country all grown up to bushes and scrubby pines. Only when we struck the towns was there signs of thrift and prosperity. What a contrast Dutches Co presented! here one spread of fine farms and homesteads. In the Connecticut valley about Northampton is a vast area of beautiful prairie land and that is all I saw till I reached N.Y. 4 Lovely day. At home again. 5 Fine day: get track of a bee tree back in the woods. 8 Cool day of sun and shadow after two days of rain. No frost yet. The white throats are here. 15. A bright lovely day. Go out home in the morning. How deep and strange my feelings as I catch sight of my native hills from the train. I had never before seen it under just such conditions; none of my family there, and the farm mine. Take dinner with sister Abigail and then PM walk up to the old place. George thrashing buckwheat. [crossed out: ???] Walk over the hill and down to Tylers. Spend the night with George. Find he is doing welland can pay the rent. He and Maria have worked like slaves and have done all that could be done. I conclude to let the farm to him for another year. 16 Walk over to Tom Smiths. A bright day with signs of approaching rain. In after noon go over to Curtis'es and spend the night. Have great pleasure in seeing him again. In the morning early he awoke me by calling "John" to his son up stairs. I answered automatically as in the old days when he called me as a boy to get up to milk. A pouring rain all night. 17 Go out to Edens on noon train. Bright and fair. A pleasant visit to Edens. Hiram is there and it seems like old times. How differentfrom my last visit there! 18 Bright day. I climb the mountain in search of basswood trees for crates. Wander about in the still woods on the damp newly fallen leaves, listening to the drumming of the partridges and selecting the tall trees. Eden goes fox hunting, and Hiram goes to the neighbors. Ed. chops wood. Seeing my people again, and my native hills satisfies a longing that has been very keen all summer. Eden seems to be doing well on his farm and I think may keep it. 19 Rain and rain. Return home in afternoon.24. Cold rain all day from the north, a cyclone sweeping the coast. No frost yet to kill tomatoes. Much rain. Work at hauling soil in vineyard and digging out rocks and stones. Nov 10. A fine month so far, no rain to speak of and little frost. Getting quite dry. Only once before this season have ten days elapsed without rain. At work all this month grubbing up trees and rock back of the barn. Health good and life fairly enjoyable. Domestic skies quite bright. Election Day (the 4th) a fair day, partly overcast. The result of the elections a hard blow to Republicans and high tariff men, suits me, who, three years ago cried halt to the tariff bucks. 14 A lovely day, genuine indian summer. At work with Sherwood laying a gutter along the road in the vineyard. 15 Overcast; thick, still, threatening rain, still at work on the gutter. 16 Lovely day. More Indian summer. Julian and I wak over to the steam shovel. Signs of storm at sundown. 17. Thick and murky. Rain began in morning, now at 11 a.m. raining hard. 18 Fair agian. Rain not severe. 19, 20, 21, and 22d all fair days and mild. 23 Sunday. Our first snow squall this morning. The great flakes came down thick and fast for nearly an hour. Now at 10 A.M. sky nearly clear, sun shining, and snow melting. It was only a light white wash Finished clearing up the woods back of the barn yesterday. Grapes all trimmed and laid down. 27. Thanksgiving. Bright; dry, hard cold, freezing nearly all day. A domestic tornado. A long dry spell, the first of the season. Looks to me now like a cold winter. 28 Clear, cold, still; not a cloud. Work at the gutter in vineyard with Sherwood30 Mild, clear in afternoon, hazy. An Indian summer look. Ice on the ponds yesterday 3/4 inch. No rain yet. Dec 1. Clear, dry and cold, wind in North. 7. A week of quite snug winter weather; mercury down to 8 degrees on Tuesday the 2d. Some snow and hail and rain. The ground now covered with a thin coat of amil. The stones covered with ice. No ice in river yet. 14 Another rather snug winters week. Much ice on the river said to be 7 or 8 inches on the ponds. No little boat this week. no snow, no rain. Worked nearlyall the week on lot back of barn -- Is it science or is it democracy, or the time spirit, that has caused the world to become more and more secular, less and less religious for the past 200 years? With all our Christianity, the ancient communities, Egypt, Greece, Rome, were much more religious than we are, that is their lives, both individual and natural, faced much more toward the unseen supernatural powers. The gods played the leading part in their histories; they really play no part at all in ours. Religious motives, fears, hopes etc. entered largely into every act, national and individual. At Plataea, both the Greeks and Persians refrained for 10 days from makingthe attack becasue the oracles and other victims were unfavorable. The armies had their diviners, upon whose word the action hinged. No expedition was undertaken without consulting the oracles, and no action fought without [crossed out: ???] offering sacrifices. Indeed life in the ancient nations was a drama in which the gods always played the leading parts. What havoc was played with the Greeks at Syracuse because of an eclipse of the sun or moon. Religion bore no relation to morality with the ancient races; the most shocking and revolting crimes were committed in the name of the gods; the gods themselves were often immoral. But ours is a religion of morality. Indeed morality is becomingmore and more, religion as such, less and less. -- My first reading in Schopenhauer lately -- "The Wisdom of Life" and wisdom there is in the book and penetration. The style is clear simple and direct, not at all heavy and cumbersome, like most German writing His pessimism crops out here and there, as in this sentence. "There are more things in the world productive of pain than of pleasure" He says the meaning of Philistine is a man with no mental needs -- he is not a son of the muses. He says all the wit there is in the world is useless to him who has none. He says when modesty was made a virtue it was very advantageous to the fools. Fame is something to be won; honor something not something to be lost. Fame never can be lost, but honor once gone is gone forever. The dishonorable act can never be recalled. Vulgarity, he says, is will without intellect; ordinary people take an interest in things only so far as they excite their will, that is their interest is a purely personal one. Card-playing is a mere tickling of the will. But a man of intellect is capable of taking an interest in things in the way of mere knowledge, with no admixture of will; nay such an interest is a necessity to him. The philistine has will, but not intellect. I myself am deficient in will; my wife deficient in intellect -- "Old Jack Sprat could eat no fat", etc. Between us both there is no peace in the householdThe book is upon happiness, and the conclusion of the whole matter is that a man is happy only by reason of what he is in and of himself. He hates Heg[crossed out:le]el, and says this of Goethe: "It is a great [crossed out: mistake to] [???] of folly to sacrifice the inner for the outer man, to give the whole or the greater part of ones quiet leisure and independence for splendor, rank, pomp, titles and honor. This is what Goethe did. My good luck drew me quite in the other direction." Dec. 20 The tenth anniversary of Mother's death, the day clear, still, cold, good sleighing, 6 or 7 inches of heavy snow three days ago on a hard frozen icy ground; river nearly closed, or closed above and below with a large open space in front of us.Mercury down to 4 degrees this morning. I sit in my study and try to write again on Analogy, my old theme of 20 years ago. Julian on the hard snow with his sleigh. Mrs. B. busy and cross in the house. 21 It is interesting to note how man perpetually makes God in his own image. As man becomes more and more humanitarian he makes God more and more humanitarian. God grows benevolent as man grows benevolent. He is no longer the implacable governor and ruler of the universe, he is our heavenly Father, more ready to tender forgiveness than we are to ask it. I do not know whether or not God made man, but it is certain that man made God. 26. A big snow storm from N.E. began early this morning. Looks like old times and feels like it. Can hardly see the ice houses. Snowed yesterday in Va. and Ohio valley. Mercury down to 10 degrees. 27. About one foot of snow. Mild and partly clear to day. 31. Cold rugged winter weather. Mercury fluctuates from 4 [crossed out: above] to 15 above. J. and I had our first skate on the river yesterday. Overcast and threatening snow. -- How many of the notions of mankind are like those of the farmer who assures you that his spring is warm in winter and cold in summerso far as his sensations are concerned and therefore to all intents and purposes it is warm in winter and cold in summer. He has not learned that his senses are relative; that the temperature of the outward medium in which we live and move influences our judgement in such matters. The age in which one lives makes a thing seem hot or seem cold, seem good or seem bad, a [???] heresy or one eye is the [???] opinion of the next. The truth does not vary, but our perceptions of itbut our perceptions of it vary greatly. 1891 January 1st Still, cloudy, inclined to be foggy, mercury 20 degrees. A little snow last night and yesterday. Health good these days, better than last year. Very few of my peculiar symptoms. Digestion better than for a long time. Can even eat mince pie. Mind vigorous, yet no new thoughts or impulses. 2 Warmer, rain and fog, same as one year ago. Now at 3 P.M. cannot see river for fog. But signs of breaking. Mercury 40 degrees. -- Compare such criticism as Lowell's and Stedman's with Matthew Arnold's and you see what their deficiencies are: They lead nowhere, they have nosystem, science. There are no currents of thought in them setting towards certain definite points. They really throw no light on the book or author they discuss; the question are left just where they were before. No organization, no survey of the man from one clearly defined stand point. Perhaps some hint may be given by saying that their criticisms are analytical and never synthetical, they give us no wholes. They are never creative. They never lead us to a window, but at most to a crack or crevice. In some of Lowells shorter paper, as the one on "Emerson as a Lecturer" and on "Thoreau", the results are more synthetical. But there is little evolution, little growth in either L. or S.1891 5 Snow all night and nearly all day from the north, a local storm; pretty cold Looks like the height of winter I sit all day in my study and labor and do not even bring forth a mouse. Indeed, a mouse would be very encouraging. Trying to read Martineau's "Basis of Authority in Religion," a ponderous tone, very tiresome. M. is a deep thinker and a strong effective writer, but he is tiresome, a fatal fault. 6 Bright day after the snow and a little warmer. Again after three years I see before my window a plain of snow where the sparkling river used to be. Two men are now crossing. How their figures stand out in the vivid sunlight on the spotless surface!Jan 10 Clear and cold; down to zero this morning, 6 below over by station. Snow deep, winter full-grown and robust; not much wind yet. Bad head-ache last night; worst for a year. Took up yesterday Renans Life of Jesus. What would be ones feelings if he were to come back to life 100 years hence, a world filled with strangers. How would his own country seem to him all filled with strangers, all the questions, all the leading men, new to him; his own farm [crossed out: and] or house occupied by strangers who had never heard his name.12 Big thunder shower last night bet. 11 and 12. Thundered and lightened and rain poured for over an hour just as in summer. Rained most of the day yesterday. River all covred with water this morning. Wells and springs full. -- "Who knows whether the final term of progress, in the millions of ages will not bring back the absolute consciousness of the universe, and in that consciousness the awakening of all who have lived. A sleep of a million years is no longer than a sleep of an hour." Renan. It is said that Mongol physicians never ask their patients any questions about their [crossed out: disease] ailments lest they appear to show ignorance in their profession. They feel the pulse in both wrists at the same time.January 16 "By our extreme scrupulousness", says Renan, "in the employment of the means of conviction, by an absolute sincerity and our disinterested love of the pure idea[crossed out: l], we all, who have devoted our lives to science, have founded a new ideal of morality." -- "The great man, or the one hard, religious all things from his things; or the other he masters his trial." Renan. Finished Renan's Life of Jesus to-day. I do not find the figure of Jesus as he is portrayed in these pages very impressive. The book [crossed out: is full of] abounds in noble sentimens and fine thougths, but there is something lacking, something which a more profound and serious nature would have supplied. He does not speak the word which explains the enigma of Christianity, tho' he often raises the hope [crossed out: ???] and expectation that he will speak it. Tihs comes near it "The essential work of Jesus wasthe creation around him of a cirlce of disciples in whom he inspired a boundless attachment, and in whose breast he implanted the germ of his doctrine. his moral type and the impression which he had produced was all that remained of him." Of course the letters of Paul and the synoptic Gospels made Christianity, but what made Paul and how came the [crossed out: ???] Gospels to be written. What was there in this obscure Galilean that caused these things to be said and written about him? They were not said and written of Philo, or Jesus the son of Sirach, or of John the Baptist, or of Appollonius of Tyre, or of St Paul, or of Socrates. Why were these things written of Jesus of Nazareth? He must have been an extraordinary person to begin with; he produced anunique impression. Then the legend of the resurrection [crossed out: done] did the rest. Without this Christianity would never have been heard of. How did this legend begin. Here is the miracle, the mystery of Christianity. St Paul took this up and gave the rationale of the matter and thus furnished the doctrine feet to travel on. But back of all is still the personality of Jesus. He must have assumed a tone of authority and an air of mystery that were very impressive. As Renan says, "The faith, the enthusiasm, the constancy of the first Christian generation[crossed out: s] is explained only by supposing at the beginning of the whole movement a man of colosal proportions."January 17. Snug, uniform winter weather, [crossed out: but] about right every way. No severe cold after the thunder shower of Sunday night. Read the exploit of a Brooklyn man in killing a bull moose in Maine. With his guides, all armed with Winchester rifles, he followed the trail of the moose through 2 feet of snow for six days. They started him from a moose yard near the top of a mountian. As soon as the animal found itself pursued it led right off and hoped to outwalk its enemies. But they had snow shoes and he did not; they had food and he did not. On the 5th day he began to show signs of fatigue, by resting often. He also tried to get aroundbehind his pursuers and let them pass on. On the morning of the 6th day he had made up his mind to travel no further, but to face his enemies and have it out with them. As he heard them approach he rose up from his couch of snow, his [crossed out: main] mane erect, his look determined, and confronted them about 50 yards distant. Poor creature, how my heart went out to him brought to bay there in the snow of those Maine woods. He did not know how unequal the contest was. One thing I devoutly wished, that he too could have been armed with a Winchester rifle and knew how to use it. But before he could use such weapons as he had, two bullets cut him down. And the man brags of his exploit!18 Snowed till after noon. Hail and some rain all night, and most of the day yesterday. Clearing to night. -- M. writes well; he is scholarly and thoughtful but he has not the gift of style, no fresh new quality of mind. His work has nothing to distinguish it from the great mass of scholarly production now turned out on all sides. I do not know [crossed out: as] that Woodberry's or T.S. Perry's has either. The only pickle that will keep these things is just what the schools and the books and professors cannot help you to. Arthur Young in his travels in France in 1787 says, "Who in comon sense would deny a king the amusement of a mistress, provided he did not make a business of his plaything! Paris at that time had no sidewalks or foot pavements as he calls them. Walking was fatiguing anddangerous to men and impossible to a well-dessed woman The bodies of infants used to be put in stays, he says, and are so still in Spain. 20 Myron Benton came to-day at 10 1/2 A.M. Delighted to see him Weather mild. 22. Heavy rain from South pours all day. Much damage and loss of life in some places 23. Bright and warm. Myron leaves to-day. Drives with Mrs B. to P. I go down on noon train to drive back. Ice not very good. Myron and I have had our old talks again. Every moment he was here gave me pleasure How much more life would beto me if I could often have visits from such men as Myron. 24. Warm and clear. Looks like a breaking of old Wwinters reign. 25. Heavy snow, wet and heavy, breaks down some of my hemlocks. Thaws all day, snow stops by noon. 27. Clear, warm, and [crossed out: hazy] smoky, a fly buzzing on the pane. Is the cold indeed over? 30 Rain last night. Bright and warm this morning. Snow still deep. Ice on river covered with water. Feb. 1st Still warm and bright. Feb. 2d Still warm and bright, but cold wave coming. Feel its breath already. -- When I look up at the stars at night I am so overwhelmed sometims that I say to myself we can not only conceive of a being that could do that, but we cannot take the first step toward conceiving him. How puny and insignificant seems the God of the churches. Therefore I say he is the most devout man who says there is no god -- the utmost stretch of [crossed out: ho] whose thought cannot make out one feature or attribute of a being who could put those stars up there. The universeis so stupendous that it crushes any Atlas upon whose shoulders we may place it. There is no God. There is a self existing, self perpetuating universe. This notion of the Heavenly Father who concerns himself about each individual, whence does it come? In life and history there is not the slightest edivence of such a being. The other day out on the plains of Kansas, a poor widow with her three children found the wolf of want at her door. What oculd she do? She would destroy herself and family. The eldest boy aged 12, escaped with his throat partly cut and ran to the neighbors and gave the alarm; but before help could return the house was burnedand the woman and her two little children burned with it. Where was the Heavenly Father then? Barely one such case and there are thousands of them, and worse, every year -- dissipates completely all such notions. If you can survive the clashing and warring and waste of the universe, all right; if not, all right. I heard of an idle fellow convicted of some crime whom the Judge sentencedd to three years in the penitentiary. When sentence was pronounced he exclaimed to the judge in the most pleased and satisfied tones, "All right, Judge, all right."Feb 3. More rain. Cold wave knocked in the head. "Thus it is in revolutions" says Arthur Young who was travelling in France in the early stages of the French Revolution "thus it is, one rascal writes (some preposterous story) and a hundred thousand fools believe." 5. 5 P.M. A solitary robin just flew over and dived down into my hemlocks by the house. Cold this AM. 7 degrees above. 6. The robins sang this morning in a tree near the school-house mild and thawy. 7 Overcast this P.M. thawing. Ice boats all waiting for a breeze, which will not come. I look out on the ice and see a little black speck over towards Hyde Park That is Julian going for the 2,40 train. I hear the train coming; the black speck seems to move faster, but when the train passes it and stops at the station there is a wide strip of ice yet between it and the shore. Then the black speck creeps back. 8 A white world indeed this morning All the trees turned to snow; Even the telegraph wires are long white lines as big as ropes. Snow fall about 6 inches, one of those silent stealthy storms; not a bit of wind or commotion in Nature -- nothing but the falling snow. 14 Rather a pleasant week, but getting colder to-day. No storm since Monday. 15 Sunday; Down to 2 degrees below zero this morning. Bright and clear, and warmer as the day advances. Blue-birds in the air. General Sherman is dead, the lst of our great generals of the war. 16 Rain this A.M. and in the night. Mercury up to near 40 degrees-- When a tree is sick, or killed suddenly, it does not drop its leaves. It seems that it requires strength and vitality for a tree to let go its leaves. It is only the alert and growing mind that can let go its old beliefs and views. 18. Three days of rain clearing this morning. The air full of blue-birds this morning. Saw 12 in one flock s I went to the P.O. They were calling merrily from many points. The blue-birds came north on the crest of the warm wave which was very high farther south -- 74 in Washington, about 45 degrees here.19 Ice boatmen out again to day, and so slow they go that I fancy I can almost hear them curse the laggard wind. Old Boreas! wake up and give them a send off worthy of you. This will pass for a winter of light winds, never remember to have seen a season [crossed out: with] of such gentle breezes. No big blows at all. 25. Warm, threatening rain. Snow and ice melting very fast. Big floods in the west, air full of blue birds and robins. Sap runs fast. Not much cold weather since my last date.Walking in the fields on Monday I noted a phenomenon of the snow that I have never seen referred to -- it was the sound made by the sudden settling of large patches of snow as the foot touched it, a crashing, falling sound that shot away from one, as the cracking of the ice darts away when you walk upon it. Very sudden, very peculiar. It would startle my dog and make him stop and look about. Apparently the warmth had thawed the snow from beneath, and the multitude ofweeds and grasses held it up. On the least jar down it dropped a fraction of an inch making a curious crashing sound.The snow was shallow, only 1 or two inches deep. Where there were no weeds or stubble to hold it up, this phenomenon was not witnessed. 26. Mercury up to 50 yesterday; the ground more than half [crossed out: bear] bare this morning. Cooler to-day. -- If the Earth [crossed out: was] were all covered with water, we [crossed out: would] should then have sea without limits, a boundless ocean, which yet would not be infinite -- limitless but not infinite. This idea is in Prof. Clifford; lecture on "The Aims and instruments of Scientific Thought."1891 Mch 1. A bright day. The edge of a cold wave just reaching us. 2d Mercury down to 2 above this morning, and not above 12 all day. Bright and cutting. 3d Cold iwht light snow falling. Read "Liza" by Turgeneiff. A real experience to read a novel by this geat romancer. The taste of his books is always sweet and good to me. No hair splitting here, no tiresome analysis, all is large, simple, fresh. Sad, probably no sadder than life. 4. Snow last night and to-day about 6 or 7 inches. Real winter agian. The rents and holes in the ice nearly all closed.5th To P. to-day in cutter, wife and I. thaws some in middle of day. Cold wave at night. 6. In cutter over to Rifton to look after cart. Bright and warm, but good sleighing. A pleasant ride. 7. Bright and cool; not quite warm enough for a sap-day. 9 Slow rain becoming heavy by spells at night. 10 Bright day, spring like, good sap day. Snow getting thin. 11 Lovely spring day; clear, still, and warm. Best sap-day yet. Bad head-ache, sat in my chair till 1 am. Prof Lintner, the entomologist, reports this interesting fact, Twenty years ago a scale insect was carelessly brought from Australiaon some plant. It soon spread rapidly to various shrubs and trees, particularly to the orange tree. It spread so rapidly in the orange groves and orchards that many trees were killed and whole orchards abandoned. Every rememdy was tried upon it but in vain. Then Prof Riley bethought him that the insect must have some natural enemy in Australia. Two of his assistants went there and brought back 12000 specimens of parasites, out of these 2 proved the ones they were looking for. They soon checked the scale insect, and finally nearly exterminated it, and the orange culture revived again. This seems to have happened in California. Pests of all kinds seem to be on the increase, but so far mans wit keeps ahead. 12 Presto! what a change. The river a great smooth mirror this morning. The ice slipped away in the night as quickly as the Arab. He began to move a little yesterday afternoon. First sparrow song this morning. How delicious. To my delight and surprise heard over by the station my little sparrow of last year, he with the long silver loop of sound. What would I not give to know just where he passed the winter; and what adventures by flood and field he has had since last fall. But here he is, safe and sound. Of course it is the same bird. I have never before heard a sparrow with that song. Mild and overcast to-day. Rain in afternoon13. Rain and fog. The red shouldered starling yesterday and to-day. 14 Clear, windy, and a cold wave, typical March day. The ice all swept from the river and packed along the eastern shore, up and down as far as one can see a white border of ice, apparently unable to move at all, pinned to the shore Ground more than half bare. Since December I have written the following pieces: 3 for Youths Companion paid 120 dollars 1 McClure's Syndicate 40 1 on Wild Flowers for St. Nicholas 50 1 for Independent 15 1 A Hard Nut 15 1 C. Union, 'Pop. Errors and Delusions' paid 20 1 Analogy 50 1 Points of View 20 1 [crossed out: Logic and Sentiment] 1 Eloquence and Poetry 25 Finished, The Spell of the Past 50 405 dollars17 Clear and sharp, a day like cut-glass; hardly a film in the sky, below freezing all day in the shade; too cold for sap. Helped "Zeke" haul the lumber for the crates over from the depot in the afternoon. Highland burned up last night. Yesterday (Monday) fair and cool. 18 Warmer, good sap day. Go to P and stop in H. to see the ruins of the fire. Roads dry much of the way. 19. Overcast. Wind from East. Burn brush all day. Enjoy it much. Saw first phoebe bird, silent. 20. Still overcast with East wind. Storm approaching. Burn brush again. "Zeke" and Acker putting ashes on grapes and raspberries. Temperature at freezing. 23d Monday. The fifth day of east wind; light rains. Warm and spring like to-day. Mercury up to 60 degrees. Meadow-lark and high hole to-day. Oh, how good their calls sound coming up from the fields. To-night the first peepers. Oh how good they sound too. Overcast with a glimpse of the sun a few times. Hauling stone and moving earth from under the shed. 24. Overcast, mild, still. Bees out. Elting Krum buried to-day from the little church, a young man without blame, consumption, age 26. 25. Bright lovely day. Go to Highland to the Rogers auction. Road very bad in places. Saw crocuses in bloom 26 Bright, dazzling, with keen cutting wind from the north; froze in middle of day fear snow. Ice all gone some days and boats again running. Sterling here helping about the crates. Turtle dove to-dayMch 29. A week of dry cold north wind, no rain or snow in this section. Ground getting dry. The last snow bank gone, except in the woods. A terrible rumpus in the house again, all about nothing, simply nothing. The spontaneous combustion of Mrs B's temper. 30 A marvellous day, all sun and sky, north wind, ground nearly ready for the plow. A day to burn up the rubbish, for the spring purification by fire. Mrs B. still on the rampage. We have tongue three a day, and for lunch too. A few night ago she called me a villain and a rascal, and I have left her be[crossed out:a]d, and ought to leave her board also. Never was such a temper in a woman before31. Cool, overcast in afternoon getting dry. Clucking frogs began two or three days ago. [crossed out: Toads] Mr Toad is on the road. Mrs B. on the rampage. I left the table this morning when half through breakfast, not to return till there is a change. I can live in the woods on a crust if need be. April 1st A white wash of snow last night, all gone now at 10 A.M. Promises to be a fair day, tho' a chilly air. Mrs B. left yesterday not yet back. Where is she? 3 My 54th birth day. Eight inches of snow fell last night, nearly all gone to-night. Worked most of the day in the horse stable with DuBois. A terrible row in the house over poor Mrs Fletchers letters. A sad and gloomy day to meSaw an angle worm this morning crawling on the top of the snow. It was then snowing quite hard, the snow wet and heavy. Health good, or would be if I could be allowed to eat my food in peace. 4 Squally day. Snow on the ground in many places The peepers do not stop for the snow. Hepaticas to-day gathered by the boys near H. 6. The farms on the Fishkill mts. still white with snow. Hepaticas in the woods here. Ground nearly dry again. Chilly winds and frost at night. A shrike in the Hibbard orchard I observed him for nearly halfan hour. I have rarely seen a bird sit so long in one place. It was the loggerhead -- dull and ashen gray with black wings. He squealed and warbled and called and whistled and was silent. He allowed me to apprach within 20 or 25 feet of him and stand and observe him. He regarded me as he might a cow or horse. Even my dog, "Dan" was attracted by his medley of notes. I recognized but one familiar note, or notes, certain one of the cat-bird I left him in the tree and came away. His head followed very significantly a little bird that flew over him.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1916 (May - November)
Text: XLVII From May 5th, 1916 to Nov 27th, 1916 1916 May 8, Fine clear morning. Light thunder shower last night. Start for Roxbury this morning on early train. John meets me at station with his car. Country wonderfully green. The deep snows or winter have kept the earth comparatively warm and the grass starts vigorously. No foliage yet in R. only a yellow green mist of swelling bulls in the woods at Wood Chuck Lodge in p.m. quite warm. Wear my straw hat. Few birds here, and no chipmonks, plenty of...
Show moreXLVII From May 5th, 1916 to Nov 27th, 1916 1916 May 8, Fine clear morning. Light thunder shower last night. Start for Roxbury this morning on early train. John meets me at station with his car. Country wonderfully green. The deep snows or winter have kept the earth comparatively warm and the grass starts vigorously. No foliage yet in R. only a yellow green mist of swelling bulls in the woods at Wood Chuck Lodge in p.m. quite warm. Wear my straw hat. Few birds here, and no chipmonks, plenty of wood chucks. 9 Bright and cooler; got up in night for more bed cover. Walk over to John's for my meals. In the p.m. Irving T. plows my garden. Four big snow banks yet on the side hill above the old home. One of them as high as the wall. Walk up through the sap bush in morning and commune a bit with the venerable old maples and linger about the site of the old boiling place with long, long thoughts. Boiling sap in a sap house would not attract me. I must have the open air and the view of the distant farms and mountains. Walk over through the woods on the knoll, or what we used to call the clover lot woods. On the eastern slope above the meadow a great display of early wild flowers - hepatica spring beauty, squirrel corn, trillium yellow and white violets, miterwort crinkle root (dentaria) blue cohosh, fawn lily - all in great profusion, never saw this slope with its jutting rocky brows, so bedecked in my youth. - Probably never struck it at just this time at the foot of a ledge the heel of the last snow bank lingered; within 4 feet of it the hepaticas were opening; all these early and later flower, blooming together as the result of the delay caused by the lingering snow banks. It was indeed a pretty sight. Bunches of snow white hepaticas nearly as large as the top of my hat. 10 Begin planting the garden in the p.m. - Corn, peas, beets, onions, carrots, spinach, very windy and cold. 11 Clear with tremendous wind a strange white opacity to the air, like a little milk mixed in of pail of water. Walking over to Johns for my breakfast required all my strength, the push of the wind often brought me to a standstill. I had to sit down and rest over on the hill. Still the curious white dry mist in the air; the wind has no effect upon it after breakfast I walk up the side hill above the house to the lingering snow banks. How dirty they were leaving a deposit of soil on the stones and ground where they had melted, a border of dripping ground a few feet wide all around their lower margins. Prairie homed larks were feeding about them close up to their margins, evidently picking up the seeds of grasses and weeds that the wind had brought over the hill from the other side. They were very busy. On the top of the hill. when I could look over into West settlement, the wind blew so hard that I could not stand it long. I crouched behind the stone wall a while. Then made my way across the hill to the upper snow banks and standing up slid swiftly down one of them for 30 or 40 feet. Then by the head of the spring out of which a big volume of water was rushing and cut my initials in the bark of the old beech tree that stands there. The initials that were there in my youth are all obliterated. This spring was a vital part of the home. How many times has father said to me "John you must go up to the head the spring and clean the leaves off the strainer. The little elm sapling that then stood in the corner of the walls is now a large superb tree, 3 ft through. Three times did I see the "pump logs" that bring the water to the house renewed in my youth - once with poplar, once with hemlock and once with pine. Some old fellow from Mooresville used to come with his long anger and bore them. It was to me an interesting proceeding. It was quite a trick to bore a log 15 ft long and keep near the centre of the log. The poplar logs proved a failure - soon delayed as did the hemlocks - pine lasted well, now for many years an iron pipe conveys the water, but does not keep it so cool and fresh in summer. In the p.m. I plant cucumber and squash and repair the blue-bird house and shoot my only woodchuck on the wall in front of the house. Quite warm, how lovely the country looked. The nature green of the grass, the fresh brown of the woods, the blue of the sky. Wind still violent in p.m. Every lone tree in the fields like a cataract and the woods resounded like the multihedenous seas. At 4 p.m. I walk down across the fields to the station, see my first bobolinks in Caswells meadow, and hear a match of his song. Take train for Hobart, Eden meets me at station. His large amber colored glasses make him look strange. Fairly well, face full with some color, one eye nearly blind, but other serves him. Mag well, spend the night and enjoy the visit. Change to colder in the night. 12 Feels like a frost this morning. I leave on early train for home. Gets much warmer as we come down out the mountains. Clear and warm at West Park. The gold finches having their animal music festival in the trees from the station to the main road - hundreds of them filling the tree tops with a fine sibilant chorus very pretty. Find Mrs B. a triple better, but still a sufferer and very weak. Apple, pear, and late cherry trees in bloom, lilacs also. Foliage half out. 13 Bright lovely day. Castle school girls and Miss Masen and her teachers come to Slabsides. I drive over in my car in p.m. a pleasant time. Day perfect. 14 Fine in morning, cloudy in p.m. Gold finches here in great members, hundreds if not thousands of them; a grand reunion; how festive and happy they seem, males predominating, many of them looking a little smutty yet in their half restored yellow suit. The gold finches of a large area must have assembled here, by appointment or mutual understanding community of mind or how? They fill a dozen tree tops at a time along the road. They feed on the half natural elm seed, rifling the winged dist of its germ very skillfully, sand of them make little excursions into the vineyards and gardens for the green seeds of the chickweed. This morning a large number of them came down around my study and attacked the closed dandelion heads and dug out their green seeds. They are evidently hard put for food. They made no provision in advance of the gathering of the claw. But they evidently get few out of it all and laugh and sing the day through. They have been here several days, not a harsh note is heard nor an unfriendly gesture seen now and then a male pursues a female swiftly through or about the trees, but it is as a suitor and not as an enemy, most birds make love on the wing - "catch me if you can" the female seems to say, "and I am yours." I cannot make out whether it is the males alone that do the singing, or shall I call it a subdued musical chatter and rehearsal. It has an air of privacy and screened seclusion - just the bursting buds of song. I visualize it as matching the half unfolded elm and maple leaves. Probably the passers along the road under the trees do not notice it at all. It is a mist or fine spray of song coming from no particular point but from everywhere in and about the trees. One has to look long and intently to make out any individual bird. How contented and confiding the tones are! expressing only joy and affection. Few birds have such pretty ways as the gold finch. 15 Rain in the night and mist and cloud this morning. The gold finch festival seems over. 17 Heavy rain all last night and part of today, nearly 3 inches of water. Breaking in p.m. Mrs B. gains, very, very slowly if at all - fear she will never be any better. 18 Cool overcast with sprinkles of rain. Write in morning; walk in p.m. Apple trees dropping their bloom. 19 Very cool, near a frost. Cloud and sun. - How much live natural history goes to waste everyday upon every farm - even on our door yards and gardens. There are at this moment (May 19, 1916) 12 or 14 robins nests in my lot of 18 acres, a wren nest, two blue-birds nests, one song sparrow nest that I have found, 2 wood thrushes nests, one phoebe nest, and the chippies and vireos and warblers and orioles have not yet began to build. On a large farm how many more nests there must be. Think of the interesting natural history incidents that occur in a whole township in a single day, or in the country, or in the state - and during the whole season, not one in ten thousand is ever witnessed or recorded. How fee [of them] I myself witness or make note of, of those on my own few acres. If I spent all my time in the open air on the alert, how many more I would see. The drama of wild life about us is played quickly, the actors are on and off the stage before we fairly know it, and the play shifts to another field. 20 Lovely day. Gangs of school children and grown ups at SS. New Paltz normal and Kingston High School. I walk over in morning and drive over in p.m. 21 Bright and sharp. Frost over by station. Walk up to Wallheads in morning. Saw and heard very thrush. Several of them here near house. Drive Mrs B. out in p.m. 22 Fine day, but cool. Ruth Drake comes - on her way to Cincinnati.. Drives her to SS. a fine girl. See many Bay breasted warblers every day. Drive to H. in p.m. the road bordered with dandelion gold. 23 Rain nearly all night, and still raining at 10 a.m. Cold. - A universal intelligence pervades organic nature, one manifestation of it in the vegetable, another in the animal the highest of all in man. - What is it for? A tree flight comes and destroys all the trees of a certain species and then the blight itself perishes; what was it all for? When life on the earth has run its course and all forms of it disappeared, and the globe becomes a dead world may we ask what was it all for? Where is the gain? What was the end? Apparently there is no namable purpose in these things. To ask to what end, is like looking for the end or beginning of the circle or the sphere. There is none. Life is its own excuse for being. It seeks myriad forms of expression but rests with none. There is no finality in the universe. On and on or around and around with no stoppage. The rivers to the sea; is that their end? No, through the air they flow back to the land and begin the circuit again forever and ever. The creek that flows through your fields or past your house - what an individuality it has! None other just like it, though the waters of all are just the same. The meadow brook, the pasture brook the forest brook, the mountain brook - how they all differ, what a distinct impression each of them make and yet all of one identical element. The conditions, the environment are what makes the difference. They each have a different body, so to speak. Rocks give one character, sand and gravel another, silt and loam another. The music of the brook is evoked by the obstacles in its way. If there no friction then is no sound. Does the brook make the valley or the valley make the brook? In a world of clashing seismic forces, valleys result, and then water carves and enlarges them. The rains carve the clay bank into ridges and valleys. Physical laws rule it. The serpentine course of a stream through a plain - is inevitable. 24 Fog and cloud in a.m. Clear and lovely in p.m. and warmer. Drive to Highland with C.B. and Mrs B. Walk in woods on my return. Ladies slipper and shiny orches in bloom. 25 Lovely day, fairly hot, the hottest so far, an ideal May day. Drive to S.S. at 10, no birds there, a birdless solitude compared with this place. 26 Lovely day, a little cooler. Ideal May weather. Mrs B. on deep thought fear she is not really mending. Writing this on C.B's porch; hear the indigo bird below the hill. Cat birds building in honey suckle against the sleeping porch - very shy about it. How the cat bird is associated in my mind with what in my boyhood we called the "bush lot" - mothers black berry patch, now a pasture. Our seed of it was a tangle of sumach wild pigeon cherry purple flowering raspberry bushes and black berry bushes, and a great hermit of the cat birds. I probably first heard them here while berrying with mother. Their calls and meowings were always in our ears. Or I may have heard them earlier in the season while going through the lot down to File sendders to see Henry, or to go fishing. I think they do not sing in blackberry time. Oh, the days of our youth - what is the secret of their magic! How commonplace and often vulgar is the life of all farm boys, yet in memory its dross or puter turns to gold. To go in August with mother to the Bush Lot for these long luscious black berries, or earlier farther off over on Hixes hill in the old bark peeling for black and red raspberries or still earlier in the hill meadows for wild strawberries, wading through the daises and clover and timothy grass the fragrant breath of the meadow filling the warm air - is something almost sacred to look back to. May 30 Warm fine day, partly overcast. Drive up to Eds grave in p.m. 31 Cooler, fine day. Drive to H. with C.B. and children in p.m. June 1st Bright cool day. Probably a frost in some places last night. Writing a little on birds these days. Lucy Stanton and Mrs B. come in p.m. 2 Fine cool day. Drive to H. 3 Stay at SS. last night. Raining this morning - rained nearly all day. News of the great sea fight - much disturbed by it. If England fails upon the sea as she has upon the land the Kaiser will have her as sure as the devil. 4 Bright and warm this morning. Promises a fine day. Locust trees in bloom. Drive to Port Ewen with Lucy Stanton and Miss Bragier. 5 Warmer, partly cloudy, threatens rain. - The tree nesting bird that most often comes to grief is the chippy 5th Start for Detroit this p.m. Leave Albany at 8:10. 6 In D. this morning. Mr Ford meets me with a car. Cloudy. 7 At the Fords at Dearborn, new house very large and fine, a house one could live in I have the river room, where I can hear the murmur of the water. Rain all day. 8 Clearing and a little sunshine. We walk and drive about - drive in the 400 acre meadow to hear and see the bobolinks. Grass and clover keen high, plenty of bobolinks. 9 Fair day. In p.m. I lay the corner stone of the bird fountain in which I have cut my name, the fountain the walks to it, and the terraces above it all made of stone from Wood chuck Lodge - stone that I helped my brothers pick up for a wall in my youth. Leave on 7:10 train for home. 10 Reach home via Pokeepsie on 10:25 train. Mrs B. gaining. 17 A rainy cold week; two rainless days. Grapes not yet in bloom. Work on my new bird article, "The Familiar Birds." Cherries rotting on tree. Go strawberrying in p.m. and enjoy it greatly. Chat beginning to hatch. Boat races today, a company of teachers from Beacon on morning train. Paul, Douglass, John and Eleanor and Harriet drive to races with my car. Have adventure. 18 Clearing this morning, but everything very wet. My good day yesterday, my poor day today - sleep poor last night. But much stronger than in May, though have lost 3 or 4 lbs. Thunder shower at noon. Clear in p.m. and warm. 19 Cloudy this morning and cooler, a curse of wetness. - Rained nearly all day not heavy. The coldest wettest June I can remember - breaks the record 7 months of snow and rain - over 8 feet of snow last winter. 20 Clearing and cool. Grapes not yet in bloom. 29 An ideal June day at last, perfect in every way, following two bright days nearly as perfect. Warm and calm and wooing. Miss Doolittle here, she, C.B. and I drive to Brookman woods and walk to Sunset rock, a glorious view. 30 A warm lovely day, even hot. Drive to S.S. Cut weeds and c. July 1st Warm day with some cloud. Mrs B. gaining. 2 Warm day, shower at night. 3 Drive to Kingston, Harriet off for home. Brisk shower at noon. 4 Overcast and cooler, health good. Thin but spirit good. Terrible fighting Europe. I pray for the success of the Allies crush and crush the damed Germans. 5 Cloudy, cold, N.E. wind. Cat birds building 2d nest near south window at "the nest" Touch John Kalleys grandson and his wife and son, from Syracuse call at 7 p.m. son of Edmund Kelly. Glad to see them, a big powerful man, weighs 275 lbs. 6 Fine, hot day. Drive car to E. and then to H. to be fixed. Maj Pitcher and brother and wife and daughter call, while I am away. 7 Clear, hazy, hot, an ideal summer day. War news pretty good. Russia is doing things, and the allies in France are battering the Germans well. Let them give their hell. The Allies are now making good use of the lessons in warfare that the Germans have given them. May they improve upon their teachers. 8, 9, 10, 11 Warm, much rain, great humidity. 13 To Yama Farms Inn. J. drives, me up to Chain Ferry. 14 At Yama, warm, moist. enjoy being here again. 15 Drive to Roofs this p.m. Spend day and night there, as lovely as ever. 16 Limit myself to 5 trout this morning, nearly 2 hours in catching them. Then car brings me to Big Indian in p.m. Home at 6 by auto from Chain Ferry. 17 Rainy and hot. Start for Roxbury at 10 alone in my car. Mrs B. and Eliza take 4 p.m. train. Am at W.C.L. at 4 p.m. the others come on 6:15 train. 18 Glorious day; very warm. The place looks as good as ever. Sleep on the porch, at 4 a.m. a sparrow sang, "very peaceful, peaceful" and so it was, no disturbing sights or sounds - only the disquieting thoughts of the war, which one cannot escape from. a world of grass; never saw [st] such meadows and pastures before. The air is sweet with the perfume of meadow and pasture. The foliage of the woods and field trees as rank as if it had some special fertilization - as if the blood spilled in Europe had soaked through and fertilized the roots of all vegetation. 19 Lovely hot fragrant day, walk and loaf and shoot woodchucks. 20 Great, shining, perfumed summer day - a luxury to live. 21 Threat of rain past. Clearing and hot. Writing in "bush camp." Write to Lyman Abbott thanking him for his knoll paper on my book. 8 wood chucks leave fallen to my rifle since I came. 25 Heat continues, go down in the village, no rain, but great humidity the air reaks with moisture. This is the 10th day of it, a white vapor fills the air; no wind but but oppressive heat. Writing a little each day in bush camp. 9 1/2 a.m. just heard the tinkle tinkle of a bobolink in Caswell's meadow, when the morning machines are at work. 26 Rained all night and part of today about 3 inches of water, hot. 27 Clearing and hot - no breeze air about 2 parts air and one part water. Heavy rains in the south; floods in the seat of war in France and in Russia and Austria - a year of unparalleled precipitation nearly everywhere. Feel well these days - better than last year. Heat stimulates me. 31 Heat continues and the humidity. Write a little each day. Yesterday (Sunday) walked to the big rock in the upper end of the old sheep lot. Reclined upon it a long time - had not been to it - for 50 years. Shot a chuck near it. came home through the woods. Saw only a black throated blue warbler, very warm. Saw two phoebes nest under ledges. Aug 1st Clear lovely, cooler. Change came last night. In p.m. drive to Pratsville on joy ride with Miss Barbone and Wilson, made the round trip in 2 hours. Mrs B. looks bad today. Sunday night was a bad night for her. 2 Clear, ideal August days, very cool last night - three blanket night. Yesterday morning at 4 1/2 shot a crow - one of a gang that have been destroying my morning nap ever since I came. This morning the cawing was much farther away. My 15th chuck this morning. Birds suddenly very abundant. The June plums attract many robins, an oven bird has just looked in enquiringly upon me in my camp, from a near apple tree. Chipmonk, checking as in the fall. Perfect hay weather at last. [Aug 2] For 2 years now the one keen expectation of each day - the one event to look forward to with eagerness and pleasure, has been the arrival of the morning paper. What good news from armageddon will it bring today? Have the Hems yet been chuckled or hurled back? Have the allies yet profited by the lessons in the art of war which the Hems have given them? My first thought in the morning is of the probable days news, and my main thought when I waken in the middle of the night is of the unholy war, notely for the Hems, holy for the allies. When the paper comes, I want to run away to some secluded spot and read it undisturbed, as I would a love letter. First I skim the headings hurriedly to get the impact of the big print; then read the details of the more important events, then the less important impatient of all spread out account of our own local and home news. That does not count, only the news from the war is of vital and world wide and age wide importance, over Mexican trouble. I brush it aside as I do the fly that tickles my scalp. The state of the world and of civilization is in the European conflict. If the Hems triumph woe, be into us, a robber nation will again overrun the world. After dinner I go over the news again and glean when I reaped before, or I get bold of another daily and read its version; the change in type and heading freshens the news up. By lamp light I often glance over the news again. In magazines and [other] the weekly periodicals I look only for war news or war discussions. When I was ill last winter I kept saying to myself I must live to see the end of this war and see Germany adequately punished. I did not say if she is to triumph let me die now, but such a possibility made life far less desirable. Aug 3d Cool last night and today, but good hay weather. Drove with wife and Miss B. down to the village and a couple of miles down the state road. Mrs B. stood the trip well, about 2 car loads of callers each day lately - through one day. 4 Bright hot day. I write in a.m. 5 Bright hot day. I write in a.m. - I never cease to wonder at the incessant cawing of the crows - at all house of the day from all points of the compass, their voices reach me. Are they so truly social, are they always calling to each other for company, signaling back and forth to keep touch? Or what is the reason? What purpose does all this endless caw-cawing serve? They caw from tree tops, form the ground, while on the wing while alone, while in company in the spring, in the summer, in the fall. He is more silent in the winter, apparently because life is more serious then. In beating his way home to his rooking at sunset against a cold winter wind, he has nothing to say. Hence I infer that his ceaseless cawing is only the expression of his festive and social nature, he has a good time, he loves his fellows, he knows his enemies and life is sweet. - The 4th was one of there summer days where the slow moving clouds pile their snowy peaks high in the blue depths of the sky - the alps and andes of cloud land, as I sat over by the woods feasting my eyes upon them a red headed wood pecker climbed up high in the air and overtook some bug as other insect (I could faintly see it) and picked it out of the air easily and returned to dead branch in the woods. The same hour I saw cedar birds doing the same thing lower down. They moved slowly and here and there seized some winged insect. This is a common practice of cedar birds in late summer. They do the thing rather [do] awkwardly and deliberately as we do [a feat] slowly a feat which a professional does with a quick stroke. With the professional fly catcher it is a flash and a snap and the bug is gone. 6th Julian and Peterson came yesterday p.m. in the big car - here in 3 hours. Very glad to see them. They shoot woodchucks till 7 p.m. a hot day - the hottest yet. J. and P. hunt wood chuck again all forenoon; kill 5 or 6. A great comfort to have them here, at 2 p.m. they are off for home. I watch them disappear around the bend of the road by Caswells in a cloud of red dust. Was very lonely after they had gone. 7 Hot with mere wind. 12 Miss Barbone off today. 13 A change to cool, after rain, clear, windy, cold. 14 A four blanket night last night, near a frost moon full [Aug 14, 1916] and sky clear. The wind blew down a dead maple in Tim Silvers woods yesterday and Caswells boys happened along with their dog a few moments afterward. The dog drone the old one up a tree. The young eyes not yet open were creeping around on the ground. The boys said the mother tried to carry them away as a cat does her kittens. They made a nest for them at the foot of a tree, and came and told me. I went over there at once and found the place, but the young were gone. Did not know that any squirrels had young at this time of year. - It is as when you try to kill a fly with your hand - the wind from your hand helps the fly escape. See the wise behavior of flies, when it is cold and they are stiff and sluggish then wits are more on guard - you cannot approach them so closely with your hand; they are wilder as if they knew they were more at your mercy. See also how much more a "blow-fly" knows about more things than a bird. Nothing is easier than to catch a bird on the window, or a bee; but try to catch a big fly; he tries the window pane and at once discovers they he cannot penetrate it and so darts away about the room and maybe tries another window pane, but is off again before you can close upon him, but the bird persists and will not be convinced that it cannot escape through it till your hand closes upon it. - An interesting thing about the burdock is the ease with which the burr is detached from the parent stem. Even while yet in bloom its hooks will seize you coat and the burr let go its hold on the stem The hocks are not attached to their seperate seeds, but are for the burr as a whole, nature seems partial to certain weeds. The burdock is one of them; it is a great success. How far it travels in cows tails, sheeps wool, dogs hair, mens coats and c. Nothing eats it as far as I know, and nothing appears to seek its seeds. Birds have been found imprisoned by its hooks it serves no creature that I know of as does the thistle and the nettle, [all] the animals scatter its seeds against their will, man makes war upon it everywhere, and yet it thrives. What a pleasure it is to invade a stand of it with ones knife or ones scythe and lay them low. While on are cutting they they seize upon you and [fall] go with you to the next field. They die hard; they are full of original sin; their juice is bitter and their fibre coarse. Last years dead stalks stand defiantly amid the new growth of this year, cut it close to the ground in July and in August, it has new shoots loaded with burrs; cut these off and in last Sept. It evolves burrs, directly form stub of the old stalk determined to perpetuate itself till the last gasp. By hook or by crook it is bound to get on in the world. Aug 15 Bright, clear, warmer, calmer. Write in camp. See [the] a pair of yellow butterflies go waltzing up in the air, a hundred feet or more up and then they separate and drop back to earth. Is it love or war? Yesterday p.m. I went to the woods to look after the flying squirrels again, found no sign of them, only the nesting material had all been removed. Aug 15 Clear, fine. Julian and Miss Larsen and her sisters come at 12. Lunch up above my rock by the wood, a happy afternoon. 16 Fine day, getting warmer. We drive to Hobart in forenoon. Mrs B. stands the trip well. Eden and Mag well. Willie also. Mr Scott calls, something has gone out of him these last few years. Leave at 3. Car runs well. Farmers stacking their great surplus of hay. Barns overflowing never remember such a crop of hay. Barns on this farm inadequate - two stacks at least. 17 Calm, warm, clear Aug morning. Valley [full] a lake of fog, at 7 it begins to get restless and send out its moist ghostly feelers in all directions. They reach us here and come nosing in the windows and doors, they they draw back. At 8 1/2 the fog appears to have turned to blue vapor. It cannot long stand the rays of the sun. But the laws of its ebbing and flowing I do not understand. It seems like a thing alive of course it is the warmth of the sun that starts the currents, but why does it flow back? The mood and complexion of the day suggests dry weather. 19 The lovely Aug. days continue, moonlight, one blanket nights, hot, still, smoky days, getting dry. Walked yesterday p.m. over the hill and through the woods looking for our school boy trees and path, all gone, "the ledges" now in an open field, grandfathers old place looking so lonely and deserted. 75 years since he walked these fields - a tough of burdocks and raspberry bushes where his house stood; wood chucks burrow in it and wild birds nest there. Only wet spongy ground where his spring was and only a heap of stone where his barn stood. I am beginning to feel uncomfortable when I hear an auto coming. So many of them stop here. Why does one come back and sigh over the scenes of his youth? How they move him and yet here stale they seem. It is his dead post, it attracts him and yet it repels him - it is sicklied over with his dead self. Sept 29 S long break in my record. Aug. passed well. I gained in strength and did some writing. It was a very warm Aug. C.B. came near the [seed] 25. Mrs B. gained very slowly. De Loach came about the 23rd. The sight of him cheered me. Julian and his friends came on bright day and picnicked up under the woods. I lived from day to day on the war news as usual. Plenty of rain in Aug, but a very warm month. Aug 29th came Edison and his party to take me with them on a motor trip. They camp in my orchard - an unwanted sight - a campers extemporized village under my old apple trees - 4 tents, a large dining tent and at night electric lights, and the man Edison the centre around which it all revolved. Mr Firestone comes in the house and uses the bath room but E. will not. They stay till Wednesday p.m. when we start for Albany - reach there in early evening, next day off to the Adirondacks by way of Saratoga and Lake George. Reach Elizabeth town at 6 p.m. on Saturday Sept 2d. First frost at night, all are cold. Sept 3 Drive up to Ausable Chasm - a deep gash in the old Potsdam sand stone, then to Ausable Forks, where we camp by the river. 4 Off for Lake Placid and Lake Saravack. Camp at Indian Lake 5 To Blue Mt Lake, and Long Lake and Paul Smiths. Camp before we reach Malone. 6 To Malone and then to Plattsburgh. Camp near P. 7 Off for Manchester. Camp near Red Mt. 8 Off to Bennington. Camp near there. Weather warm and fine. 9 Off for Poughkeepsie Reach Highland ferry at 6. Camp below Highland. Hot. 10 Julian comes down and takes me back to W.P. A fine day. Off for Roxbury in p.m. Home at night. Mrs B. improved. 11 Fine day, motor to Hubble. Feel 25 percent stronger than when I left with Edison 13 Take car down to the garage. Walk up as easily as ever I did. 16 Hendricks come for weekend. I enjoy their visit. 17, 18, 19, 20 Pleasant busy days, with callers nearly every day. 21 Colgate come for me. Promise to go Saturday. 23 Off with the Colgates for Onteora, stay till Monday - an enjoyable time. 24 Cold and windy. 25 Cold, go to Roulands. 26 At R. warm fine day. 27 The Colgates bring me back home in p.m. Warm and fine. 28 Warm and clear. Drive to Hubbles in p.m. with Mrs B. 29 Colder, rain all day and wind. 30 Cold clear day; freezes quite hard at night, our first freeze. Oct 1 A day of great clearness, beauty, cold. 2 Another great bright still day out of the blue heavens. Wonderful, still cool, not a film in the sky. White frost - our first air full of bird voices and autumn sounds. I stand a long time up on the hill gazing upon the scene. Mrs B. weeping like a child this morning with pain. But when I tell her I shall have to go away she keeps that up, she gradually stops, no words can tell here I pity her. She is so unheroic and querulous. 3d Another lustrous day, clear as spring water. Go to Shepards to lunch. Mrs Sarre and friends from Yama Farms. The smouldering fires of autumn are now visible [on] in the maples on all the mountain sides. In a few days the winds of autumn will fan them into a glow, and then soon the flame will appear. 4 Mild, still overcast, not a leaf stirs. Saw my last wood chuck on my morning walk a vesper sparrow rehearsing from a bush by the road side. Probably a young bird - just the rudiments of the vespers song. The voice of crows everywhere in the landscape. What a heavy common place flyer the crow is! No poetry in any of his motions, no grace, no airiness no mastery as with the hawks, only when he walks is he graceful and Walking up the road this Monday at 7. I saw where the birds had been wallowing in the dry earth. There were the prints of their wing quills and the prints of their slender feet. How curious, I thought, that there dainty creature of the air should want an earth bath - should face the need of sifting the soil through their plumage - of charging every feather for a moment with this earth dust. Does it strengthen and renew them? How suggestive it is! To come to earth again often your [flight] life in the air, to hug it close for a few moments, to interpenetrate yourself with it, how sanitary and renewing, for [men] birds or [birds] men. Here nearly all the animals love to get back to the earth. Behold the delight of the horse in rolling on the ground. The bull loves to tear up this soil with his horns and then paw the earth over his back. The dog, the pig, the cat love the contact of the soil, so do children. Is it only the scratchers among birds that earth their wings? I do not know [as] that birds of prey, or crows or woodpeckers do so, or water birds. The latter seem to find the water and mud sufficient. I suppose the intellectual man gets from a walk in the country in some degree, the equivalent of the birds earth bath. What he gets is very intangible but it refreshes and heals him. It is partly physical from the exercise in the open and partly mental and spiritual from the play of his senses upon the objects around him. W.W. says "I recruit myself as I go," as we all do. The mist completely earthy animal we have is the wood chuck. He spends more than 4/5 of their time in the ground. From last of Sept to early or late March he is dead to all that is going on above the ground. And during the spring and summer months he spends 4/5 of his time deep in his hole. He lives only to lay up a store of fat to carry him over the winter. How he severe of the soil. His flesh is rank with the earth flavors, he is stupid in them. The ground mole is still more of the earth in its habits, so much so that it has only rudimentary eyes and ears, but of the flavor of its flesh I knew not. Its fur is like silk plush. (Write an essay on the under ground creatures Oct 3, 1916) Nature reborn in man becomes art- music, painting, poetry, sculpture, architecture. Property, shall it be abolished? The thrush that preempted one of my apple trees and drove all other birds out of it seems to have had a sense of proprietorship. The store of mute and seeds which the chipmonk lay up is hi property. He does not share it with another (?) The honey in the hive is the property of the swarm, and not of the individual bees. Other swarm try to rob them. 5 Another great blue domed day, not a cloud, hardy a breeze warm. Walk up to "Scotland" C.B. and I in p.m. 6 All sun and sky again and warm. The old sugar bush is beginning to boil and foam with color. Great Britain is of course arrogant, arrogance is a part of the British constitution. Her conduct upon the sea has always been high handed; natural enough. She is an island empire and her existence as such depends upon her supremacy upon the sea. Let her have it. Why should the elephant be jealous of the whales. Let the continental empires go their way. Germany wants both the sea and the land, to the exclusion of England. 7 Another glorious day, a little cooler, yesterday walked across the hill to Tom Smiths, a pleasure to see two of my old school mates again. But Tom seems more aged than I do. The animal his row saw last fall and that came near him where he was plowing, was yellow and had a short tail. The creature whose screams I heard 3 years ago, and this has been heard about here for 7 or 8 year past, was a Canada Lynx no doubt, and young Smith saw it. - I am quite certain I have settled the mystery of the chipmonks hole, without its pile of earth. There can be no magic or miracle about it. That hole must have another end, and at that other end there must be or have been a pile of dirt. So much is certain, I am convinced that the pile less holes are old holes - several years old and that the pile of earth has settled down and become grassed over. Such a one is in front of my camp. For years ago there was an obscene pile of earth there and a hole near it. This year a new hole has appeared and is occupied 8 feet away but I am sure it leads to the old chamber of the first hole. The earth removed in digging it could not have been packed away under the ground, of the 4 dens I have under observation a new entrance hole has appeared this season. I do not know just what it means. 8 Another perfect day, and warmer. To know how abundant certain forms of life are at this time turn over the stores by the roadside or in the fields or left up these on the top of the wall. Spiders and spiders and spiders in their silk cocoons, bands of black crickets that scamper away caterpillars in their cocoons masses of pink spiders eggs in silken receptials, wasps clinging to a small bit of comb and c. I could get silk enough from these spiders cocoons to twist a rope to hang me with. One spider under my pocket glass had a head like a woodchuck except that its blunt nose was jawed with many eyes that looked like jewells. But the shape, color and eyes of the top head were strangely like these of a wood chunk. Its back was gray, with an iridescent streak down its middle. It is the spider where legs seem so closely bunched together, about 1/3 inch long. I find that the editing of my MSS. tires me more than the writing of them. There is something exhilarating in original writing, but editing is drudgery. 9 and 10 Glorious days, but cool. On the 10th Lady Russell, author of Elizabeth and her German Garder with her beautiful daughter called. The Whiteheads brought them. Lady R. is a very beautiful woman, small in stature with very regular features, with the fresh youthful English complexion. I divined something about her that was unusual before she got out the car and before I heard her name. It was her manner. She had manner, not put on manner, but something bred in the flood, a low gentle easy tone and bearing. It was a rare treat, manners are an old world aristocratic product. They do not flourish in a democracy like ours. I myself have none. I am natural, unaffected but my naturalness has never been touched with this something extra, - this perfume of manners. The same is true of her daughter - tall, darker and very beautiful - she had manners. We sat before the open fire and Lady R. ate one of my strawberry apples and told me of reading my books in Berlin and c. She is a woman of genius. Her books are charming - nature and art and society happily mingled. 11 Lovely day, Mr Shepard calls. 12 Warmer, clear, glorious. John and Eva McGruder come. 13 Mild but windy and overcast. - Roosevelt loads his gun too heavy. The recoil hurts him more than the shot does his enemy. He is bound to make a big noise but the kick of the gun is so much power taken from the force of the bullet. People react vigorously against him as they always do to this surplus verbal energy. It is poor politics to say the least. He has made me take Wilsons side. His is a case where the half is more than the whole. I do not believe that the people of this country can be bullied and brow beated into supporting any man. I believe they will resent the course of an ex-president, who on all occasions, pours out upon the president a flood of what saver of vindication personal abuse. R. would be a really great man if he could be shorn of that look of his hair in which that strong dash of the bully resides. He looks up to Lincoln, why can he not copy a little of his humility and modesty? His fierce attacks upon the president on humiliating of the whole country. Is our chief public man then entitled to no respect? Is the country the victim of a fraud and a humbug? If so they have R. to thank for it. I venture the predication that Roosevelt will never again be president. He does not deserve to be. The desire to be has poisoned his blood. 14 Julian and Betty and John came in p.m. Cold and windy, but bright. Glad to see them, all well. 15 Cold but bright, a great pleasure to have J. and the children here. They leave at 1 1/2 p.m. and reach home at 6. via Catskill. 20 Pretty cold week till last night, when a thunder shower brought warmth, a hard freeze a few nights back. Light rain yesterday from S.W. Warm today and cloudy. Leaves off the trees on mountain tops. In my walk Wednesday p.m. down over the Shepard improvements. I came upon a large garter snake on the new seeded ground. He was quite sluggish, the chill in the air slowed down his vital machinery. I stirred him up with my cane, but could not make him try to escape. I do not know the species, nearly 2 feet long, dark mottled gray and black, as I teased him he flattened himself out so that he was a half round opened his mouth threateningly but would not seize or strike my stick, he coiled beautifully and when I turned him in his back, he righted himself quickly and easily by a movement the whole length of his body after a while I noticed that his body began to constrict about 1/3 the way from his tail, then presently he folded his body back from that point and twisted the lower part around the upper, like a vine doubling upon itself. If he thought my stick was another snake trying to swallow him, this was good tactics - it would have made the problem much more difficult. I left him where I found him and unharmed, his lower half twined about the upper. 23 Last day at Wood chuck, a bright cool day. Tops of the mts, naked of their leaves. 24 Leave for home at 10 1/2. C.B. and I in the car. Mrs B. and Eliza go by train. A good drive; day calm but cloudy. Reach home at 3 p.m. Take train for N.Y. at 4:35 to meet Mr Ford. He picks me up on Madison Ave at 8, as I making for the Ritz Carlton, saw me coming and block away he said, and that I was hitting up lively. Spend the night with him and Mrs F. 25 Go with Mr F. to democratic head quarters. Meet McCormick and other politicians. At 11 go to Roulands. Back for lunch with the Fords at 2. Leave for home at 4 p.m. Mr F. goes with me to station. 26 Home again. Golden days, golden trees, lucid skies not tired by my run to N.Y. 27 Drive to H. in morning with C.B. Down to freezing this morning, a golden day. 28 Mild, clear, lovely day. Weigh 137 with summer clothes on. - Hydrogen burns and oxygen supports combustion and yet the two gasses chemically combined put out fire - one of the many apparent contradictions in nature. 29, 30, 31 Fine wild days. Write in my study. C.B. left for N.Y. Sunday night the 29th. Niv 1st Fine mild day. Health pretty good save a slight cold 2d Fine day - a little cooler, only light frosts so far. The leaves of the mulberry and of the cherry and apple trees still on maples mostly off. Down to 135 lbs. Mrs B. goes to Middletown Sanitarium tomorrow Saturday. 3 Fine day, C.B. comes at night. 4 Fine day, partly cloudy. Mrs B. goes to Middletown Sanitarium at 12 1/2. Seemed as strong as any time since her return from Ga. in April. Dr B. goes with her. Shall I ever see her again in her own house? A sad sad thought,I stay and shall continue alone in the house for sometime. The solitude will be sweet to me. 5 Cold light rain from N.E. Very dark and gloomy, but I feel well. 6 Mild fine day. Weigh 135. 7 Ideal election day. Fog lifts at 10. In p.m. I walk up to vote for Wilson, but do not expect he will be elected. This may be my last presidential vote and I vote on principles. - Only a revenue tariff and for the war the Pro Germans dont want. But Wilson is a much stronger man than Hughes. But their pictures side and side and see the difference - good humor and a fine sensibility in one, and strength of will and of character in the other. But the masses never want the best. Ride back in car with some Kingston visitors. 8 Fine day again; write in a.m. and walk to the woods in p.m. Woods deserted - the only live thing one chickadee that flew across the road in front of me, no thoughts on the trees today. Much saddened by thoughts of Mrs B. growing weaker at the Sanitarium. Black creek paved and choked with brown leaves. I visit the falls again and walk back along the R.R. at 4 p.m. 9 Indian summer days continue. Smoky, mild, still. - The magazine writer has a new problem - how to address himself to the moving picture bran. - The bran that does not want to read or think, but only to use its eager shallow eyes - eyes that prefer the shadows and ghosts of things to the things themselves - that rather see the ghosts of people flitting around on the stage than to see real flesh and blood. How audible dialogue would tire them, it [would] might compell them to use their minds a little - horrible thought. For my own part I am sure I cannot interest this moving picture brain and do not want to. It is the shallow brain that has yet appeared in the world. What is to be the upshot of this craze over this mere wash of reality which the "movies" (horrible word) offer our young people? 9 Go to Middletown at 12 1/2. Fine day. Find Mrs B. discontented and very tired; they had been applying the x-ray, looked bad. The diagnosis from the revelation of the x-ray very bad - a cancerous state of the colon. I had long ago made up my mind that she could not get well, but when they told me what they saw and that she could probably not live more than a month or 6 weeks it came like a fresh blow, it cut me through and through. I return on 4.20 train from M. 10 Little sleep last night in the cold lonely house on a cot at the foot of her bed. What can I do? No one will miss her or mourn her but me. How pitiful, oh, how pitiful. We have lived here 43 years. I return to M. in p.m. Find Mrs B. easier and more contented. I plan to stay with her till Monday the 13th. She has less pain and is willing to stay a week longer. I take a reason. Bright day. 11 Fine day, a good sleep last night, wife easy. Walk about M. when I lived in 1873 - to 75. In p.m. go up to Canfields and stay to supper. 12 Cloudy. Mrs B. still easy and contented. She does not know how serious her case is. I stay with her till 12 1/2 when I go to Canfields to dinner. She urges me to go - to accept all such invitations. I fear she grows weaker, keeps her bed but walks to the toilet, dozes a good deal. I come back at 4 and sit in her room and do all I can for her. Oh, how emaciated she is, wants to talk with the doctors about her case, but I tell her part of what they say - that it is very serious and that the chances are against her. I tell her to will to get well. She says she will do all she can. 13 Wife had a good night, sleep well and is easy. I also had a good night. I leave at 8.16 for home. Cloudy chilly day. I feel well, but am greatly depressed 14 Cold with light rain from north. Slept in study and had a good night. Phone from M. that wife is comfortable and bowells less troublesome. 16 To N.Y. to academy meeting, a fine day. Roosevelt reads a paper and makes a speech. Fine - a wonderful man. Mabie there glad to see him - a little broken. 17 To academy meeting again. The gold medal is conferred upon me for excellence in Belle Letres, mainly my essays I think, a great surprise. But near so it means little to me. 18 To Middletown. Mrs B. comfortable but really no better. 19 I dine with Mrs Canfield. Clear cold days. 20 Back home. 21 Bring Mrs B. to Vassar Hospital. She wants to change. Julian and Mrs Covert go over for her. She stands the journey very well. 22 Down to see wife. Really no better, slowly failing I think. But she is comfortable. Clear windy cold day. 23 Warmer, rain all day. Write in study. 24 Clearing, cooler. Write in study. By mistake took 3 grs of calomel last night instead of 1/2 that amount. Feel pretty good. Wife to J's for dinner. Walk home. 25 Bright windy day, a cold wave. Wife has visibly failed since last visit. Oh, it is all so pitiful. 26 To J's to dinner, walk home. Pretty well. 27 Clear soft day warmer. Write [do not occupy the same deer] Nov 27 1916 in study. Walk up to the Creek and about the new barn in p.m. and back. Legs a little weak, but head clear, an Indian summer day.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1900-1901 (February - March)
Text: April 3d My 62d birth day, clear and cold like yesterday, with light flurries of snow at noon. Go to P, spend an hour at van Klucks. Health and spirits good, even a little extra for several days. The old relish for the coming of spring and for the face of nature. Robins very plentiful. How I enjoy thin calls and laughter and thin twilight challenge, [How] What would April be without the robin and the blue bird and the sparrow and the phoebe! I am sleeping well, eating well and working well?...
Show moreApril 3d My 62d birth day, clear and cold like yesterday, with light flurries of snow at noon. Go to P, spend an hour at van Klucks. Health and spirits good, even a little extra for several days. The old relish for the coming of spring and for the face of nature. Robins very plentiful. How I enjoy thin calls and laughter and thin twilight challenge, [How] What would April be without the robin and the blue bird and the sparrow and the phoebe! I am sleeping well, eating well and working well? finding much of the old charm and satisfaction in life. But how my whole emotional nature [leaves treasure] the old home and the days of my youth, like a plant toward the sun, a letter from Julian telling of bidding farewell to his highFrom Feb 16, 1900 to March 27, 1901Feb 16. Came to N.Y. yesterday; dine at Plimptons tonight. 17. Snow, meet Wakesly women and have much talk at their club rooms. 18. About 10 1/2 inches of snow last night, stopping with the Johnsons. 25. Cold, down to 8, at West Park 5 below zero on 28th. 28. A cold week; dine out nearly every day. Mch1st. Begins to rain in afternoon. 2d. Heavy rain, a flood in parts of the country; deep snows, 20 and 30 inches north of the track of the storm, rain south of it or from Albany south. Back home today.3d. Ground nearly all bare. 4th. Light snow, and colder. 6th. Snow again, 3 and 4 inches and rain. 7. Cooler, fair sleighing. Health much better from applications of electricity. 8. Sharp, nearly clear. 9. Bright and lovely, promises a good sap day, a thin veil of haze over all. Blue birds with amorous warble and flight, one robin, some black birds. 13. Cold, down to 8, spend night in P. 14. Milden, sap runs. 15. Begins snowing in p.m. 16. Heavy snow ending in hail nearly a foot, blew and rattled all night. Kept me from sleep, like mid winter. Correcting proof of "The Light of Day", have many misgivings about the book17. Julian came yesterday on morning train. Looks better than I expected to see him after his illness. In the afternoon he went over to the [shottege] and killed two ducks. Cold this morning, down to 10, with indications of more snow. March is making up for Jany. A flock of snow buntings in a tree - never saw them perch before, a robin calling from under the hill. Go over to Black Creek in afternoon with J, a very fatiguing tramp. Gold finches and red-pods along the creek, searching for food. 18. Colder and colder, zero this morning, Robin and blue birds calling. 19. Warmer, with light rain at night;20. Good sap day, sleighing played out, J. kills 5 ducks on river. 21. Colder and raw, blustery March day, mercury not above freezing all day. J. and White try for ducks but fail. 25. Keeps pretty cold - from 5 to 10 degrees of frost each night, much ice in river yet; but few ducks. J. and Hud kill two today out in front. 27. A white wash of snow last night. Julian and I go over to the [shattege] and spend the day. The day bright and lovely, we eat our dinner again on the little island Knoll near the outlet of the pond. A good fire and fine appetites. J. kills two ducks. 28. Bright but still chilly. J goes to highland. Ice about gone from river.29. Bright day, on the river in forenoon with Julian; no ducks, no ice. Take some photos at mouth of Black Creek. 30. Overcast and chilly; froze again last night. Julian leaves for Harvard on 10.15 train, much better than when he came. Looks well, his departure brings back the old feeling of loneliness, but I am well and must not yield to it. Sparrows very musical these days, also robins and blue-birds. Miss Hasbrouck died yesterday morning - a fine heroic soul. 31. Bright day, with wind, mercury gets up to 35. April 1st. Sunday, lovely spring day, mercury gets up to 50, spend the day at Slabsides all alone. Snow yet in deep hollows in the woods.Two species of butterflies today, one liver colored, the other red spotted. April 3d. My 63d birthday; health and spirits good. Go up home today on morning train from P. Reach home at noon. Light snow (came last night) covers the ground, a cloud of smoke and storm hangs over the sap house; the bush is tapped. Find them ready for dinner. Day chilly with snow flakes in the air. Folks all well. In p.m. boil sap with Johnny. 4. Chilly with flurries of snow all day, sap runs but little. I poke about all day. 5. Froze hard last night, windy and cold, nearly clear. Sap runs in afternoon. The boys cutting wood in the sap bush.6th. Clear windy, sap ran all night. Gather nearly 200 pails in forenoon, start the fires under the pans at 8 and boil all day, wind contrary and strong. Great flocks of leaves whirl through the woods like swarms of bees. Hiram came yesterday p.m. saw him coming down the side hill above the house. He is well, spends most of the day with me in or by the sap house, and we talk of the old times and the old people. How bright the day; the seem exactly as I used to see it in my youth. How fondly my eyes dwell upon it. The same robins, nuthatches, wood pecker, blue-birds, song sparrows, crows calling and singing. I sit or lie in the sun and wind the fire and the pans. In the p.m. Abagail, Hathe,Olly, Dessy, and Ann come up, and sit and talk. A vivid, dry, windy day. I hardly know whether I live more in the past or the present. At night Johnny and Hiram and I boil till after 8. 7. But little sap today. Boil till noon and then "syrup off". Day dry, bright and windy, sap will not run. Dry wind from North and high barometer seems to dry the trees up. Bid farewell to old scenes and come back to W.P. in afternoon. Grass started a little here, and checking frogs vocal in the swamp. 8. Still cold, clear and windy. Drive up to Wester Park. 9. Froze quite hard again, dry and clear and sharp today.10. Froze hard again last night. Sharp dry wind again from N.W. with much cloud. Slept over 7 hours straight last night. Ground dry and ready for the plough. 11. Still clear, dry cold. Five or six degrees of frost each night. Finished last proof of "Light of Day" this morning. Sick enough of the whole business. 46 years ago today I began my first school. Boys setting out grape vines. While driving down to the dock for Mrs. R. I saw below Gordons what I took to be two red squirrels chasing each other now on the ground, now on the wall, presently the pursued suddenly disappeared as if in a hole in the ground, as I drew near the pursuer, a redsquirrel came along the top of the wall, and passed up the hill, just there from the point where the other had disappeared, a chipmunk emerged from a pile of newly charred leaves and ashes, smutty and winking and clinking, and minus part of his tail. The squirrel then had been chasing a chipmunk with murderous intend and the latter had escaped by plunging out of sight in a pile of burnt leaves and ashes. I have never before seen a squirrel threaten a chipmunk. The crow black birds are again assembling at night in my spruces by the house. Every spring they do this, and after a few weeks disappear. Their notes make one want to blow his nose and clear histhreat, of all bird voices theirs is the worst wheezing, rasping catarrhal, asthmatic - voices half obliterated by one influenza. How dry and husky their throats must be! I wish they would grease their whistles. Besides their call note they have a kind of rude, splintering rasping warble or whistle, which they evidently mean for music. While out home and heard a song sparrow that I heard there two summers ago - a peculiar cat or inflection in its song. 12. Slow cold rain all day from the North, [cold] sit in my study and work at amending the essay on "Literary Values". 13. Still wet [and] misty and chilly. 14. Bright and warm.15. Sunday, lovely day, though a little frost last night. Walk to S. in afternoon, arbutus not yet quite open. 16. Still frost at night, though it gets much warmer today with signs of rain. Spend afternoon at S. Amasa plants his potatoes. 17. Slow rain, warm, still air full of bird voices. 18. Still warm thick and misty, very heavy rains in the south, - 7inc in Ala. Grass starting fast. The trill of the wall began Monday night. This morning the dead leaves and maple keys about the lawn and paths are gathered in little heaps or heads about the burrows of the angle worms, the worms have been drawing them in at nightSat here last night and read Emersons oration on Literary ethics, delivered when I was one year and five months old, and first read by me in 1857. I bought the volume containing it and the essays, in Chicago in the spring of that year. All that summer while at the old home I lived on these volumes, I steeped myself in them. After all these years of life and thought, I still find pleasure in this oration and in the others I see. I think how it all must sound to the trained European man of letters - a little futile, a little provincial and American - the gospel of individualism and self reliance, the brag, the crowning over the present [NC] - it is all rather intemperate and unclassical. It is by a man trained as a N.E. clergyman and not as aman of letters. It's crudeness belongs to a crude people, and it's courage and inspiration to a young people. This quiet restrained moral buncombe of E. is one of his leading traits. 19. Slow rain in p.m. yesterday and last night, warm and humid this morning with breaking skies, a typical moist April morning, warmth and humidity reign. Sit some time in my summer house, a meadow lank on the top of maple over my head gives forth seen clear piercing memory stirring note; thus a high hole strikes up under the hill - a call to all things to awake and be stirring. He flies from point to point and [spreads] repeats his call that all may hear. It is not a song, but a summons and a declaration. It is a voice out of the heart of April, not a sweet voice but oh, such a suggestive and pleasing one. It meansso much; it means the new furrow and the seed and the first planting, it means the springing grass and the early flowers, the budding trees and the chorus in the marshes. It is warm and moist with the breath of middle April. Wick, wick, wick, wick, wick, he says, come be up and doing; air your house, burn your rubbish, scatter your comport, start your plough, the soft maples are blooming, the bees are humming, the robins are nesting, the chickens are hatching, the ants are stirring, and I am here to call the hour, wick, wick, wick, wick, wick, wick, wick, wick. Then the bush sparrow sang, her plaintive, delicious strain beyond the current patch while the robins laughed and tee heed all about, oh, April month of my heart. The soil never looks so inviting as in April; one could almostEat it; it is the stuff of life; it lusts for the seed, later one wants it covered with verdure and protected from the too fierce sun. Now his rays seem to vivify it; by and by they will bake it. Go and dig some horseradish now and bring in some crisp spinach and the sweet and melting root of the parsnip. Let us task the flavor of the soil once more - the pungent, the crisp and the sugary. Beware of the angleworm this morning as you walk in the yard and on the road side; they are crawling abroad now. Beware of the newts too where they cross the roads from the woods to the marshes, you may tread upon them. In the twilight now the long drawn trill of the toad may be heard; tr - r - r - r - r - r - r - r a [song] long row of vocaldots on the dusky page of the twilight. It is one of the soothing quieting sounds, a chain of bubbles like its chain of eggs, a bell reduced to an even quieting monotone. These are the only jewels she has about her - these jewels of sound. Spend the afternoon in K, with the Van Slykes and two N.E. girls, a fine ride through the greening country. 20. Fair and lovely, a little cooler than yesterday. Plant peas at S.S. Two yellow bellied wood peckers today. 21. Warm and fine, spend the day at S.S. Blood root and dicentra in bloom. A. planting celery on home plot. 22. Rain last night and mist and cloud this morning; warm things growing on a jump. Sickley and Vassar girls come up a curly day, sun and cloud.23. Still warm humid weather. Shall fishermen again shouting from their idly drifting boats on the river. The song festival of gold finches still continues. What does the Lord do hourly but take the clay of the ground and mould it into men and women, and into all other forms of life? moisture is his right hand and heat his left. 28. Saturday. Dry, brilliant sharp, the past four days; light frost every night, maple tassels ready to shake out, but arrested North winds. Vassar girls today. 29. Still dry bright, sharp. The ruby Crowned Knight winding his tiny trumpet in the evergreens. 30. The last of the April days, warm, brooding, veiled with soft blue vapory haze. Foliage coming out, the high hole callsloud and long, now here, now there, the fishermen shout on the river, the plough everywhere brightening in the new furrow. One of the days when the world seems to drift in calm warm spaces, our first thunder shower at 5; light rain, 72 at 2 p.m. May 1st. Clear, smoky, cooler, with threatened frost tonight, cherry and peach blossoms just opening. 7. A cold dry week; a touch of frost last night or night before. A light rain Friday night the 4th snow in some places. Ground dry, leaves coming out; trees outlined in Langdons woods; pear trees blowing. Hiram came Saturday morning, two days and nights at Slabsides with him. He leaves this morning, looks well. He sits and whistles to himself and drums on his chair by the hour, an old habit.8. Still cold; thunder this morning with light rain. Apple trees not yet in bloom. Cuckoos calling last night at 8. and again in the morning. Warm in p.m. up to 74 with brief shower at night with much thunder. 9. Cloudy in forenoon with showers around us, colder and clearing in p.m. 10. Cold, a bad frost, froze the plowed ground; fear the fruit is injured and the celery. The worst frost of the season. 11. Still cold - another freeze, mercury from 30 to 33. 12. Young Roosevelt comes at 5. 13. A touch of frost again last night, teddy and I spend the day on Black Creek, a fine time. He is his father in miniature - outside and in. Getting warm fast.13. Warm day, 86. The Johnson come at 10, apple trees in full bloom; dry, dry. 14. Hot from 88 to 92, spend the afternoon at the falls with the J's, mercurydrop went home. 20. Cool, clearing, but squally in afternoon. 21. Squally and cool, a little thunder, 90 over to the Vanderhills. 22. Clear, warmer, lovely, ideal May weather. Staying at Slabsides since Saturday the 19th. 26. Fine bright day. 27. Warm and lovely, 80 today. 28. Overlast; the eclipse not to be seen, quite a deep twilight at 9a.m. 29. Clear and cold - hints of frost last night, a cold May. Rain needed again for grass. June1st. June come in hot and muggy with the air loaded with the perfume of the honey. [Lowest], above 80, vegetation very rank.June 2d. Still hot with signs of showers. 3d. A shower last night nearly 1/2 inch of water, very timely, a little cooler. Found a humming bird's nest this morning near the house at Riverleep. Rain again in afternoon a light shower. 4. A lovely day, nearly clear. Things growing very fast. 5. An ideal June day; clear calm, warm, six Vassar girls up. 6. Lovely days continue, mercury 80 each day. Two N.J. teachers this p.m. Fine girls, one from Maine. 7. Warm and lovely, the Atlantic City teachers leave at noon, signs of showers, all things growing rapidly.8. Warm slow feeble showers in afternoon? quite a brisk shower at night. 9. Clear and warm, an ideal day perfect. Vassar girls come up. Grapes blooming no thoughts, these days, easily tired. 10. Clear and cooler, lovely day. 11. Ideal June days, shower at 6, about 1/2 inch. 12. Cooler again, nearly clear. Drive up to Wester Park, in morning, to Vassar C, class day in p.m. Humming bird hatched one egg today, honey about as big as drone honey bee. Well, but no thoughts these days. Young cuckoo covered with pin quills on Monday the 11th out of the nest on a branch nearly fully pledged this morning. 14. Rain very early this morning for an hour or more, just enough for present needs.very muggy and dull the rest of the day, Amasa makes his first shipment of celery. 15. Clearing off cooler. 17. Fine days continue, Frank Chapman here. 18. Bright day. Go up Suyker Hollow with the Van Slykes. Drink at my big spring again and take a few trout. 19. Cool and bright, walk up the Panther Kill road and get a view of head of the valley. Very attractive. That high, circling mountain wall around head of the valley [very] gives a [precious] charm. 20. Lovely day, spend the afternoon with Charley Barns and Tinney school children. Julian comes at 8 p.m. and looks well.21. Charming day. 22. Charming day with a series of light showers in late afternoon. 23. Rain again in the night about 1/2 inch - nearly an inch in all. Cool today. 24. Clear and warm. 25. Hot, spend the day at S.S. and the night too. Very sweet and quiet here. 27. Hot, 92 at one, ship one ton currants. 28. Hot, violent thunder shower from 5 to 6 - three showers or one shower in three instalments. Over one inch of water. I and Silly at S.S. One of thon crazy showers when the wind whips the clouds North and then whips them South, or East or West, determined to drain them.The lightning and explosions of thunder very rapid and "shocking", one of the hottest June days I remember. 29. Clear and warm, above 80; lovely day. Humming birds nearly ready to fly. Company from N.Y. and from P. 30. Very much cooler; air clear as spring water need a coat this morning. The day of the boat rake. The boys finish girdling today. July 1st. Another spring-water day, even cooler than yesterday. Too cool to read in my summer home in the morning. A visit from miss Alliger and her friend Prof Polby of Cal. 2d. Still clear - translucent (needs a classical word) and very cool, a delicious sleep at S.S. last night. 3. Fine day, warmer in p.m. with sprinkler of rain4. Hot day and bright, about 90, Julian and I have our first bath in big pool. Spend the day at S.S. Bass wood in bloom, Chestnut ditto. 6. Julian and I start for Roxbury on morning train, stop off at Big Indian to fish. Very warm and muggy, no trout, but a pleasant time along the pine pebbly brook. Reach home at 6, all well. 22. Lotus eating again at the old place since the 6th glad, sad days. Frequent showers, mostly at night, a fierce storm with hail at 6 on afternoon of 12th miss Bessie Greenman came on the 7th to study birds with me, a large wholesome, pleasing young woman, a teacher of mathematics in Chelsea High School, many pleasant days in the woods and on the hills, she learned the birds rapidly. Left on the 18th.Haying progressing rapidly - five more days will finish. Country very green and fresh. Health good, spirits fairly good. Abagail and Hiram here today. Hermit thrush still in song. 29. Very lovely weather since Thursday the 26th. Cool and brilliant, yesterday (Saturday) was without a cloud or film on the sky, air absolutely transparent. We spent it on the "Old Clump." Julian, Molly Hunt and the two sister girls, never saw the mountains stand out more clearly all the afternoon we basked under the blue dome on the mountain top. A great tranquil day, the red hawk sails out beneath us, a swallow skins by the mellow chords of passing bees sound above us. On the 24th I started for Hobart vin old clump, a hard long tramp on the wooded tops of the mountains, vines, ferns, bushesLike a green snow knee deep, on the "big mountain" I bore too much to the left and came out near the "narrow North," day very hot, my fatigue and thirst were very great; reach Hiram bee yard at one, quite done up. In afternoon Hiram and I poke about or sit in the shade, Mr. Stewart's great grand father settled here in '76; we visit the site of his house, a green hole in the ground, now. The 5th generation of Stewarts are now on the farm, walked to Edens at 6. On the 25th severe pain in my bowels - have the Dr. and soon get relief, some bilious and stomach trouble; back to Curtis's on the 26th. A fine rain on the 25th. 30. Overcast threatening rain, quite well again, Curtis finished haying on Friday, the 27th.31. Hot day; rain did not come. Go down to Shandaken for the day. Aug 1st. Cool pleasant day, Curtis and I drive even to Edens and spend the day and night. 2nd. Very cool and dry. 3d. Eden and I drive out to see Jane and Homer; Cold as Sept, dusty, dry, Wesula goes out by train. Homer and Jane well and looking same as last fall, Julian and Ed and Amy and her man come to dinner. Back to Curtis is on train in afternoon. 4. Suggested a frost last night. Remarkably cool dry weather, country begins to suffer. Go down to Abagails to dinner. 5. Sunday still cool, Hiram comes over, Curtis and Ann and I go down to Chant's to dinner.6. Much warmer; dry, hazy, dog day weather. The old scenes begin to oppress me. Health good, but spirits rather melancholy. 7. Return to W.P. today very dry in Shandaken and Olive and about Kingston. Green at home, plenty of rain. Mrs. B comes on the 9th Julian on the 10th. Grapes look well. 15. Heavy rain today and at night 2 or 3 inches of water. Binder with me at S.S. 20. Start for the Adirondacks today to join miss Balls camping party. Evidence of great drought from Kingston to near Albany; forest trees turned brown on all the ridges or foot hills of the Catskills. At Netila join the party of the women and a men bond for camp Marlome on the Ampersand creek. Franklin Co. reach Axton at 9 O'clock, spend the night there.21. In to camp Marlome this morning 4 miles, a group of 5 or 6 log buildings in good order - an old Lumber Camp refitted in a clearing of a free acres with the inevitable freeze of dead and blackened trees. Here I stay till the last day of August with real enjoyment, a jolly lot of people, mostly graduates of Cornell. I fish and tramp and leaf. On Sunday the 25, we climb Mt. Seward; reach the summit at 9 a.m. a hard climb but a grand view; six women and ten on a dozen men. I stand it well, I gain in hardness every day, and can make long tramps without much fatigue. Spend a day and night at Ampersand lake. Unforgettable, the gem of all the Adirondack lakes, some of the company spend the night on Ampersand mountain or have a glorious time. Tim the guide, Pete the cook, the beds of boughs, and allThe last call for special mention, may be that some day I can write at all up, as an illustration of the pluck and hardness of the new women. She could [traut] and climb with the best of us. Weather was hot most of the time, and fair. Sept 1st. Reach home at 6 1/2 a.m. from P. The grape racket is on but not yet at its height, prices fair. 2. Hot dry day. 3. Hot dry day. 4. A little cooler. 5. Clear, warm, dry, I stay at S.S. Company every day, I dream of Ampersand. 6. Dry and hot, with a shower at 5-6. with much thunder, a brisk shower greatly needed. Rained nearly an hour. 7. Cooler and fair."Love for the work they do, this brings men to God," From the precept of Ptah-hotep. Egyptian 3500B.C. 9. Sunday warm tranquil day, mostly clear, still at S.S. alone. 11. Hot and dry, mercury in the 80's. Sticky and sultry today, a terrible hurricane in Texas - great lose of life. I still dream of Ampersand. Health very good - much more virile than last year. Mother's 92d birth day. 12. A hot night with much wind, which become a fierce wind storm, raging all the forenoon and later, the tail end of the great Southern hurricane. Cooler at night. 14. Still dry and warm. 15. Bright lovely day, with signs of rain at night. 16. Rained steadily nearly all night. Cloudy and warm this morning. Grapes nearly all off.Another brisk shower at night, nearly an inch of water. 18. Fall at last; slept with three blankets over me last night, a fire in my chimney. Cool, bright and windy today. Health good but no thoughts for a long time, no writing since spring. Spirits fairly good, which I attribute to abstaining from eating grapes. 22. Lovely day, miss Worthley and her party, she charms a copper head at the head of Ingersoll's stairs. 26. Fine warm day, Julian leaves today for Harvard - his last year, Hud again wheels his trunk over. He seems in good health and spirits, I ditto, Do not feel my allustomed melancholy - a condition which I attribute to abstaining from grapes, I doubt if I should eat any raw fruit. 27. Light thunder shower this morning. A week of summer heatso far; oppressive, grapes all off but a few gaertners. 30. Light rain in the night; rather warm; have been out of sorts the past 3 days, trouble in my throat with cough and head ache, still at SS; no one else in the valley. Still and misty this morning. Sept has been a warm month, a touch of frost only one night. Oct 1st. Go down to Atlantic city; reach there at one p.m. not very well; some threat trouble. 6. Pleasant days by the sea; health better, gain 3 lbs; warm most of the time; much cloud but no rain to speak of; hot today. Leave home at 9 a.m. Reach home at 4.20, Hiram comes down from W.P. 8. Hiram and I at S.S. again as of zone. Bad time with my throat last night; thought I should choke to death, Dr. says only amild case of laryngitis, cloud and rain, a heavy shower at noon; about 2 in, of water in less than an hour. 10. Much cooler; still cloudy; frost not far off. 13. Mild fair day, company from P. 14. Rained nearly all night and part of the day, Hiram with me keep in all day an account of my throat. 15. Warm lovely day; warm as Sept. Go to P. and am treated by Dr. Dobson, a fearful time to get my breath. 16. Alone last night at S.S, sat in my chair part of the night, a very bad time in the morning with choking, but got my breath at last, very pale and weak for a little while after it. All right again before noon. Warm bright day, Oct, has been a very warm month so far. A change in the p.m. with thunder wind and rain, and cooler.17. Bright and cold; froze last night, a grand meteor bet, 8 and 9; a light suddenly came in my window like that of the full moon, followed in less than a minute by a deep rumbling like that of thunder; the rumbling last half a minute and dies away in the distance. Booth and Lawn did not see the flash of the meteor but heard the report and went out to see what it was, others saw the meteor and heard the thunder. There can be no doubt but that the meteor caused the sound. Its course was North in the Western heavens. Sat up nearly all night with my throat. 18. Bright and cold; sat up nearly all night again with my throat, Hiram here, when I cut and pass Hiram a piece of bread at table I think of [all] how many times I have seen mother and father do the same in the old daysand my heart is tender. Here I am at this late day passing Hiram bread in more senses than one, poor boy, it is a joy for me to do so. 20. Severe frost last night, 5 or 6 degrees. Bright and clear this morning, sat all night in my chair, but slept 5 or 6 hours. Better this morning. Read some in Jess by J. L. Jones. Good, but not of high excellence, never delicious. 21. Mild bright day, Hiram leaves me again in afternoon, I watch him through a crack in the door till he disappears behind the bushes, and say to myself, "we may never meet again," a little nubbin of a man, with a very small mental horizon, but very clean to me; a part of father and mother and of the old home - a part of my youthful days. He has been with me at intervals since the 6thAlmost every moment while in the house he was drumming with his fingers on his chair on the table and whistling a low tune to himself in a sort of brown study. His drumming and whistling became quite a nuisance at times. 22. Warm and hazy. 23. Unseasonably warm with sign of showers from the South. The boys working the road, I have passed the last two nights at Riverby and slept fairly well. 26. A little cooler with signs of rain. Back to Slabsides again. A bad spell last night after I had thought the danger from them was past. Felt pretty well today. Just found a hibernating mouse here where the men were working on the road. Van dug him out the bank, he was cold and motionless. I brought him to the house in my pocket and made a nest for himin a tin bucket up stairs. He had nearly come to - was warm I had his eyes open when I put him in the nest. 27. My mouse was albine all night trying to get out of his prison - he disturbed my sleep. During the day he has been very quiet, deeply hidden under the rags in his prison house. Latin, concluded to liberate the mouse; he scampered away very briskly and hid beneath the rocks. It keeps so warm he can easily make another nest and begin his winters sleep again. 29. Still unseasonably warm, with cloud and sunshine, my throat is slowly improving. Still at S.S. Crickets and [Katy-dids] still musical. 30. Go down to P. on invitation of Charley Barnes, stay there most of the week and improve rapidly. On Saturday go to West Paint to see the Dentons and the Yale, W.P. football. Cloudy and milly.4. Bright and cool, walk with Denton and at night return to P. 5. Bright mild day, come back to S.S. 6. Election day, clear and mild; rarely so fine a day for election, I walked up to [the] Eropus at 2, voted for Bryan, and walked back exchanging greetings with only a few people, no body heeded me and I went my way - very sad most of the time thinking of the old days, when as a boy I went to election with father. The world seems strangely empty and deserted. The show is about over for me; my curiosity enthusiasm are about spent. Only very light rain the past week. 8. Start for Cambridge today, reach Bolton before 8, Julian finds me at W.S. Hotel. 9. Thunder and rain and hail, go to Cambridge at 9, find room at 24 Irving st. nice familyFeed well, and quite happy, colder with rain and wind. 10. Bright sharp day, with cold wave. Go to football in afternoon. A relative in Chicago writes me that she attended a Presbyterian Church the other Sunday and heard a sermon on love, and that the human illustration of it used was myself, how curious! a hater of churches and rarely seen within their walls, yet illustrating their doctrine of love, well, no doubt love is my ruling emotion - love and laughing. How I have loved the birds, the fields, the woods, the old home, father and mother and all my days, out of this love I have written my books, - out of this love and joy in nature, I am quick to anger, yet my anger evaporates like a summer shower. Anger poisons my blood, but love and joy are my life.11. Bright and sharp. began my work of collecting a volume of nature poem yesterday. 14. Much colder the past few days, but dry and fair, I feel well and am enjoying myself fairly well. I cannot read Swinburne without a kind of mental nausea. If I strike one of his poems without knowing the author, the nausea comes before I have read two lines. Why is this? S. seems to me abnormal; his is a diseased mind; his metric felicities seem a mere trick. In hunting for nature poetry I do not find one poem in 20 that I can use, as soon as I strike a [thing] piece of Wordswoths, or Thomson's or Bryant's, or Emerson's, what a difference! I can use but little of Lowell's. His verse is dry - it is too much made, Longfellow's is better,Of course Higginson cannot endure Whitman, H. is essentially aristocratic; he tends to the elegant, the polished, the refined; he aspires to the scholarly, the witty, the distinguished; while in W. there is something rankly common like freckles and sweat, he is a democratic through and through; he makes no account of the social and elegant ideals; he is larger than them and include them. 20. Warm, 67 degrees with light rain at night. Every day I plunge into the sea of poetry, nature poetry - but only now and then bring back a pearl. It is all good and respectable in its way, but it is not alive, much of the real stuff in the Southern poet Cawein, but his form is so difficult, his language is so knotted and tangled, that I cannot use any of it, not abit of simplicity and limpidity in him. Reading his rhymes is like riding a lean lame horse bare-back. He seems to affect a studied roughness and brokeness. 21. Clear and cooler. 27. Heavy continued rain the [past three] past two days. Deep snows panther north. On Sunday Julian and I had a fine walk of 5 or 6 miles through the mist and chill up beyond and around Mt. Auburn. Health excellent and spirits fine these days. The domestic furies cannot reach me. Pass language through the mind of one man and it has a marked flavor; pass it through another mind and it has an entirely different flavor; still another and it has no flavor at all - nothing from that man's character or experience adheres to it. These last are the journalists of literature.Dec 24. Bright mild day after the rain of last night. In p.m. I walk from Arlington Heights to E. Lexington and then to Waverly and then part way to Cambridge. The sight of the farms and fields does me good, insects dancing in the air. At night I assist the McKay girls with their X-mass tree. All this month of Dec, I have been in exceptional health and spirits and have had unusual mental activity, stimulated no doubt by the rhyming fears that seized me shortly after I came to C. - a delight in work such as I used to have 20 years ago and that I thought would never come back. I have finished poems on the following subjects, some of them long, too long; namely "Snow-Birds", "Phoebe", "The Hermit Thrush", "The trailing Arbutus", "Hepatita", "Song of the Toad", "Columbine", "The Barn on the Hill", and the "Cardinal Flower".and there are others in sight. Julian went home on the 22d. I stay because I do not like to let the ink dry on my pen, I must make sugar while the sap flows. 25. Clear lovely morning, like early Nov, only a little frost last night, I am sad as usual on this day. Such a throng of memories as it brings up. I go to dinner at the Childes. 31. Write in morning; poke about the old cemetery in afternoon; find a date of 1625, call at MacKay's in evening. Rather blue. 1901 Jany 1st, 1901. Clear and mild like April. Finish the Blue-bird poem in morning. Lunch with Dr. Cleghorne at one. The walk to Boston and back, a good start on the new century2d. Colder, clear. In afternoon Herbert Lang and I walk from Lexington to Waverly - about 5 miles along delightful country roads. Julian returns at night. 3. Cold at zero near here, a call from Kennedy and Chamberlain. 4. Still cold, I keep well as ever. 90 skating with J at 4 p.m. on Spy pond; walk back. 5. Still clear and dry and little milder, dust, dust, we will pay for this in Feb, or before. My rhymes no longer make me tipsy, I am much sobered, I am getting over the debauch. 9. Like April, go to Blue Hills with K. and C. a long refreshing walk and climb to top of Observatory Hill - superb view. 11. Snow and rain. 12. More snow: good sleighing for first time, not deep but tough.20. Sunday, cold the past two days; below zero this morning. Dinner last Sunday at Winchester with the Chamberlains, a fine fellow, Mrs. C. ditto, to Norton's Thursday night, a genial entertaining man, like him much. There unmarried daughters slowly fading on the parent tree. Health still excellent plus, about done rhyming I think. Fourteen poems in two months. Every morning after breakfast I walk up to Julian's room 61, Hastings then walk back with him and Howard to Memorial Hall; then to work till one, then walk after dinner 5 or 6 miles. 23. Mild pleasant winter weather, soft yesterday and day before, still rhyming; sleep well now. 30. Sharp dry weather again, dusty. A letter from Hiram, he says he has a good place to sleep, a stone pipe runs up through hisroom and makes it warm. Poor boy, a small thing to be thankful for. Eden sick again and faint from kidney hemorrhages, send Hiram some money. I am done rhyming I think. Feb, 13. Leave C. today for home; a cold windy day. The sheeted winds stalk over the hills or rise up above the fences like ghosts. Julian goes with me to the train at 8 1/2. Reach Hudson on time, trains on H.R.R, 2 hours late. Go to P. reach there at 7, find Mrs. B. well and good natured. Since Feb 1st I have been half sick, some form of indigestive; much languor and fatigue in my legs, at times amounting to pain. Eat little, walk little, much better today. 14. Still cold and windy, go up to W.P. and happy to be there; see men on the river in 12 to 14 inches. Find that Mrs. Gordon died on Saturday night, I shall miss her much; ourneighbor since sometime in the eighties, Mrs. Sherwood also buried the day I came home. Rest to her spirit! The last I saw her was in the fall I think when she drone into Slabsides. 15. Bright, but milder; two blue-birds near the station, crows cawing with a spring like caw. Go over to Weems with B and L. and spend the day; a good time. Amasa pricking out his celery plants in new green house. 16. Bright and mild; up to W.P. again snow melting. 22. No snow or rain for nearly three weeks; streams and wells very low. Bright days and cold nights, see harvesters still at work; here at Riverby since the 18th boarding with Hud; am well and contented and at work again. Blue-birds every day. 27. Winter drouth continues; no snow or rain for over 3 weeks, cold and clear, mercury from 7 to 20 above, see men still at work.28. Last day of winter, clear, cold, mercury 10 this morning - steady cold and dry all the month. Johnson comes and stays all night - glad to see him. A return of my stomach and bowell trouble - not severe. Mch1st. Down to 18. Begins to snow at 11, only a flurry, ends in a few drops of rain. 2d. Quite spring like, morning up to 40, go to town for over Sunday. 3d. Cold again; down to 10 at W.P. getting warmer in p.m. a long walk in morning with K. 4. Rain last night - a brisk shower clearing and mild today. return to W.P. Bowell and stomach trouble much better. 5. Snow last night - 2 inches of hut heavy snow. 6. Clear and cold - down to 10. 7. Cold, cold, down to 2 this morning.8. Milder and spring like. Miss Tarbell and Mr. Hulbert of mide. 9. A mild still, hazy morning, overcast very spring like, blue-birds and nuthatches - the latter calling or piping rapidly as of old, only hear this rapid piping in spring, mercury above 40. Slow rain in afternoon. 10. Colder, heavily clouded, stay in P. 11. Began raining last night, heavy all night; raining again now at 12 1/2. Ground so hard frozen, the water nearly all runs off, bad news from Eden. 12. Go out to Hobart this morning on early train, full of dread forebodings not feeling well myself. Cloudy, windy with snow flurries in the air. Find Eden much better than I expected. Sitting in his chair, looking pale, but bright, he greets me cheerily. The hemorrhages had stopped that morning. May well and as alline and devoted as ever. Hiram comes in from thevillage in about an hour, looking unusually well. We sit by the fire all the afternoon and evening and talk. Eden talks of his hunting and the foxes he had killed as cheerily as ever - tells where and how he killed each fox. Does not seem at all alarmed about his illness - this is no doubt a great help to him; he has none of my weakness that way. A cold windy night, poor sleep for me. 13. Eden continues to improve. Day cold with signs of clearing, signs of malaria in myself. How familiar I am with that look of those mountains - a thick heavy mouth of reddish brown trees through which the deep snows show - the tops of the mountains hoary with frost, not an evergreen on them - all birds, bush and maple and very uniform - the winterlook of the Catskills. Another half day by the fire side with Eden and Hiram, with the old common place talks. In afternoon I take train for Roxbury, but feel so miserable that I do not stop, but keep on to Kingston and spend night with Abby. Fever and pain all night. 14. Fever gone in morning, come home on early train. Two inches of snow in the night. Day bright; take 16 grains quinine during the day. Tap 12 trees in afternoon Hud and I, sap runs well. 15. Ice in motion this morning, telegraph Julian; feel some better, gathers and boil the sap. 4 pails full, no run today. First robin today. 16. More snow last night; clears off bright, Mrs. B comes up on 10 O'clock train. Sap runs down again. Julian comes on 4.20 trainlooks well and is happy, Mrs. B. returns to P. much talk at night in study of Emily and other things. I am about well again. 17. Froze hard last night, clear this morning with troops of robins shouting and singing, a red shouldered starling pipes his a-ka-lu on maple over my study. 18. A real spring day, nearly clear and warm; only a slight freeze last night. Song sparrow this morning. Sap runs on a jump. Julian off on his first duck hunt, gets 1 black duck and 2 mergansers. 19. Cold windy, nearly clear. Julian kills 4 black ducks in the creek. Mrs. B. comes home. 20. Dark still day growing warm; signs of rain. Julian kills 6 black ducks and 2 geese on the river. 21. Rain this morning, hard, mercury 42. Julian and Hud kill 3 ducks on the creek and one on the river. Fair in afternoon. Phoebe today, and fox sparrow on Eropus Island yesterday Julian saw a thrush, probably a hermit. Rainfall heavy. 22. Clear, mercury 30, good sap day. 23. Perfect spring day, clear still, brilliant: This day I am happy, Julian is home, the fox sparrow sings, song sparrow trills and robins and blue birds laugh and call. In the morning a meadow lank alighted on the top of the maple over my study and sent forth again and again his wonderful spring call. In the forenoon I work on the life of Audubon and in the afternoon boil sap - 6 pails. The best sap day yet. The white gulls go by up the river their images reflected in the water beneath them. J. gets 4 ducks in the morning.24. Cloudy mild, light rain. 25. Cloudy mild, light rain. 26. Rain in the night. Julian kills 7 ducks on the river. Mercury above 40. Birds very musical. What would life be here without this companionship of the birds. All since Sunday night with influenza and malaria. 27. Heavy rain in the night with thunder, clearing this morning and cooler. Julian returns today to Harvard. First butterfly today - a fritilary? Pupers last night, Julian says. Frost out of the ground; ice about gone from the river.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1884
Text: 1883 Nov. 9 In the light of Darwins theory it is almost appaling to think of ones self, of what he represents, of what he has come through. It almost makes one afraid of himself. Think of what there is inherent in his germ; think of the beings that lived, the savage lower forms, that he might move here, a reasonable being. At what a cost he has been purchased; a million years of unreason, for his moment of reason; a million years of gross selfishness, that he might have a benevolent throb. ...
Show more1883 Nov. 9 In the light of Darwins theory it is almost appaling to think of ones self, of what he represents, of what he has come through. It almost makes one afraid of himself. Think of what there is inherent in his germ; think of the beings that lived, the savage lower forms, that he might move here, a reasonable being. At what a cost he has been purchased; a million years of unreason, for his moment of reason; a million years of gross selfishness, that he might have a benevolent throb. "Bought with the blood of Christ" is the hyperbole of the Church; but every babe that is born today is bought with the blood of countless ages of barbarism, and countless lives of beings; and this not figuratively, but literally. Out of an ocean of darkness and savagery, is distilled this drop of human blood, with all its possibilities. - Probably the most selfish creatures in the world are to be found among the childless women, - all the love, and sympathy and helpfulness, etc. that nature meant to flow out toward offspring, turned inward upon themselves. They come in time to look upon themselves as the child of themselves, which they pity and pet and caress and indulge and for whom nothing in this world is good enough. 12. Go home today to see Uncle Edmund Kelly, very cold and windy. Reach home at noon in a driving snow squall. Father opens the door before I reach it, and greets me with copious tears. Uncle Edmund sitting by the stove with his hat on. Find him but little changed, except more silent than he used to be. Sits long without remark, and reads the paper as an old man reads, that is appears to read it all; with equal interest, a want of interest doesn�t discriminate and select the news. Over 80 years old, the last of my uncles - all dead but him; very spry and quick for one so old; see grandfather very plainly in him; the look of Mother too and of Wilson. His favorite word an adjective is "monstrous", as "She was a monstrous smart woman," "it is monstrous cold," "she suffered monstrous" etc. etc. He told me of his old uncle John Kelly, grand father's brother, that he was a monstrous queer man, lived in the woods in a little hut a regular hermit life, people used to take him food to keep him from starving. When walking along the road he would stop and stand a long time and look all around (I feel the same trait in myself). Uncle Edmund used to go to his hut; as soon as near enough, he could hear him talking as if there were half a dozen persons there. He had two children "off toward Albany" who used to clothe him, and who finally kept him with them, and he died there. When a young man Uncle Edmund used to cut wood at the glass works in Woodstock during the winter; could cut and pick up 4 1/2 cords of stove wood in a day. He left for home Tuesday night: thinks he never will come again; I shall never see he and father together again; they parted that night just at sundown for the last time, Uncle Edmund with wet eyes and few words, father with copious tears and outspoken farewells - two men past 80, their wives dead, and nearly all their early friends and comrades in the grave. How wintery and desolate life did look to them both I know full well. Uncle Edmund had never before found mothers place vacant. He had been to the graves of all his Kindred on Red Kill, to his father and mothers and to all his brothers and sister's, as if to bid them a last farewell.- The old home was pretty desolate to me, only Hiram and Father left, now that Eden and Margaret have gone. Soon, soon it will be only Hiram. On Wednesday Hiram and I walk over the mountains, through wind and snow to Edens near Hobart. A hard long tramp. 17 A bright cold hard day, a day like polished iron. 19 A soft mild Indian summer day; sunlight weak, many times diluted with autumn shadows, but tender and dreamy. No thoughts in me; only a vague longing and unrest. - My best and truest friend among womankind, Mrs. Fanny A. Mead of Lansing, Mich., is dead, since Oct. 25th. Nearly all night Nov. 15th I lay awake thinking of her. In many ways the noblest, most loving, most discerning, most charitable woman I have known in this world. She visited me here the latter part of August 1880. Her death nearly blots out the West for me. - No matter how much learning, or force, or capacity of any kind [crossed out: you have] a man has a man has, unless he has that something which we call style - an apt and original expression and individual flavor of his own, he can make no permanent contribution to literature. Style is the precious spices etc. that embalm and keep thought. The iridescent hue of pearl is an effect of style - the manner of arrangement of the particles - not any new matter.27. A succession of remarkable sunsets and sunrises for several days past, culminating to-night in the most remarkable sky-glow, or sky bloom I ever saw. I have seen sunsets for over 40 years, and never saw one like that before; a cloudless sky flushing crimson that spread nearly up to the zenith and reached far around to the south east - and that an hour after the sun had actually set. At 6 o'clock the western sky was yet dark crimson. In many cities, in N.Y. and in Poughkeepsie, an alarm of fire was sounded and the fire companies were out to extinguish the sun set. The reflection of a distant fire upon a low clouded midnight sky, [crossed out: was] is not more marked than was this evening glow. The wonder was, [crossed out: such] the sky was cloudless the upper atmosphere itself seemed to turn to blood. 28. The same phenomenon again to night, only less pronounced. After sun-down a peculiar phosphorescent glow suffused the west; gradually a crimson bank formed far up from the horizon, which slowly crept down till it lay low in the west, and then near 6.P.M. dropped below the horizon. The mornings, too, have been exceptionally brilliant, the pale, phosphorescent glow of the east long before the sun appeared lighting up the world with the most peculiar effects. Dec. 1st Day of great brilliancy; still cloudless, cold. - The soul is not something superadded to the body, is it? [crossed out: It is] Is it not rather a growth and product of the body as much as the flower is of the plant - or the flame of the lamp? Growing as it grows and decaying as it decays? Dec. 6th Fine days and nights lately - a sort of sterner Indian summer - an austere, but serene Indian chief. Walking along the road in the bright Dec. quiet I pause and hear the fine rasping of squirrel teeth on a hickory nut, or butternut. New ice on the ponds, but the earth beneath is not thoroughly chilled yet, and it doesn�t last. The bluebirds and nuthatches discover a little owl at the bottom of a hollow in an apple tree below my study, and by their cries advertise to me [crossed out: of] the fact. I peep down and see the rascal with closed eyes, simulating sleep, but suspect he is watching me through those narrow slits. Dec. 9 [Section torn from the page] - People who try to explain Carlyle on the ground of his humble origin, shoot wide of the mark. "Merely a peasant with a glorified intellect, says one irate female. It seems to me he was the least of a peasant of any man of his time, a man of truly regal and dominatingpersonality. The two marks of the peasant, are stolidity and abjectness; he is dull and heavy and he dare not say his soul is his own. No man ever so hustled and jostled Kings and emperors about, and made them toe the mark as did Carlyle. It was not merely his intellect that was towering; it was his character, his will, his standard of morality - and of manhood. He is naturally imperious and haughty. There is no taint of the peasant in him, I remember well his long, slender soft hand, and can feel it yet in my own, a certain coarseness of fiber he had, as have all strong, first class characters, the fiber of the royal oak. [Pages missing?][crossed out: the ills of life] Arnold His vision leads his feeling; he sees first and feels afterward or tries to feel, not always with success. There is no struggle or conflict in him. He is not beaten back by contrary winds, nor carried swiftly and joyously ahead by fawning winds. He is calm and mildly contemptuous in a world of Philistines. Dec. 12 No snow yet, not much cold - no ice on the ponds. Peculiar, brilliant, phosphorescent sunsets and sunrises, with clouds at sunset of light olive green. How local, how circumscribed limited seems the sunset, and sun-rise - each a particular phenomenon confined to this one spot - a universal fact appearing as a special and particular fact. Much meaning in this. Thus the triumph of poetry, of art, is to house and locate the universal so, make the sun-rise and sunset special to you and me. The great universal facts of life and death appear peculiar and original to each one of us, but, behold, all men have the same experience. The rainbow is immediately in your front, spanning your own fields or native valley, but the man beyond the valley sees it spanning his just the same. Every man is a center of the world - all the facts of nature point to him, and he is bound to read them and to meet them from his own point of view. But it is well to remember that others have their point of view also, and that the clouds that appear so dull and leaden there in the south or north, are just as glowing in the sun set to people who see them from the right angle, as ours are here in the west. 13 Still bright and nearly clear, but chilly - the air full of a shining haze. The eastern skies all aglow again this morning - at one time a luminous crimson along the rim of the horizon that spread upward and suffused all the eastern skies with a peculiar phosphorescent light. 18 We speak of the motion of the heavenly bodies, but really this is not motion in the concrete as we know it upon the earth - it is rather motion in the abstract - a motion that is equivalent to eternal repose. See them bowl along there, without effort, without friction, without inertia or resistance overcome, changing their places with reference to each one an other, yet not changing their places in absolute space. Universal motion is equivalent to universal rest. When my boat moves with the tide it is practically at rest; if the shores moved too, then motion were abolished. There is no motion withoutplace, without a fixed point and in astronomic space there is no place, no fixed point, no up, no down, no over, no under. I expect we shall find out by and by that there is no waste or expenditure of heat by the sun in warming the solar system, as we understand it on earth, anymore than there is an expenditure of force in holding the earth in its place, and the other planets in theirs. It is something more subtle and transcendental than the warming of your house. The rays that go off into space probably carry no heat, itbecomes heat only when it is caught by the planets, which supply, as it were, the female principle. I am yet convinced that the sun is an actual burning or conflagration, though all that comes from it may be turned into heat upon the planets. (I can no more than hint the point I am driving at) 20 A cold day, four or five inches of snow upon the ground, first floating ice in the river, and clouds gathering for more snow. The third anniversary of mother's death, and father's 81st birthday, and I am not at the old place as is my wont, buthere in my ground-attic, writing on literature and science, with thoughts far away from home. From a letter to M.B.B [Myron B. Benton] We have all felt and spoken of the priestly and sacerdotal character of Emerson and have seen and felt his value to the spirit and that he was much more than a mere man of letters, but to say he has written the most important prose work of the 19th century, and yet that he is not a great writer, a great expressor, and that he is less in this respect than Addison, is absurd. If he is not a great man of letters, he is a great man speaking through letters, which is perhaps quite as important. His literary gifts were not an equipment that he could turn in any direction.He had no literary faculty that he carried about on his finger like a falcon, and with which he could hawk all manner of game from mice to pheasants, like Voltaire and Swift, but he had a power and at times a largeness of utterance, that these wretches never approached. You may say Bacon was not a great essayist, and yet the wisdom and learning of a great mind [crossed out: is] are revealed in his essays. Perhaps Arnold is correct. Not to be a mere writer, but man writing, would please Emerson best."Indeed the scientific critics like Taine leave a very large spot in my literary palate untouched. In literature, in history, we do not so much want things explained, as we want them portrayed and interpreted. And the explanation of these experts is usually only clever thimble rigging. If they ferret the mystery out of one hole they run it to cover in another. How clear is Taines explanation of those brilliant epochs in the history of nations, when they produce groups of great men and give birth to their great literatures. Why, it is only the result of a "hidden concord of creative forces," and the opposite periods, the nadir, is the result of "inward contrarieties." Truly a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. What causes the inward concord etc, so that we can lay our hand upon the lever and bring about a crop of great men at a given turn, the astute Frenchman does not tell us. 23 Very cold - 8 below this morning, and zero all day. At dark thermometer began to rise and fine snow soon began to fall. 25 A white Christmas - Earth, sky and air, all white, a foot of snow and a hoar frost covering trees and rocks, left by the white fog, a bad headache yesterday. 26 A whiter world I have never seen, only the undersides of the limbs of the trees and their trunks showing any shade. The air still and filled with a white motionless fog - less a fog than a kind of white opaque condition of the air itself - very peculiar. Yesterday the white fleecy air lifted a little, just clearing the tree tops, and hovered there like the vapor of snow, and about 4 o'clock snow began to fall gently from it - and continued till 8. It is a condition of high frosty mountain tops, become general. Every writer has his peculiar note, It is the scientific note or the religious note, or the note of criticism or of conventionality, or of good fellowship - In Emerson there is always the heroic note. In all his writing and speaking [crossed out: this is] this note predominates, the electric touch of brave deeds, of cheerful confronting of immense odds, the inspiration of courage and self-reliance. Perhaps his match in this respect cannot be found in literature, certainly not among ethical or didactic writers. If in his earlier essays this note seems to us now, a little too pronounced, savoring just a little of tall talk, it did not seem so when we first read [crossed out: them] him. It was as clear and frank and sweet as the note of the bugle. Carlyle once defined poetry - as the heroic of speech; a definition that would not suit Mr. Arnold, but which describes well much of Emersons poetry, and so many of those brave sentences in his essays. In Addison we get the note of urbanity, in Franklin of worldly prudence, in Bacon of large wisdom, in Pope of polished common sense, in Cowley of - discontent, in Swift of arrogance and scorn, in Arnold himself of critical disquietude. In Carlyle the note is one of sorrow and lamentation. In Emerson we come at once upon the chivalrous, heroic attitude and temper. No scorn, no contempt, no defiance, but brave counsel and chivalrous service. Books, he said, "are for nothing but to inspire," and in writing his own books he had but one purpose in view, namely to inspire his reader, to break through the crust of custom and conventionality and the commonplace - much more pronounced when he began to write than now, to scatter his torpidity and spur him to higher and nobler thinking and acting. There are words of prudence, words of enlightenment, words that cheer and comfort; words that divide one thing from another like a blade, words that are like lamps to show us the way; and there are words that are like banners leading to victory. Emersons words are banner-words, beautiful, cheering, rallying, inspiring, seconding and pointing the way to all noble endeavor. What audacity of statement, what courage of affirmation what intrepidity of mind. "Self-trust" he says, "is the essence of heroism" and this martial note pulses through all his writings. [crossed out: In] This passage one might think was written for Walt Whitman, had it not been before the fact: "Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age." Jan 5 To N.Y. to hear Arnold lecture on Emerson last night. A large fine audience; lecturer introduced by Curtis, the pensive Curtis, in a "neat little speech." Curtis is the cosset of the elocutionary graces. He fondly leans and sighs upon and languishes upon their bosoms! Arnold put his M.S. up high on a rack beside him, turned to the audience, [crossed out: gave a] let off a sharp glance in my direction through his one Cockney eye glass, straightened himself up and after a delay that was a little too long, lifted up his voice and spoke his piece - voice too thick and foggy - has none of the clearness and grace of his literary style; hence his lecture is better in the reading than in the hearing. There is something almost like pudding in an Englishmans throat when he speaks from the stage.- Met Rev. John Wood in the afternoon at Houghton, Mi and Co. An Englishman of a lower order - not pleasing to look upon - shapeless in face and body - plump, with a suggestion of frowziness. Mouth also full of pudding - comes near to dropping his h's - the British softness, unctuousness - fat in the tones of the voice, and not lean like us or is it fog and mist and smoke and beef and beer etc. Did not know of Grant Allen. I remember that William Rosetti did not know of Roden Noel. - I have found that there are two ways to get the heat out of your fire wood - first by sawing and splitting it yourself, then by burning it. 6th In writing my whole effort is to put myself in communication with the truth. If I can, then my sails fill, if not, how futile I am. I have no talent but to see and state the thing as it is. 8 Cold, dark, lowering days. Lifes skies dark also, a few days ago all so bright. Again must I face the inevitable. Let me be calm, and see that it is best also. A despatch from home to-day at 4 P.M. that Father has had a stroke; is probably dead now. The blow I have so long dreaded and have been schooling myself to meet has at last fallen. In a few hours I shall know the worst. It is his time to die, and he has long been looking and waiting for the end; it is best so, but oh! how can I lose him from the world, my father! Be still, my heart, be still. It comes to all men, and have not I known it would come to me. When I was leaving him last summer he said with a great burst of emotion, that he hoped it would please God to take him with a stroke. I recall the whole scene vividly; he was approaching the table, where the rest of the family had seated themselves for dinner; I was standing near the door. His tears came fast and his voice was choked with emotion. How many times sitting alone in my study, during the bleak winter nights have I said over the names of my dead, his name alwayshovering near, as if so soon to be added to the list. How many times, while Mother was still living, have I at night felt suddenly drawn towards them, as if I must at once be with them; they were there now, but would soon be gone; why did I tarry here? and I would start from my chair and pace the floor. How many times while home with them, did I look at them and listen to them, as if with the eyes and ears of future years when they [crossed out: should] would be gone; as if to anticipate the crying want I should then feel to see and hear them, and store up memories of them that would then appease my aching heart. "Oh, listen" I would say, when I heard their [crossed out: talk] voices at night in their bed, "so soon you will want to hear those voices and they will be forever still." Now hers is still, and maybe his too, and the kindness and affection I have shown him during these years, will bear its own fruit - in my heart. Twenty-three years ago, in winter, I was summoned home by his illness and expected to find him dead. I was all night on a freight train from New Hamburgh to Rhinebeck; how dismal, how wretched. The stage had gone when I reached Rondout, and I got Mr. Gibbs to take me out to Olive; then father North drove me to Roxbury. At Pine Hill I saw John Powell, Jr, he said father - and my heart stood still while he finished his sentence - was better, as the fact proved. Jan. 21 Stern rugged winter day and the cold snows cover a new grave beside Mothers. At rest at last, after 81 years of life. The event he so long predicted and waited for, and I think toward the last began to long for, came, and came as he had hoped. No suffering, no lingering illness to make trouble in the house. I went home on the 9th. Drove up from the station in the moonlight in a whirl of wind and snow. How lonely and bleak the old place looked in that winter-landscape by moonlight - beleaguring winter without and death within. Jane and Abigail were there with Hiram and some of the neighbors. Father had died at seven in the morning as I had learned at Kingston bytelegraph. How the wind howled and buffeted that night, and the steady roar of the mountain like that of the sea came to me in my sleepless chamber. How often in youth I had heard that roar, but with what different ears, as I snuggled down in my bed while mother tucked me in! Early in the morning I went quietly and with composure and looked upon my fathers face. Never had I looked upon his face before, in the morning before he had arisen without speaking his name, and I could not refrain from speaking his name now, and speaking it again and again. The marble face of death, what unspeakable repose and silence there is in it. I saw more clearly than everbefore how much my own features were like his. The nose the same, only in his case cut away more at the nostrils. The forehead too precisely the same. Head nearly as large, as mine, feet and hands smaller. It was his time to die; it is better so, and the reason said, yes, yes, but oh, the heart! The time for its [crossed out: dead] loved ones to die never comes. Father had been as well as usual up to the hour of his stroke. The only change noticed in him in the last days of his life, was an increased longing for mother. The sense of his loss and his desolation seemed to become more acute and he talked of her much, with profuse tears. That last day he asked for penand paper to write to me and to Uncle Edmund, but did not write. He ate his supper as usual that night and between 7 and 8 o'clock went out [crossed out: to the privy]. John Grant went with him to help him over some slippery places in the path. Then in due time went out to help him in. As he neared the privy door he saw father lean heavily forward as if just risen from the seat and then fall, or slowly pitch down in the corner of the privy. Hiram and his man were putting up grain, against going to mill on the morrow, in the Grainery near by. Grant called to them and they together got father up and into the house. He could not stand and could not speak. When asked if he was hurt he nodded yes. They got him to bedand he fell into a slumber from which he never awoke; lived about 36 hours, becoming more choked in his breathing toward the last from phlegm etc but died easily about 7 A.M. Jan. 9. apoplexy, affecting the right side. While Hiram was putting up the grain, he heard father call to him several times, probably to help him around some wood after Grant had left him. This was the last he ever heard his voice in this world. On Friday the 11th we buried him beside Mother; a snowy misty day. Elder Hewitt preached the funeral sermon, a thorough-going old school Baptist sermon arguing and proving the doctrine of election and foreordination etc and having his fling at all other church denominations, such asermon as father delighted in, and would no doubt have preferred should be preached at his funeral. It was very foolish from my point of view. The old Elder has more spirit and fight in him than ten years ago, when he preached Chancey B's sermon, and less feeling and sentiment. He had been near unto death then, but now his health is good, too good for his preaching. I remember this sentence: "A spring cannot rise about nature" meaning above its source, "They both now in Earth's soft arms are reposing" where we all in due time shall also repose. Diverse and separate in life, in death we become one. My father was so much to me, not perhaps in reality, for he cared nothing for the things I did, and knew me not, but fromthe force of the filial instinct and home feeling in me. He knew me not I say. All my aims and aspirations in life were a sealed book to him as much as his peculiar religious experience was to me. Yet I reckon it was the same leaven working in us both. The delight he had in his bible, in his hymn book, in his Church in his creed, I have in literature, in the poets, in nature. His was related in his thought to his souls salvation hereafter, mine to my souls salvation here. Father was a serious man and full of emotion; his tears always came so easily! He had no art to conceal anything; was as frank and transparent as a child; no deceit, or guile, or craft, no self consciousness, hardly any sense of shame; Mother usedto say had no decency, and no manners. "All I ever had" father would rejoin, "I have never used any of them." Had no concealment or shyness; would ask people and strangers, such personal questions! If he met a stranger in the road would often ask him his name; would ask women their ages, or ask people what they did for a living, or what wages they got, or what their politics was. He used to speak in "Church meeting" and tell his religious experiences after the manner of his sect, always I imagine with choking and tearful emotion. He never prayed openly in his family, tho' when younger frequently read the bible aloud and sang hymns. Once when I was a lad, I overheard him praying in the hog-pen at night. I think it a time of more than usual religious excitement with him, and he went upon his knees in the hog-pen then nearly empty, I imagine, as it was winter. I heard and ran away. Knowing it was not for me to hear. He was violent and bigoted in his religious opinions, speaking rudely and contemptuously of other denominations as did the Elders of his church. "The Signs of the Times" was his religious paper for over 40 years, and he would read those long lugubrious "experiences" of the sisters and brethren with deepest emotion. A harshness in his temperament, red hair and freckled complexion when young, yet such a tender streak in him. Such a fountain of tears! He was harsh and severe with his oxen or horses, or cows when they were ugly, "lugging" the cows and whipping the oxen at a great rate, and yet such an affection for his teams after all. He could tell every yoke of oxen or span of horses he ever owned and relate many incidents about them. I well remember the sickness of one of his horses, when I was a boy, had the "horse distemper" and how assiduously father watched and nursed it and finally pulled it through. Yet he had no mercy on a healthy horse and could whip it till it fell dead I verily believe. (I could too). Father made a great deal of noise about the farm, had great strength of voice and could send it over the hills a mile away; was indeed a noisy man, halloing at the cows, the sheep, the boys, and in drawing rocks with the oxen, you could have heardhim a great distance. He never went away from home, while I was a boy on the farm, without stopping out on the "big hill" and calling back to us some command, or renewal of some order, generally entirely superfluous, always to the annoyance of Mother if she was beside him, his voice was so loud and harsh. Often he would call twice before he got out of sight. Even last summer, he used to exercise his voice, by starting the cows from the upper pasture, a quarter of a mile or more, away. Father had no enemies, no quarrels; never lied or cheated or stirred up strife. His word was as good as his bond. He had a kind of selfishness, but it was like that of children,thoughtless and uncalculating, and related mainly to appetite. He was a hearty eater, and at the table would always pick for the best. He would always take my biggest trout, and the next biggest and the next if I would give it to him, as I usually did. It never occurred to him to decline a thing on the score of manners. Mother used to say it was "hoggishness" and he would not gain say her. I doubt if he ever said "thank you" to any person in his life; I certainly never heard him. I took him and sent him many little things in his latter days, which he always accepted without remark. His was not a brooding, silent, self-conscious nature; exactly the reverse. He had no sentiment, and would snortat what you call poetry, and yet was much of a real poet himself. His faults were like those of children and in his old age, he became childish to a degree. His intelligence and judgement were yet good, when appealed to, but his will, his self-control, his force and authority as a man, were feeble. His curiosity was always great and continued to the last. Father never had much faith in me, the least of any of his children. He saw I was an odd one, and had tendencies and tastes from the first that he did not sympathize with. All the other children he helped with money when they began life, but me. When I wanted help as I did twice or three times in a pinch, he refused; and as it turned out I was the only one of his children, that could or wouldhelp him when the pinch came. A curious retribution, but one that gave me pleasure, and him no pain. I was better unhelped, as it proved, and better for all I could help him. He went according to his light, and perhaps I loved him the better for denying me. I never laid up anything against him, not even the fact that once while I was away to school, and got short of funds, and wanted $5 to help me out, he would not send it, tho' mother berated him soundly for it. Hiram sent me the money and I worked in haying and paid him back. Father did not like my tendency to books; was afraid, as I once found, that I would become a methodist minister, his special aversion.When a lad of about 14 I wanted a grammar and an Algebra, but father would not get them, tho' I coaxed and Mother coaxed and scolded both. I was going down to the village on some other errand and wanted his consent to get them then. He peremptorily refused, but after I had got out on the big hill, by the old "pennyroyal rock," he hallowed to me and said I might get them, mother, in the meantime had made it so hot for him. But my blood was up and I did not get them, but waited till I made some money by making and selling maple sugar in the spring, and then paid for the books myself, and the books were all the sweeter by reason of the maple sugar money. And he was a loving father all the same, and my debt to him I never could repay. He nearly always said no to his children when a favor was asked, but could not often keep his ground; children and mother to back them, usually carried the point. Coax long enough and hard enough, and he was pretty sure to give in. He never whipped me but once in his life, and that very mildly as regards the blows, but very harshly as regards the manner. I had let a cow get in the meadow, and run through the tall grass, which I should have and could have headed off. That was while we yet milked in the road, nearly 40 years ago. Forty years ago this winter (in 1844) he was getting out the timber forthe new barn, getting up in the morning and doing his chores and eating his breakfast before day light, and then with his oxen and dinner pail off into the hemlock woods of old Jonas More's and working all day, for many weeks, cutting and hauling the trees to the saw mill. He was no hunter or fisher, but in his earlier days, delighted in horse-racing. He used to say that he was a "dreadful saucy mean boy" full of oaths, and full of impudence to his Elders, but after he "experience religion" all of that was changed. His favorite by-words, were "by-fagus," "dark as podunk," or dark as a pocket. Many visions of him about the farm in other days come to my sorrowing eyes. As a child of 3 or 4 years, on a long [crossed out: summer] warm spring day, I [crossed out: see] look up on the side hill, and see him striding across the furrows, a bag slung about his shoulders sowing grain, probably oats. This is about my earliest remembrance of him. The hired girl had thrown my hat or bonnet down the steps and I stood crying upon the "stone work," and looking hill-ward. [crossed out: when the "stone work"] I see him again in his old age, probably 66 or 8, following the team out in the clover-meadow - dragging in oats. Back and forth, back and forth all day I see him go, the dust from his drag, (for it was very dry) streaming far behind him - the last memory I have of him engaged in the "Springs work." At night he came in dusty and tired. Gradually he gave up workstill milking, and husking corn in the fall. After Mothers death he sold the farm to Eden, and ceased work entirely. Probably his last work was in cleaning the bugs off the potatoes about the house. Hiram says he husked one stout of corn out by the new barn that fall before he died. Father laid claim to few of the virtues or graces; delighted to tell a good story against himself as well as against another. He owned he was a coward, and would make a poor soldier. When the possee came in Anti-Rent times, he ran under the bed, and they said left his feet sticking out. He always laughed when the story was told. No hypocrisy or pretension about father; he had more virtues than he lay claim to. Well, we shall meet again: our dust in the Earth, and the forces that make up our Spirits in the Eternity of force. Shall we knoweach other then? Ah! shall we. As like knows like in nature. I dare not say farther than that. - A little scene last spring, when Hiram was about buying Eden out. We were standing near the kitchen stove; father asked if it was so, and seemed to feel a sudden pang on being told it was. "Oh, boys" he said turning to Hiram and Eden, his tears choking him, "Stay as you be, stay as you be as long as I live." Unkind as Eden had been to him, and poorly as he had succeeded with the farm, father could not bear the thought of seeing him leave the old place. Father's grand father Ephraim, had two brothers; Eden, who was rector of a college in N. Hampshire, and Stephen, who lived in Bridgeport Ct, and was a ship builder and ship owner and Captain. Eden had a son Stephen, who turned out badly and finally brought up in State prison. My great grandfather was named Ephraim; he had [four] five sons; Eden, my grand father, Daniel, William, David and Curtis, and three daughters. Grandfather lived with his father near Quaker Hill in Dutchess Co. during the Revolutionary War. He was a small boy (born in 1770) and was once scared by a soldier who ran after him on all fours. The family moved to the"Nine Partners." Grandfather helped his father clear some land there on condition that he was to have part of it. This he did not get. Great grandfather then moved to Stamford on the town ship, and lived and died and is buried there. Grandfather soon married andcame here when he probably in 1795, or thereabouts, cutting a road through the woods. Father said his uncle William had told him that the family was Welsh - came from Wales, which is probably true. I note many Celtic traits in them, and in myself - these probably lead all others. Feb. 10 A severe disagreeable winter so far, like last winter. Entirely exceptional, as it was the "off year" and a mild winter was due. Not happened before for the 10 years I have lived here; ice on river one foot thick; thermometer has touched from 10 to 14 below zero. - How apt we are to regard our private attractions and repulsions as laws of nature, affecting allmankind! Finished yesterday Carlyle's "Frederick," begun in the Dec. What an experience to read such a work! It colors ones days and all his thoughts. By far the most striking and effective historical work I have ever read. If all histories were as vivid and entertaining as this I should read nothing but history henceforth. A great Carlylean poem and a fit and artistic completion of his career as a writer. Having preached so long and so vehemently about the strong man at the helm, the divine right and the imperative need of the government of the ablest, etc, he cast about him for an example, and having found the nearest approach to it in Frederick, he devotes the rest of his days to portraying him to showing his life and his work; his obedience to the stern behestsof duty, and the love and obedience of his people to him. The last of the Kings, he says. He makes one thoroughly love and admire Frederick. In many ways he was the embodiment of the Carlylean ideals. - "Wordsworth's poetry," says Arnold, "is great because of the extraordinary power with which W. feels the joy offered to us in Nature, the joy offered to us in simple elementary affections and duties, and because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case he shows us this joy and renders it so as to make us share it." That hits the nail exactly on the head.Feb 12/84 Thinking of Frederick it has often occurred to me how desirable it would be to be one of a people who had a real King like him, the father of his people, a sovereign man at the head of affairs with the reins all in his own hand, a man to reverence, to love, to fear; who called all the women his daughters and all the men his sons, and whom to see or to speak with was the event of a lifetime. Such a man gives head to a nation; he is the head, and the people are the body. Currents of influence must stream down from such a hero to touch the life of the humblest peasant. It is the ideal State; there is an artistic completeness about it. Probably this is why it so moved captivated Carlyleinevitable and inexorable artist that he was. But how impossible to us! how impossible to any people by their own action and choice! We have no Frederick, or if we have, we do not know; neither does he. How to get him at the healm! how to trust him, and obey him? Our only hope is in the collective wisdom of the people, and as extremes so often meet, perhaps this, if thoroughly realized, is as artistic and complete a plan as the other. The "collective folly of the people" Carlyle would say, and perhaps during his whole life he never for a moment saw it otherwise; never saw that the wisdom of the majority could be other than the no-wisdom of blind masses ofof men. Authority, authority, authority, obedience, obedience, obedience, how those words forever sounded in his soul. [crossed out: It may turn out that the universe is a democracy and not a divine disposition that we are all parts of God and that a vast impersonal power rules - the totality of nature determines.] At any rate, there can be no doubt that the democratic movement, the coming forward of the people and the abeyance of single individuals, is a movement of the world of nature; an ocean-current that involves or is the result of, the deepest and widest causes, and there is no stemming it or guiding it; we must trust it. It is the decree of the Eternal. Carlyle never would or could see this; he lashed the sea like Xerxes with his Chains, but it heeded himnot. The Gulf Stream keeps on just the same. Ten fools, or a hundred fools are of course no wiser than one fool - but 10 average men will be wiser in their collective capacity and honesty than any one of the ten. They mentally check and balance each one another, and the result is something like one of Galton's compound (composite) photographs wherein the best features of many faces are combined into one. A nation has a character, a presence, an influence that cannot be found in the individual members. It is said of savage tribes that when they are most peaceable as individuals, they are the most warlike as a tribe and vice versa. There are undoubtedly from time to time currents in humanaffairs, that spring from no one mans will, and that no one man can stem or change. There are natural unseen forces at work that we know not of. Men in their collective capacity will be seized with a spirit that may be entirely foreign to them as individuals. Large masses come under the influence of natural law, and the natural law of mankind is to evolution, to grow, to mount, to expand. A people like ours, therefore though blind, will in the long run and on a large scale, be guided instinctively in the right channels. The impetus, the momentum of the race, is onward and upward. Doubtless, re-action and decay will come in time, but with scienceand right reason, more and more in the lead, this tendency will be more and more counteracted. It was because of Carlyle's fearful bent or bias that he saw not these things. He had not a flexible mind. He saw certain truths with such force and he was precipitated [crossed out: himself] upon them with such vehemence that other truths, equally important, he saw not. If the majority is unsound; how are you to get sound action out of it? But is the majority unsound. If mankind, if the race is unsound, how are we here? Why have we not gone to the dogs long ago? Unsound on a question of philosophy, or of taste, or of literature, in fact, philosophically unsound or darkened, without doubt, but not morallyunsound, else chaos would have come long ago. Collectively sound in instinct, in tendency, in action but in the dark as touching the highest questions, but always able to see and to choose the light. Intellectually the majority is in the dark, or not in the fullest light, but Carlyle proceeds on the assumption that they are morally unsound. This is quite a different thing. Let a people like ours vote on a question of philosophy, or a principle of taste, or a question of mathematics or of jurisprudence, and I would not give much for the verdict. But on a question of primary mortality, or right and wrong as affects conduct, character etc., and who doubts that they would be right? The light comes to the minority first, to the high peaksbut it surely spreads to the majority. But character in the end counts for more than intellect and the character of a people is often the stay and salvation of their leaders. Indeed in our times of keen intellectuality and preponderance of mental acumen, there is more danger that the leaders will prove weak, or dishonest, than there is that the people will prove blind. The majority must afford the stay and ballast to the minority. The people are not politically unsound. Can there be the slightest doubt that a man of shining preeminence, would always command their suffrage? Our most generous, our best selves, always come to the front on such occasions, and any given number of [crossed out: people] persons are sure tovote above themselves, on the principle of emulation. It is doubtful if thieves and pickpockets would publicly vote for one of their own kind. In this country there is generally little choice between the two candidates, and the election hinges upon some mineor circumstance. Feb. 13 Start for Washington today. March 1 In W. since the 14th glad to be here again and see the old familiar places. But a pretty bad time so far; sickness a bad scare about Julian diphtheria in Aaron's family, cold winds etc. On Feb. 24 took a walk to the woods with Dr. Baker, Prof. Ward, and Mr. West, along Piney Branch and Rock Creek. Hepatica in bloom. skunk cabbage in bloom, frog spawn in the pools, a bright lovely day, ground frozen. My old haunts but little changed. A different sentiment in nature as you get reach the Potomac, more atmosphere, and more repose in things. A sentiment very agreeable to me. March 7 Home again today. 9 Ice storm breaking down all the trees; crash, crash on every hand. The devils own winter so far, one of the worst ever known; a winter that would have given some good hints to Dante to be worked up in his Inferno. 13 Spring tokens; chipmunks out; robins, bluebirds and cow buntings here; the nuthatches calling their old calls in the morning; chickadees piping their plaintive love notes; ground coming through the snow; a promise in the air. March 16 Sunday. The Biblical writings are the work of the oriental mind, of an imaginative poetical, exaggerative race, nomadic, wandering, uncivilized; and there can be no doubt but our practical, commercial, industrial, scientific, unpoetic Western races have made a fearful "mess" of them; have perverted and spoiled them utterly. Instead of ideal benefits, we have soughtpractical benefits in them we have materialized and vulgarized these beautiful legends and poems. We want to save our souls by them, not here and now, but by and by. Think of the "plan of salvation", "the scheme of redemption", "vicarious atonement", and so on, which we have framed out of the teachings of Jesus. Nothing in any heathen religion or fetich of a barbarous tribe, rotating callabash, or what not, can be more preposterous, or farther from his real meaning. We pursue the good of the Bible, mechanically, and selfishly. The universe is a kind of police-court where one may bribe the judge with fine words or get off with a fine which another shall pay, or where a good advocate is of first importance.Oh, my brothers and sisters, permit me to tell you, you are a set of asses. Your whole scheme of religion is base and selfish, and is as fictitious as the signs of the zodiac, or the constellations of the astronomers. The stars are there verily, but not the harps, and chairs, and bears, and dippers. The facts of truth and virtue and right conduct remain, too; they too are stars, but your silly schemes to get to heaven and cheat the devil, are inventions of your own cowardice. Be noble men and women, lead true and generous lives, and defy the universe to harm you. Jesus Christ is near, when you forget him and lead as original and fearless as life as he did, from within, not from without.March 22 Back from examining banks on Erie Road this morning at 8 A.M. A bright calm lovely spring day after three days of storm. The river like a great strip of the firmament dotted with stars and moons in the shape of fragments of ice, all but motionless at this moment of near slack water. How the birds call, the old calls, the immemorial calls of spring, sparrows, blue-birds, etc. The call of the nuthatch is one of the most pleasing and spring like of sounds, as is also the fine drawn "phoebe" of the chickadees, like a silk ribbon of a sound. The phoebe bird this morning down toward the ice house. How the bees hum, as in summer! 2 pm A little red butterfly goes dancing swiftly by. A little piper under the hill.- The speculative astronomers do not seem to consider that it is impossible for us to conceive of one planet falling upon another or of the planets falling into the sun. Up is from the earth, down is toward the Earth. Is not this equally true of any of the planets, or upon the sun? Then how can two planetary surfaces come together? Which up would negative the other up? The moon could not fall upon the earth as a meteor falls, or the earth upon the sun. Absolutely, is there any up or down?March 24 Damp still morning, fog on the river. All the [torn page] and twigs of the trees strung [with] drops of water. The grass and [torn page] beaded with fog drops. [Animated?] nature vocal - the distant cawing of crows and crowing of cocks, call of nuthatches and sound of hammers and trains, nearer, the laughter of robins, call of high-hole, and note of phoebe, [crossed out: near] close by the trill and quiver of song sparrows call of blue birds and gurgle of cow-bunting. Two lines of ducks go up the river, one [crossed out: in the air] a few feet beneath the other - on second glance the under line proves to be the shadow of the upper. As the ducks cross a large field of ice, the lower line is suddenly blotted out, as if it had dived beneath the ice. A train of carsacross the river - the train sunk beneath the solid stratum of fog, its plume of smoke and vapor unrolling above it, and slanting away in the distance. A liquid morning, the turf buzzes as you walk over it. Skunk-Cabbage on Saturday, the 22nd, probably in bloom several days this plant always gets ahead of me; it seems to come up like a mushroom in a single night. Water newts just out, and probably piping before the frogs, though not certain about this.March 25 One of the rare days that go before a storm - the flower of a series of days increasingly fair. Tomorrow probably the flower falls - and days of rain and cold prepare the way for another fair day or days. The barometer is probably high today - the birds fly high. I feed my bees on a rock and sit long and watch them covering the combs, and rejoice in their multitudinous humming. The river a great mirror, dotted here and there by small cakes of ice. The first sloop comes up on the tide, like the first butterfly of spring; the little steamer makes her first trip and awakes the echoes with her salutatory whistle, her flag dancingin the sun. Now along the marshes and bushy water courses the red shouldered black birds - starlings sit upon the tree and alder tops, uttering their liquid reedy notes, and awaiting the females. They are first upon the ground, but know their mates will follow and that the pic-nic cannot begin till they arrive. These birds are surely close akin to the bobolinks and cow-buntings. In uttering their notes they make the same movements, a sort of spasm, and their voices are of the same quality.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1907-1908 (June - February)
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1918-1919 (November - March)
Text: [LI] Diary from Nov 1st, 1918 to March 28th, 1919 Nov 1st. Cool day of cloud and sun. Go to Woodstock to Whiteheads. Their car comes down for us. Reach there before noon. Good to be back to old place where I have spent so many pleasant days and years gone by. 2 Bright cool morning, a pleasant night here. The Whiteheads very hospitable. Their car brings us back before noon. Bring John with us from Kingston. 3. A good day, cool. Julian and his family down in p.m. have a pleasant visit. 4. Cool,...
Show more[LI] Diary from Nov 1st, 1918 to March 28th, 1919 Nov 1st. Cool day of cloud and sun. Go to Woodstock to Whiteheads. Their car comes down for us. Reach there before noon. Good to be back to old place where I have spent so many pleasant days and years gone by. 2 Bright cool morning, a pleasant night here. The Whiteheads very hospitable. Their car brings us back before noon. Bring John with us from Kingston. 3. A good day, cool. Julian and his family down in p.m. have a pleasant visit. 4. Cool, calm, cloudy with light rain in p.m. Help Hud and Harbunch cut and saw up hickory in Gordons lot, a five lot of wood. 5. Cloudy, cold from N.E. Go up to vote about 10 War news satisfactory. The terms to the Hems made known in a day or two, will amount to unconditional surrender, a long walk in p.m. around by Harts place - over three miles in all, too much, did not sleep well, 2 partridges by Gordons gravel bark. 6. Clear, sharp. Drive to P. in p.m. mainly for clothes. Calm, not so cold (C.B. Betty, John and I.) 7. Still clear and sharp, but calm. Wind S. this morning. - If the Kaiser and his six sons are left in Germany, they will be centres of Hohenzollern infection for generations to come. They should all be bundled off to St. Helena. Wilsons words are too soft, so soft that they are equivocal - he is equivocal about Alsase and Lorain and about the freedom of the seas. Let us call a spade a spade and a pirate a pirate. 8, 9,10 Bright sharp days from the N. Great war news. 11. Clear sharp. Woke up this morning at 5. to hear a fevet confused din of bells and whistles in the deviation of P. heralding. I fancied the end of the war. Got up and dressed and sat by the open fire till daylight. The mail at 6:15 told the story. The Hum had capitulated. Glory to God - not to the Hum God, but to the Christian God of the allies. Go to P. in p.m. Bedlam turned loose, such a rocket. Everybody bent on making a discordant noise, soon tire of it, sit in G.M.C.A. Building for 2 hours, meet Ed Platt, a fine fellow. 12 Bright and sharp - down to 22 some say. The medicine Germany has to take - has taken in papers this morning, none to drastic, criminals must be handcuffed. G. must be kept handcuffed for generation. But what an ignoble figure is the Kaiser - fleeing to Holland - a fugitive from justice. Had he stayed and died with his cause, the world would have had some respect for him in the end, not a drop of heroic blood in him. And his six sons all unharmed during the whole war! They should all be turned over to the knife of the Gilder, and men allowed to perpetuate the Hohenzollern tribe. What do these German philosophers now think of the doctrine of the universal of the fittest? Who survives? The fittest of course and the nations and peoples that have some sense of justice and fair dealing and mercy and truthfulness survive in our times. In were primitive times might had its way tempered [with] by the golden rule is bound to triumph. Moral values today have survival value, and more truth force must take a back seat. I should like to ask that renegade English man, Chamberlin what he thinks about "The foundations of the 19th Century" now? are Tectonic frightfulness and shamelessness, good foundations to build upon? I should like to ask E if "The Problems of Human Life" do not look a little different to him? I should like to ask Enken if he does not get a glimpse of a new biological law that applies to the human species alone? The German, staked their all on the doctrine that might in the physical world or brute world make right in the moral human world and they have failed. The war is over! Think of it! Chaos and famine may come to Europe, but the Hem is crushed. Great evils always follow in the footsteps of great good, but time will restore the safe balance. Sleep well,. eat well, feel well and work pretty well. Weigh about 130, but my legs are weakening. P.m. every hour I have to nudge myself and say "wake up, wake up" "dont you know the was is ended?" It seems incredible that my life should go on just as before. But it does, I saw wood, doze before my open fire, read the paper, walk a little, ponder over moultons "Introduction to Astronomy," dream of the old days, receive callers, or sit vacant in my chair. And yet the most fervent and devout desire of hope of my life has suddenly come true. It is a relief like that the early man must have felt when he saw an eclipse of the sun passing off. The world is at last freed from the grip of this monster and his claws are drawn; not in this or in another generation. Can he make another spring if he ever can. 13. Cloudy this a.m. and not so cold. Writing on our motor trip. C.B. still in N.Y. need rain. 14. Still clear and sharp and dry. The break up of Germans and the consequences good and bad in all mens minds. 15. Still clear and sharp, alone in the house. Writing on the motor trip and on the Germans. 16. Fair and cool. Drive to P. and get my dinner and my new suit of N.C. home spur. 17. Milder, light rain. Julian and Emily come down in p.m. 18. Rained heavy all night, must warm. Thunder. P.m. raining intermittently of all afternoon, Mch thunder at 5. and sharp brief shower. C.B. not home yet. Finished the story of our motor trip, a fine letter from Mrs. Frank Baker who is now in California. 19, 20, 21. Chilly, partly cloudy days. Writing on motor trip and on The Failure of Germany. 22. Cloudy, sharp. Write in study. Clifton Johnson comes at night, a fine visit with him. Large flocks of wild geese going south in p.m. (no, this was on 21st) 23. Partly cloudy and sharp. Health improving I think under the enema every 2d day. 24. Sunday. Bright, clear, sharp. Froze hard last night - too cold to drive up to cemetery today as I had hoped to do - That poor neglected grave troubles me, she would not have neglected mine. 25. Clear, sharp, dry. Down to 24. Longstroth and his friend call and stay to dinner, a very pleasant 2 hours. 26. Remarkable weather continues, - clear, [sha] dry, cold; down to 20. Wind north for a week. Extra dry cold is like extra dry champaigne exhilarating a net cold - how it chills one. Give me a cold with the chill taken out of it. In Nov. one wonders how he will keep warm when winter really arrives, the cold penetrates, its arrows are moisture. Later it fails to penetrate, the frost glances off, or acts like friction. The living thermometer acts so differently from the dead one! 27 Still cold and dry. The Philpotts leave today. Down to 22 28. Thanksgiving, cold and hazy. Down to 20. Storm brewing. Snow I think, a glassy river nearly all the week. - Began raining in p.m. and rained at times all night. 29. Bright and much warmer this morning, up to 52. Wind N.W. Lower temperature near. 30. Fine in fore noon, colder in p.m. and at night. Dec 1. Down to 20. Windy, sharp. 2 Flurries of snow, cloudy at times. 3 An inch of snow last night our first. Cloudy and milder today. 12 M. a flock of evening. Grosbeaks in the maple in front of my window. The first and only ones I ever saw there in the 40 or more years I have sat here, 8 or 10 of them, pecking at the birds a pretty sight. The impulse to leave seemed to seize then all at the same instant. Where one felt it they all felt it and turned their heads in the same direction. Rare visitants, will any one else see them? Have they ever been here before? Then I heard the loud [fo] hum of an airplane and looking out saw one high and dim over Hyde Park, going south. Probably the same one I saw yesterday going N. over this place. I am convinced that in 5 years or less we shall all be making journeys in them and that they will be as safe as the slider cars or autos. Writing on phones of nature and of the universe - modest themes. 4. Mild (50 degrees) Work a little in a.m. Go up to Kingston at 2 p.m. to visit J's family. Spend 4 hours with them, all well. Then home at 8 p.m. 5 Clear, sharp, down to 27, a good sleep last night. Feel fine 6. Two inches of snow last night, milder. Go to P. to lunch with Sara Taylor, a good lunch. Grows cold in p.m. 7. Down to 10 this morning. Cloudy. 8. Sunday, cloudy and milder. Judge Frank Talbot here - very glad to see him, a noble product of the farm, great comment of spirit, between us. We heard a delightful day together. Goes home at 4:30. 9. Clear, mild, calm, snow melting, like a fine Nov. day. 13. A period of calm, misty, foggy weather - 3 days of it now, a little below freezing at times. Writing a little on the despicable Germans, and arranging MS of a proposed vol. on manifold nature. 14. Still calm, foggy deal with a little rain. 15 A good deal of rain in the night, heavy at times. Dark and heavy this morning but warm - up to 52, but wind has shifted to N.W. and a cool wave is near. Frost all out of the ground. Pawing over the material for the new vol. - the Heart of nature - these days adding a little and cutting out a little. More thoughts about my poor wife these days than usual - miss her more and more as time goes on, "We were young together." Thoughts of the informal Germans, still fill my mind and move my pen, my last expression - "Germany's Failure" not yet off my hands. N.A. Review declined it. - Julian and his family come at 5, so glad to see them. 16. Cloudy all day and mild - 52 degrees - 2 grs calomel last night. 17. Bright and cooler, 30 this morning. Wind north. at Yama Farm Dec 19. Clear and cold, a short walk in the morning, a small oak tree at the forl of the rocks, full of clinging dry leaves; one leaf near the top in constant motion, swaying to and fro while the other leaves were wither still or showed a slight tremendous motion at times. But the one leaf was visibly greatly agitated. It reminded me of these high strongly sensitive souls few or many in all life communities who are moved or thrilled by thoughts or influences that the great mass is quite insensible to or only faintly conscious of - the poets, prophets, seers when place is high in the tree of life. The oak leaf I refer to to seemed to have a longer and unflexible stem or ptiole than the other leaves and no doubt hung at a different angle to the slight air currents than the others. 20. All such emotional leaves I find have the stem broken and hang by a mere thread. - Had Job lived in our times he would hardly have boasted caust then send lightnings that they may go and say unto thee. Here we are? The lightnings not only careens and says. here we are; it says here we are with a message or here we are ready to do your errand, or your work. 19. At Yama Farms Inn. Bright and sharp - a good time, the Inn all to myself. 20, 21. Bright, mild, lovely days; like Nov. walk a little, write a little, read much. 22. Began raining before noon. Rained all night, very hard at times. 23. Clear and mild. Streams at flood from the heavy rain. Leave Yama at 9 with Mr Seam in car for Kingston, an enjoyable ride, like April. Home on noon train. 24. Calm, cloudy, misty, mild, storm here. - What heathenish, unchivalrous or non-chivalrous creatures the birds are. Two nuthatches a male and female, are feeding nearly every hour each day on the piece of seevet on the trunk of the maple tree in front of my window. But their is not the least cereity or fraternizing between them. The male on all occasions treats the female rudely and spitefully. He will not allow her to feed at all while he is around. She often timidly approaches, but he instantly makes a dive at her. He is a little barbarian, when the downy woods pecker comes there he has to eat at second table. Downy will tolerate no other guests. 25. Mild day with fitful gleams of sunshine. Spend it with Julian and his family in K. so glad to be with them and able to eat a good dinner. J. and I discuss his problems, but do not reach a solution that satisfies him. I give the children each a present of a few dollars. I receive a few little gifts at home, many cards and a few telegrams. Mr Ford is sending me by express a little donkey saddled and bridlerd and well broken from the far West for me to ride. I trust I shall get much good out of him. His 4 young legs might be much better than my two old legs. Xmas is always a rather sad day for the old, such a flood of memories does it bring. 26 Cloudy and cooler, with gentle sprinkles of snow, a good sleep last night. - Why does Julians boyhood diaries (10 to 13) so impress and hold me. They are brief jottings of his life from day to day, many of the events I remember distinctly, but these records make me feel as if I had just lived them of course my love of Julian has much to do with it. He is now a middle aged man. In these Diaries, he is again the boy in whom I was so wrapped up, I see his simple life here and my own too and my wife, so vividly. For the moment his doings fill all these long gone days. His fishing, his swimming, his skating, his hoeing, his net knitting, his scapping etc. are great events, oh, the past, here it lives again in such records. This is the advantage of a diary; it embalms your days. I here back in my own diary and live over again the days presumed here. But unless one has this yearning over the past, unless ones life is in a way transmuted by time, he will not care much for such things. Dec 27. Still overcast, with light indolent snow squalls, mercury 28 degrees. N.A. Review comes with my paper, "shall we accept the universe," not a skim of ice yet in the river. Dec 28. Calm indolent weather, snow flakes fitfully fall now and then, as if the meteoric gods were asleep; the clouds leak snow, all nature seems asleep these days, no winds at all, river like glass most of the time, only the surface of the ground frozen. The donkey came at noon. Hope we shall get on well together. Start for Yama Farms at 2 p.m. Reach there at 5. 29, 30, 3. At Yama and thriving. Walk a mile or two each day. Reading and writing in my room. 1919 Jany 1st At Yama Farms. Rained all night, heavy at times, mercury 38 this morning, a thin fleece of fog clings to the ground, calm, heavily over cast. Weight this morning 132-73, a poor night sleep - full of gas. Re-reading Coleridge these days - a marvelous mind - always suggestive. Had he lived in our time, his mind would not have moved in the leading strings of ecclesiastical religion as it did then. He would have had more science and less theology. His learned exposition of the causes of malarial disease how amusing - the "neno- glandular system," "the muscerol - arterial system" etc., but that was the science of his time. Bad air from swamp cause azure etc. Jany 2d Cloudy with rain. Hawk falls with its big white apron on again. Julian and Ursa come on 10.40 train. Very happy to have them. We drive to the farm in forenoon and then to Ellenville. In p.m. walk to Jenny brook, but I do not go down to the trout ponds. My precious guests return on evening train. 3d. Snowed all night, about 6 inch of rather heavy snow this morning. Calm and cloudy. Gaining again in weight, 133. 4. Leave Yama this morning. Cold, 26 degrees. Stop an hour in K. Find Julian and Ursa at W.P. Ursa much interested in the donkey. 5. Clear, cold, down near zero. Hudson skimmed over. Feel well after a good sleep. 6. Still cold, near zero. Write in study in "a soulless people" in a.m. In p.m. try to ride the donkey with poor success. Give me any horse kind but a female donkey. 8 Hear of Roosevelt's death last night, and have had a lump in my throat ever since. I loved him more than I thought I did. The past two years his openly hostile attitude toward President Wilson has been very irritating. It ill becomes an ex president to deal in denunciations toward the President - criticism but not abuse. But how quickly death makes us forget all that. We remember only his great qualities and his great services to the country, and I remember his great kindness to me personally. The old mans tears come easily and I can hardly speak his name without tears in my voice. I have known him since his ranch days in Montana and to know him as I have was to love him. I went with him through the yellow Stone Park in the spring of 1903. My paper in Atlantic monthly on Real and shaur natural history, pleased him so, then was so much fight and hard hitting in it, that he asked me to go with him and see the game in the park. I have written about it in my "Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt." He was a live wire if there ever was one in human force. His sense of right and duty was as inflexible as adamant. Politicians found him a hard customer. His reproof and refusal came quick and sharp. His manner was authoritative and stern. He was as bold as a lion, and at times as playful as a lamb. His political enemies at Albany early in his career laid traps fro him in hopes of tarnishing his reputation. But he was too keen for them. He was scrupulous in morals and unflinching in what he felt to be his duty. The world seems more black and cold since he is no longer in it. He helped to warm it and keep the currents going. Too fondd of the lime light and the centre of the stage from his excess of the sense of leadership. He was a born leader and disciplinarian. Add a little of Lincoln's humility and self forgetfulness, and you have one of the greatest man of history. What a centre of energy he was in our affairs! He elevated the standard of business and political morals for the whole country, and intensified the patriotism of every one of us. His Americanism charged the very marrow in his bones. And yet he could not accept Walt Whitman. What looked like W's loose morals, respected him. 8. Cloudy with light snow, mercury 28. Large masses of floating ice in river. Write a letter to Mrs Roosevelt, a fine poem by Grace Van Anna in N.Y. Times this morning - almost great lyric. Clearing at noon. Ford due on 4 1/2 p.m. train. Julian comes down. 9. A mild day, Mr Ford here. We arrive over to the Sutcliff dam and falls. Mr F. looking for water power to sect more people to work. Mr F. leaves at 2 p.m. 10. A cold wave in the night, down to zero this morning. River frozen over, a little milder in p.m. Write letters and poke about. 1.1 Much milder last night, sign of another cold wave this morning. Julian went back home last night. I turn over to him my T and T stock cost me $2300. 12. Zero again this morning, a clear calm day 13. Zero again, but higher temperature is near, now at 10 1/2 the ice on the river begins to whoop and snow indicating a change of temperature. I have an ominous feeling about Mr Ford - fear he is breaking hope I shall live to say, "how wrong I was." 14. Mild overcast day, thawing. But little work. 15. Cooler, partly overcast a steam went through the ice last night and sat it moving. The thought of Roosevelt will not leave me, night or day. 16. Clear, cooler, down to 30. 17 Still mild, a sprinkle of rain in the morning, seen out at noon, April weather. Had a fall from the donkeys back, a mean vicious beast. Last proofs of "Field and Study" yesterday. 18. Still mild up to 40, sprinkle of rain in morning. Fair and April like in p.m. 19. No change, no frost, clear in p.m. I fear nature is squandering all her fair days and will be impoverished before spring. Blue birds and song sparrows here the other day. 20. Julian drives me to P. for 1 train to N.Y. Reach Floral Park at 5. 21 Fine mild day. Mr C. and I drive to Roosevelts grave in a small cemetery on a [wooded] knoll. Partly surrounded by woods with glimpses of the Bang to the north, a beautiful secluded spot - the grave a mound of wreaths of flowers. Spend 1/2 hour there not all the time with dry eyes. How vividly he came back to me and the days we had spent together. Tabt had been through the guard said and wept properly. The most potent force for pure Americanism in the best sense in our history, was R. Then to school in the woods 20 miles away, to please Mr C. 22. To Brooklyn to call on Miss Ballard and take lunch. Then in p.m. to Dr Johnsons. Garland calls in evening. 23. Call on Roulands at 10. Then to 11 Broodney to lunch with Miss Estrel Chase. Take car to Garlands, then to Dr Crumps in evening. Dr and Mr Terry old friends of Dr Barrus, call. Enjoy my night at the Crumps. 24. To Tenn Building and spend a few hours with Archel and to lunch. Then to American museum of Nalt History to see the movies and c. The to 5th Ave to a photographer. Then to Dr Johnsons. 25. Clear, cold. Get 11 1/2 train for P. and home at 2:5. Glad to be back. 26. Good night, cloudy this morning. Feel pretty well; have gained a little I think. Clear in p.m. Walk back of the hill. 27. A spring like morning, mercury at 9. 42 degrees nearly clear. 28. Lovely, bright, mild day. Mercury 26 in morning. Write in study on Darwinism, and walk in p.m. and read Darwins letters. 29. Mild partly cloudy. Mercury 34, a good sleep. Re-reading Huxley a keen penetrating mind, the knight in shining armor of the Darwinian Theory., The way H. can "sas back," the way his irony can bite and blister, the way he can dispell fog and discussion is a wonder, no other writer of his time or fore time on scientific subjects was so immanent in his work, so clearly and vividly before his reader. Clear as crystal is his pages and with a distinction like cut glass. He is brilliant, he is logical, he is imaginative, he is sane and sure, he is rhetorical, he is solid, he is a moral teacher and he is a trained scientist, a brilliant but not a profound mind. 30, 31. Dry, bright sharp days. My old enemy stole a march on me again, auto intoxication. Began thawing night with the symptoms of a cold, sneezing, nose and eyes running copiously and a little soreness of the throat. I get up at 4 a.m. and take an enema. Feel better during the day, but the cold symptoms return at night. Some pain in legs. Friday a.m. take 2 grs of calomel, operates twice in p.m. and again Saturday morning. Take an enema. Keep pretty close to the house on. Feb 1st A bright windy cold day. Have had a slight touch of fever once or twice I think, a little too sensitive to the cold. The calomel depletes me, pulls me down, 2 grs is too much for me. Sleep very poor on the 30, and 31st. Slept nearly 4 hours last night, a great deal of irregular heart action. 2d Bright dry, sharp windy day. Legs feel better, color improved all better but the heart action. Poor appetite for my dinner. Have resolved to eat no more meat, no more shell fish, no fish, but creamed salt cod, and steamed fresh cod must find the cause of this flatulency. It is this gas that poisons me, meat may be the cause. I hope the worst is over, but am not sure. 3d. Bright and milder. Feel better, slept over 5 hours, heart very quiet since yesterday p.m. Lost 6 lbs in 5 days, probably in 3 days, yet without fever or bronchitis. Weigh stripped today 114 lbs I am like a chimney that needs burning out once a year. But why should my chimney get clogged? Too much fuel? In future, beware a growing belly, beware an unsteady heart, beware much fluid from the nose and much phlegen from the throat, beware chilly sensations on going to bed, beware much flatulency, beware dizziness of all degrees, beware pain in hollow of your legs. 4. Bright and sharp, improving slowly. Sleep better, appetite good enough. Write and revise MS. 5. No change in weather. Best sleep last night for week, slept 7 or 8 hours. Feel lank but pretty well this morning. 6. No change in weather, still bright and sharp, a good sleep last night mind active today. Julian comes down and stays to dinner, so glad to have him here. 7. No change. Down to 28 this morning. Clear and dry. Slept 7 or 8 hours last night. Heart much steadier since I have cut down my eating, and legs much lighter. 8. Down to 28, partly cloudy but calm, a poor night last night. I think from mixing zoobic and leaman aid, shall never do it again. A nuthatch with a spring call this morning. 9. Bright sharp day, down to 25, 32 at 1 p.m. all crystal sunshine. Write in a.m. in p.m. walk down by the river and up to near the Payne place and home - no fatigue, no wild life in the woods. 10. Colder, down to 20, windy from N. River a crush of thin ice. Pretty poor night. - Had I lived 100 or 500 years ago, I would have felt and said the same as I do now - that it is late in time - the afternoon sun guilds all, and turned longingly to the past. It is our own age that we see reflected in nature. Feb 11. Still bright, dry, cold, down to 12 this morning; winter without snow - fluctuations of temperature unusually light - from 23 or 24 to 31 or 2 nearly every day. Good sleep last night. Eyes much clearer since I cut down my rations. The death of Roosevelt still weighs upon me - a black cloud in the midst of the bright day. 12. Bright sharp day. Julian here. 13. Still bright and sharp with signs of storm. Write each morning. 14. The end of the fair days began raining in the night, still raining from N.E. C.B. and Betty off for N.Y. Nearly 3 weeks of remarkable weather, clear, calm, cold - very uniform temperature from 23 to 33, most of the time, rarely above freezing at midday. I at last got tired of the bright, hard dry days. 15. Rain, rain. Julian comes down. 16. Rain over, cool. 17. Fair and cold. Julian here pleasant days. 18. Clear, 28 degrees in morning, up to 40 at one. Tap 2 trees. J. works on his boat. 19. Colder, down to 20 degrees this morning. Sleep well and do some work. C.B. still about in N.Y. Two years ago today I bade farewell to my poor wife for the last time and started with Mr Ford on a trip to Cuba, on his Sealia or Blue Bird 20 Bright sharp day, down to 20. Warm in p.m. Tap 4 trees. Walk along the river in p.m. C.B. and children come at night. 21 Cloudy and milder. Begins to snow at 10, leisurely and intermittently. Work in study on Darwinisim and doctors I have known. 22 A white world this morning 4 or 5 inches of snow. It came down so gently among the night that every branch and bough of the trees is loaded with it a sap snow we would have called it in my youth. Mild and absolutely calm this morning, now at 10 the snow is dropping from the trees in larger flakes and masses. Over second snow of the winter, not more than 10 or 11 inches this season so far, and only a few days of zero weather. 23 More snow in the night, 2 or 3 inches. Cloudy, calm mild, sap running, snow melting and dripping and dropping from the trees 23. Roy from Montreal here. 25. Cloudy. 26. Heavy rain last night a freshet in all the stream. Drive to P. at 11. Julian and the Dr and J. Home at 1. Colder. 27. A cold wave last night, down to 20 this morning a hard biting cold. Walk along to river to the Bingham dock this p.m. Do it easily. Legs stronger than they have been for 2 years, no birds yet, snow all gone. Ground full of water. 28 Cloudy, chilly, sap runs. Julian leaves in p.m. Boil down 6 pails of sap. Mch 1. Heavy rain all night, water, water everywhere, clearing at 9. Cold wave coming sap runs. 2. Sun and cloud this morning. Only down to 30. Cold wave a flash in the pan, a good sleep. Weigh only 113 stripped 2. Two blue birds, a song sparrow in song and a robin today, a fine day, wonderful sap day. Boil sap in p.m. River clear of ice. 3. Lovely soft day, a filane in the air. Calm, entrancing, a great sap day. Boil sap all day. Syrup off at 7 p.m. and have 3 or 4 gts of syrup. 4. Another April like day. Down to 33 this morning, a drop or two and walk in the golden bowl of sunlight today. Boil sap again - sap all in the pan by noon. Wind southerly. Feel pretty well - gained 3 lbs since Saturday, when I ceased starving myself. The senses of a hungry man are always alert. He sees clearer and more quicker and thinks quicker. 5 Mild cloudy in a.m. Clearing up in p.m. We drive to Kingston to Julian's, gone 3 hours, all well at Js a light rain at 4. Colder 6th. A flurry of snow in the night. Clear and cold this morning, down to 20. Wind north, more sap weather coming, I am sorry. 7. Cloudy, chilly. Fair and mild in p.m. Walk by the river. 8. Fair and colder; down to 26. Wind North or N.E. a storm brewing I think. That ignoble people, the Germans still occupy my thoughts. 9. Rained all night, heavily up to 3 1/2 p.m. today. The fields flooded, the river a stream of muddy water. Had the storm been snow, the conditions of 30 years ago (1888) would have been repeated. The precipitation of the past 4 weeks has been tremendous. Julian here. Work on my paper on the Germans (an Ignoble people) 10 Windy night, mercury 45 today. Bright and lovely p.m. Sap still runs up by the road. Julian goes back home at 11. I wrote a little. In p.m. walk over back of the hill through Dreveron fields a few robins feeding on Semack berries. 12. Down to freezing again last night. Clear and lovely this morning. Sap running again. 13. Cold. N. wind, down to 20. 14. No change in temperature. Write a little, walk a little. 15. Still cold with prospects of snow, no sap since the 12th. Spend my evening home in re-reading Roosevelt. Ranch days and hunting trips. The extent of his tramping and hunting in the West, the hardship he endured and his intense enjoyment of it all [is] are extraordinary. 16. A chilly day of fog and mist, dark desired. 17 The same continued, but a trifle warmer. The skim of snow all gone. Fox sparrows here in morning, send off papers to N.A. Review on the nature of Providence made up from a pile of MSS, called The Heart of Nature, must make up another to be called "Thoughts as they come," still another called "Thinking aloud," still another to be called "Nature Good or Evil." Sap still runs. Robins on the lawn, jerking out the worms. 18. Rained nearly all night. Fog and light rain this morning. Clearing before noon. Warm and fine in p.m. We drive to Milton to Dr Fretons, a fine drive. Ground overflowing with water everywhere, all streams lusty and clear. 19. Cooler, cloudy from M. Julian here, a great comfort. A sour chilly windy day with sprinkle of rain. N.E. very disagreeable. 20. Clearing, less windy. Bad news from Eden, hear he is near his end, a shock on the 18th 21. Clear this morning, wind still north, mercury 40. Drove up to Pt Ewen yesterday p.m. Sap run over. Crocuses blooming yesterday. This promises to be a day of great beauty and charm, no news from Eden today yet. Drive to Milton in p.m. the Gordon girls with us. 22. Still a cold driving wind from the N. persisted now for nearly 2 weeks, partly cloudy, colder than yesterday. Peepers in Drenans pond. 23. Partly cloudy, still the cold driving N. wind. Write a little and loaf about. The wind gets on my nerves. Garden fit to plow. 24. Still the driving N. wind and white caps on the river. The crows flying north in the morning have to bend themselves to the task. They fly low and are often brought nearly to a stand still, ground rapidly drying up; plow garden this morning - must get in the onion seed and early peas this p.m. Julians dog somehow got a bad cut over the eye. He could not practice the usual dog treepurt of his wounds by licking it but day after day he kept lapping out his tongue as if licking an imaginary sore, the movement seemed to be automatic, it was no doubt a reflex from their wound. 25. Clear brilliant morning. Wind abated river smooth. Work in morning, correct proof from N.A. Review papers an article for Yale Review on the universal Beneficence. Harry L. West comes at one. We have much talk drive to Slabsides. West an old friend of Washington later days, a fine fellow, author of Growth of Federal Power, friend of Roosevelt etc. 26. Partly cloudy this morning. But calm. Down to freezing again, no touch of real warmth yet this spring, uniformly low temperature. - First phoebe bird today, but silent. The song of the load at night. 27. Cloudy this morning, calm mild, mercury 48. Eden a little better. Only his speech impaired. Drive to Highland in p.m. 28. Winter again this morning. Two inches of snow in the night, a driving N.W. wind sends the snow clouds whirling and dancing over the ground, sheeted ghosts on the hills and varnishing wraiths about the buildings and trees. The first of the kind we have had this winter. Began by sprinkling yesterday about 3 or 4, a light skirmish line of the coming storm. The rains slowly increased and at 6 was raining smartly. Later it became a down pour and was pouring at 9 and 10 Then wind shifted from S. to N.W. and the snow set in, a seamless cloud over the sky and snow flakes still in the air, a real cold wave. The many birds rush about in apparent consternation What will phoebe do? much water on the ground. Since Jany. the precipitation has been enormous. The robins and blue birds will suffer today. - 3 p.m. the worst day of the whole winter; blizzardy conditions all day, increasing cold, the air full of driving snow, the snow that fell last night swept from the surface of the ground and packed behind the knolls and ridges and other wind breaks, the birds about the door and buildings as if wanting to be taken in, the sky blotted out by a thick veil of snow and vapor the sounds of the passing train strangled by the gale and we who do not have to be out sitting by our open fires in "a tumultuous privacy of storm." In the old days on the farm we kept the cows up all day on such days, letting them out only just long enough to drink. How we hovered over the stone on such days; what a stamping and sweeping on the door stone when we came to the homes. How the woods roared, like the surf on the shore, how the gusts of wind in snow winding sheets stalked across the hills, how bare some places was piled up in others long rays of the storm streamed under the door and reached far out in the room; every vulnerable place in the roof was searched out by the wind and the snow sifted in, a big wood pile and a bounteous larder were appreciated there. The earlier settle had the wood but did not always have the larder. The smokers on such days have a resource in their pipes, those handy with tools tunker in their shops, now and then one reads a book no. I never saw a farmer read anything more than his weekly paper. At this moment 4 1/2 p.m. the opposite side of the river is only dimly seen, a veil of driving snow hides or obscure everything. Snow larder gust of wind play hide and seek about my study. The pills of sweepers from the floor of the hay loft, which we have put out all speckled with jimens and song sparrows. The robins and blue birds I hope have had the sense to seek the red cedar back of the hill. The crows are not stirring - keeping to their rookeries I suppose. And yesterday was a charming spring day - the last of a series of charming days. The weather usually goes by extreme. Such a lovely March as we have had! Now things are being wired up; the other side its being heard. Mercury now at 21, about stationery. I fear for the expanded fruit birds tonight.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1911-1912 (April - March)
Text: From April 14, 1911 to Mch 24th, 1912 1911 April 14. Cool, cloudy, with light rain in p.m at home writing. Feel well. 15. Cloudy in morning, clearing in p.m. mild, start for N.Y. in p.m. Song of the trail on the 13th a chorus of them yesterday by the ice house. 16. In N.Y. cold and squally this morning, clearing by noon. Dine at Dr. J's, C.B. there. In p.m. go to Academy of design to see the portraits C.B. Mrs. J. and Mrs. W. with us. 17. Clear this morning and colder. Cold as March. 18....
Show moreFrom April 14, 1911 to Mch 24th, 1912 1911 April 14. Cool, cloudy, with light rain in p.m at home writing. Feel well. 15. Cloudy in morning, clearing in p.m. mild, start for N.Y. in p.m. Song of the trail on the 13th a chorus of them yesterday by the ice house. 16. In N.Y. cold and squally this morning, clearing by noon. Dine at Dr. J's, C.B. there. In p.m. go to Academy of design to see the portraits C.B. Mrs. J. and Mrs. W. with us. 17. Clear this morning and colder. Cold as March. 18. Pleasant day. Go to Pa stations to see "Cordea" off to W. C.B. there. Then to the Roma for lunch; then a long walk in the park with C.B. a real rural walk to the tower by the lakes. To R's at 4 p.m. 19. To Dr. J's in morning to get my glasses; stay to lunch; then to Mr. Seamans; then to steamer to see the R's off for London. Then to Poughkeepsie on 3.24 train. 20. Steady rain all night, cold. To W.P. this morning, clearing in p.m. 21. To S.S. today with company. A fine day. Ed very sick at night, near death. 22. Cloudy, threatening. Ed better. 58 Vassar girls today made me pretty tired. 23. Sunday, the third cloudy cold day with N.E wind, no heat in the air yet, still all the early wild flowers are blooming - hepatica, arbutus, blood root, a dicentra and trillium just opening, spice bush also. Walk to S.S. in p.m. with two ladies. Found a partridge nest on my return with 4 eggs. Passed within a yard of the bird before the flew and gave away her secret. 24. Clear, sharp, N. winds. Mrs. B. comes today. Ed very low. 25. Ed no better, clear and warmer an ideal April day, Julian working with his shovel in vineyard and whistling as he works, just as he did 20 year ago. It is his vineyard now and not mine. Field Veronica in bloom all through the vineyard. A robins nest in lower fruit house with 4 eggs. 26. Clear, getting warmer. 27. Ideal April days. Ed a little better. 28. Getting warm, Indian summer days in April. Still hazy. enchanting days, 73 or 4. House wren this morning. Hot. 29. Still clear, calm, hot, the river like glass, apple tree leaves showing, maples unpacking their tassels. Hud plowing, Julian sowing, Ed better and I am writing on Evolution. 30. Warm, partly cloudy, Mrs. Eaton at S.S. woods full of people stripping the arbutus. May 1st. Warm, cloudy. Hodge of Worcester and Treadmill of Vassar come to S.S. an enjoyable day with them. Hodge very jolly and marty a thunder shower at night like Jany, brief and heavy. Drove me in the house. 2. Clearing, a change of wind much colder in p.m. fear a frost at night. Brush my early peas. 3. Quite a freeze last night. Stay at S.S. and write. 4. Clear; heavy frost this morning. Over bird here today. sleep cold last night with drawers and sweater on, not much writing today, an egg for breakfast makes me weak and tired. 5. Clear and light frost, a lovely day getting warmer. Still at S.S. 6. Warm still day. Stop work my old trouble I think pain and fatigue in limbs. 7. Wonderful days, still out of soats, no more writing. 8. Wonderful days continue. Took 1gr Calomel last night but don't have the usual effect. Bowells have been all right all along. 9. Cloudy, Hud and J at S.S. Feel no better, no fever at any time. 10. Ideal days, a little better this morning. Sleep well and appetite fairly good. Less pain in limbs today. Plant corn, peas and potatoes at S.S. Start for Roxburg this p.m. 11. Reached R at 5. John met me at train, Curtis about as usual, see letter or no change in him. Clear and warm. 12. At the old house today feel some better. One bobolink in meadow. Rain needed. Very hot, 88 or 90 13. Too fine showers last night still hot. Working around old house, made garden there yesterday. 14. Still warm, cut ash sticks for rustic table. Leave for home in p.m. 15. At home, about well. Work about home and at S.S. 16. Go to N.Y. this morning at Dr. J's C.B. very blue, but looks well. In p.m. go to Macey's to buy things for Woodchuck Lodge, spend $81. 17. Run about N.Y. in forenoon, meet Julian at 2 and we go to Garden City to the Doubleday and Page house warming. Warm, meet many people there. Go home with Page to dinner; then to Floral Park by auto at 9 p.m. 18. Out to Smithtown with Mr. Childs past May by auto. Spend the day walking over his new purchase of land (800 acres) and to his Club house and trans ponds. Hot but very pleasant. Apple trees in full bloom. To Floral Park at night, a fine shower. 19. To N.Y. C.B. meets me at Maceys. Buy more things $91, at 4 go to train and home. A fierce shower here at one, furious wind out of the east; broke down trees. 20. Hot, muggy, to S.S. in p.m. Feel well. 21. Hot, sticky. Grapes shoots 15 inches long. A day at S.S. with trained nurses from N.Y. 22. Very hot, about 90, never saw so hot in May, feels like July. 23. Still very hot and moist. Go to R. today. From a letter to Hudson Maxin on seeing a copy of his book "The Science of Pastry e.t.c. With me poetry is not question of science but of inspiration. All the science in the world will not help you to write poetry. You can analyze a poets work and give names to the different parts, just as you can analyze a flower, but your power of analysis will not enable you to create or restore the flower. 24. At Roxbury again, very warm and dry for May. Chase at work on the old house, digging, Curtis as usual. 25. Cloudy, a light rain. 26. Half an inch of rain at night and in morning. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. At work in house with Chant, fine warm weather, making rustic furniture, painting etc. Sleep well, eat well and quite contented, country very beautiful. Bobolinks singing in meadow below a mourning ground warbler singing day after day in the orchard. June 1st. Fine warm days, a light rain. 3. Lovely warm day. 4. Charming day, perfect but too dry, spend it about the old house. 5. Raining a little this morning and cool. 6. Return to W.P. today. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. At home. 15. Return to Roxbury, Copious rains since my last visit springs full. Country very fresh and green 16. At Woodchuck Lodge, [Sulpocy] chant and swing in garden. Sleep at W.L. cool. 17. Start for Rome today via Oneonta; at O, take trolley to Herkimer where Mrs. and Mr. Rowland meets me in Auto, a fine ride to Rome. 18. At the Rowlands; meet many of their friends in p.m. and first meet Dr. Baker, whom I much like, cool. 19. Go to Trenton Falls in auto with the Rowlands. Then follows the awful tragedy when R. loses his life. Can not write of that here. I was greatly broken up and passed sleepless nights and dark days. 20. Go to Colgate in p.m. Stay with Prest Bryan, very cool. 21. Colgate confers upon me the degree of Dr. of human letters. In p.m. go to Utica and pass the night with Mr. Baker. 22. Cool, rainy. The funeral of my friend Rowland, look upon his face for the last time. Go to Rochester in p.m. The Pritchards meet me with their Auto. 23. Cool, cloudy day, my friends invite 400 people to meet me at Country Club, a fine, appreciative lot of people. They say many nice things to me. 24. Clear and fine, an auto ride in forenoon. At 2.40 return to Utica to my friend Dr. Bakers. Pass night there. 25. Start for Roxbury this morning via Herkimer and Oneonta. Reach R. at 2.47 Chant meets me; find C.B. at W.L, looking well and happy. 26, 27. Busy days and fine, cool. 28. Busy days and fine, cool. 29. C.B. and I go to Hemlocks a birding; a fine tramps and some new birds, warm. 30. Go to Brandon's with Curtis and Jane to dinner, a pleasant time. July 1st. Fine day and warm. Dr. Baker comes on 2.47 train. 2d. Hot, glad to have Dr. Baker here. C.B. happy. 3. Fearfully hot day 91 here, over 100 in many parts. Very quiet all day with C.B. and Dr. Baker. Laury and Miss Bertram come to their camp by the Spring Camp Knickerbocker. 4. A hot night and the promise of a very hot day, getting dry again. 5. Hot, hot, think I never saw it so hot here. Great heat all over the country. Heavy showers in places but only a sprinkle here. Emily and the children came Wednesday the 5th - delighted to see them. Dr. Baker leaves same day. 6. A slight let up in the heat at times, showers South of us. Eat strawberries on the 4th. Arranged my study in the old learn. C.B. has the front room and my table. 7. Cooler, wind East; with clouds. Timothy grass in bloom. I see clouds of pollen swept from it by the wind. First peas from our garden today. John delights and amuses us all. 8. Cool fine day. Gather Bill berries, C.B. and I. 9. Getting warm again, showers around us. 10. Hot showers South of us. Writing a little in the Old barn. 11. Hot, hot, above 90, Lounge around. Work on table with Ed. 12. A little cooler, dry; finish table. Great pleasure with Julian's children. Curtis comes over and smokes his pipe on the porch. 13. Cooler, a real change, now getting very dry. Gathered more bill berries yesterday p.m. how good they are! The boys began haying on Monday; At my study in old barn this morning; hear the hermit in the "clover lot" woods as I write at 8 a.m. 14. Delightful summer day a home with cut bar of the mowing machines. Getting very dry. Haying in full blast and progressing rapidly. Yesterday C.B. and I gathered 2gts of bill berries and found sparrows nest. C.B. much better all from a cup of coffee at breakfast. 15. Julian came yesterday; a great event to us all, looks well and seems glad to be here, a light shower at 6, cool night. Clear and warm this morning. Laura and Miss B. Leave Cany, Sentinel - The rainbow hangs in the sky though the drops of rain through which it is formed are constantly falling; not till the rain ceases, or the sun light is hidden, does the bow fade. The drops fall but the bow which is formed by them, does not fall. That band of color. Therefore is not a part of the rain, it is a function of the rain, the rain drops know it not. It springs out in the rear of the retreating storm but the storm knows it not. It is in no sense a part of it, no two persons see the same bow; there are as many bows as there are beholders; the rainbow is truly an apparition, you cannot approach it, you cannot grasp it, or find it end, it has no end and no beginning. [It is always, a half circle of which the beholder stands in the exact center.] It is also born of the spray of cataracts but 2 ways not as the spray 5 ways. It is one of the oldest and most striking phenomenon in nature, and one of the most subtle and elusive. It is not an entity, but the radient shadow of an entity. What use has it? One of the most lovely and wonderful things in nature, and yet it serves no purpose in nature; It has no use. It pleases the eyes, but it is much older than the eye. Is it not the only perfect arc nature draws? Mathematically perfect? Born of the most changeable element; itself as ephemeral as a breath, yet its form and color are fixed as adamant. It is unearthly in its beauty and precision like a vision from Heaven. Fugitive, unreal, inaccessible, yet constant and eternal. The one permanent illusion in the common nature about us. The sunset is afar off painted upon the distant clouds, but the rainbow comes down to earth, it hangs between us and the next field or hill; it spans the pasture or the highway or the grove; it hovers about the playing fountain, or the spray from the hand pump; it is familiar just as shrine as a spirit. Is there not much in nature and in life that is symbolized by the rainbow? Nature is not all solids and fluids and gases and the unreal, the fantastic, the illusory play a large part in our lives. 15. A walk in the fields in p.m. - all the children, Julian, Emily, C.B. and I visit our birds nests and take photos, Betty finds a vesper sparrows nest in the meadow. A brisk shower at 3 1/2 - much sharp thunder and dashes of large birds-eye hail. We reach the barn with shirt washer wet, take refuge there for 1/2 hour. Betty and Ursa reach the house, a sharp shower. Water seems in road in big rivulets, much needed. Addie comes on 6 p.m. train, looks fine. 16. Clear and fine today, lovely day with my big family, Curtis and Dessie come over to dinner, all walk over to grandfathers place after supper. Little John was the 5th generation from grandfather. 17. Cloudy from S. looks like rain. A brisk shower, short, but good. 18. Much cooler, clearing. 19. Much cooler, sick last night and today, my old trouble, over feeding I think, a fearful chill last night. Feel wretched today, all are very kind to me. 20. Cloudy this morning and a sprinkle of rain, a little better this morning. 21, 22, 23, 24. All pretty bad days, fever and pain and general distress, temp 101 1/5 most of the time. Took Calomel on Friday, physic at night. Calomel did not have usual effect. Salt hot water injections (2gts) Sunday and Monday seemed to help much. C.B. of great help. - A wonderful nurse, devoted in her ministrations. 25. Much better today, fever practically gone and food begins to taste good, a change to very cool and windy in the night, a fine shower yesterday, Julian went on Sunday the 23d and his family on the 24. Poor Ursa sick with her ear, very anxious about her. Mrs. Johnson also returned yesterday. 26. Still better, slept much last night. Do some work today, a clear fine day, news from Ursa, she is better. 27. Clear cool day, with slow shower in p.m. Still gaining slowly, Mrs. B. comes today. 28. Cold, cloudy, appetite improves slowly and strength returns very slowly. Writing some and arranging M.S. 29. Warmer, sun and cloud. I am dull today ate an egg for breakfast. 30. Cloudy, slow rain, warmer. Aug 1st. Life goes on as usual. Getting dry, write a little, but pretty weak yet. 2, 3, 4. Quiet day at Woodchuck Lodge. Working a little and reading some. 5. Quite a shower this p.m. Warm, C.B. and I go for the mirror. 6. More rain, nearly an inch in all. 7. Clearing, warm, C.B. and I. Clear out the spring. 8. Feel the best today of any day yet. Write in morning and find new chipmunks den. Wind S.W. Plenty of corn today. 9. Warm, partly cloudy, a walk yesterday p.m. to Buckwheat field. - Wild honey and astracan apples. 10. Clear, fine, Miss Garrette came last night to paint my portrait. My Junco laid her first egg in the haymow nest yesterday 9 a.m. My junco has just come to lay her second egg. How continuously and silently she comes and slips into the hole in the haymow! 11. Cloudy and windy this morning and a dash of rain. My junco has 3 eggs. 12. Clearing, cooler junco incubating her 3 eggs, Miss Garrett began to paint me on Thursday the 10th. 13. Clear, cool, lovely day. Pose for Grace and write a little in the barn long tranquil August days. Song sparrows begin to abbreviate their songs, songs are blurred or faded, less distinct and clear cut. Still hear the hermit occasionally 14. Clear, cool, calm day. 15. A little better each day. Fine shower in p.m. 1/2 inch of water. 16. Cool bright day, Mrs. B. goes back home today. Life with her is impossible. Go down to the village in p.m. 17. Cool and windy. C.B. Grace, G. and I here alone. 18. Go to the dentists. Walk up, the walk does me good, a brisk shower in p.m. 1/3 inch. 19. Very cool and windy. Slept in doors last night; Write in house. 20. Bright and not so cold. Slept on porch again last night as cold as in Cala. Slept well, begin to feel like myself. The walk from the village did me good, sun wind and cloud today. 21, 22. Bright, dry, cool days. Work a little each day. Walk over to Tom Smiths in p.m. to see Will from Iowa, an old school mate and stay to tea, a fine walk across the fields. 23d. Dr. Loach and wife come in p.m., glad to see them. 24. Cloudy, our guests leave in p.m. a slow peddling rain sets in in p.m. 25. Cooler, rained slowly all night, still raining at 9 1/2 slowly from S.W. over 1 /2 inch of water and looks like an all day rain. 3 days of it would not be too much. Feel quite well. 26. Go to Woodstock in p.m. 27. At Byrdcliffe, heavy rain in the night. 28. More rain, rained all night. Walk with Mr. Whitehead to a moraine near top of Mt. Heavy rain about noon. 29. More rain last night, 5 or 6 inches in all. Return to Woodchuck Lodge in p.m. C.B. John B. and I, cold and cloudy. 30. Cloudy, cold. 31. Cold, threatens rain. Walk over home to see Eden. Mr. Bellows calls. Eden seems entirely well. 1911 Sept 1st. Cloudy, misty, no sun for several days, warmer. The juncos nest in haymow was sobbed during my absence at Byrdcliffe. Country looks green again. - Why is it that the scientific [accounting] explanation of the universe and of the mind and body of man seems to shut us into a narrower and lower world, is like closing the doors and windows and shutting us off from the sky and the stars above us. It seems to the wherefore of the unknowable. We understand our own ignorance, we contemplate complacently the limitations of our own powers. We cannot reach the ultimate reason of anything in nature, yet we circle the globe with the iron chain of irrefragable cause and effect every link of which we know but the first link and we make out heads ache in trying to think of a chain that has but one end. Instead of a mystery that fills us with awe and reverence, we disclose a puzzle that baffles and fatigues us. When we no longer think of the brain as the house of the soul, but as this seat of consciousness, which is the result of a physiological process, which process again is the result of of the food we eat, we seem to feel matter pressing in upon us like the four walls country together. Thought as the result of molecular changes in the brain - the very idea seems to extinguish a light somewhere. It is in vain that you tell me the mud upon my shoes is divine, that it is star dust and came out of the infinite heavens; it is mud all the same and I must leave it on the scraper. It is in vain that you tell me that matter in its ultimate analysis escapes into spirit, it is cheap and vulgar all the same. It is in vain that you tell me the earth is a bit of astronomy and is a star like the rest, the fact does not make it seem any more star like, or the stars any less so. How we whistle to keep our courage up as we go on analysing and destroy the pastry and romance of creation. Is it because it banishes mystery and substitutes difficult or insolvable problems or enthrows reasons and judgement in place of imagination? At any rate it seems to darken or extinguish something within us, - shuts off vista and the lure of the distant, the inaccessible, or is it only the enticement and illusion of the unknown that science robs us of? or is it only men and the romantic temperament like myself, that feel in this way? We say (and it is true) that science leaves plenty of room for the imagination to work and really enlarges the field of the unknown. But the imagination is in some way tamed; it is no longer a wild free bird, it is a trained falcon and does our bidding and we know the why and exploring and experimenting and plucking out the heart of this mystery and of that, and when we have the drop of seeds on our hand in place of the floating rainbow, [huted] soap bubble, we laugh and press on as we should - we must know and fancy must wait upon knowledge. This is the materialism of science - knowledge takes the place of sentiment. Science is rarely beautiful, rather should I say, it is rarely beautiful as nature is beautiful, as rocks and woods and waterfalls are beautiful, but as a piece of machinery may be beautiful [it is wonderful]. The machinery is a beautiful application of mechanical principles; It surprises and in a way pleases us, but it does not touch the imagination on the emotions. We admire it but we do not love it, or want to live with it. The controlled, the mechanical, the bounded can not please us in the way the free, the spontaneous, the unbounded does. But who complains? All this is plainly in the line of the evolution of the race. The old wonder, the old awe and fear must go. They were attended by a whole broad of imps and furies - superstitions persecution, witchcraft, wars and e.t.c. and the new wonder, the new admiration, the new humanism must come in, war must go out, disease must go out, superstition must go out and may be creed and churches must go out and must the pastry and romance, the joy in nature the flower of art and literature go out also? It almost looks as if literature were doomed. If anything can kill it the news paper will. The more we upon the breath of newspaper, the more will the mental and spiritual condition out of which come real literature and art be barred to us. The more we live in the hard close cutting, calculating business spirit, the farther are we from the spirit of literature; the more we surrender ourselves in the fever and haste and competition of the industrial spirit, the more are the doors of the heaven of the great power and works of art closed to us, the more we leave and move and have our being in the scientific spirit - the spirit of exact knowledge, the fewer monumental works of literature will we leave behind us. Literature has gained in this respect in this burrying economic age; we are more impatient of the shaw, the make believe, the dilatory, the merely rhetorical and oratorical. We are more impatient of the obscure, the tedious, the impotent, the superfluous, the far fetched. We have a new or a sharpened sense for the real, the vital, the logical, the dilatory and meandering methods of even such a writer as Hawthorn, tire us a little now. We want the story to move rapidly, we want the essay full of point and suggestion, we find it more and more difficult to read books about books, and all writing, "about and about and about," we are impatient if we want the thing itself, we want current and counter currents - moment and reality at all hazards. But except you be in a measure, as little children - curious, fresh, impressionable flexible, trusting, sincere, - you cannot enter the heaven of true literature. There are probably more parts in the world today than ever before, but they are on the byways of life, rather than on the great highways and deal with exceptional, cultivated emotions, rather than with the broadly human emotions and experiences. They are byproducts of our schooling and culture and not the prime outcome. The power and the originality if the stock has not gone into them, it has gone elsewhere, such curious and inquiries and subtle and poetry verses as they write! when they essay the broadly human and universal as they fall down completely. Specialists in science, experts in industry, impressionists in art - in philosophy agnostics in religion and realists in literature seem to be in the time of mental evolution of the races. Sept 3d. Clear, cool, lovely day. We climb to old clump in p.m. 4. Fine day, Mr. Gregor come for dinner, a pleasant time. People come up from village in p.m. 5. Warmer, cloudy. Miss Gould and Party come in auto. 6. Heavy rain last night, nearly all night; 2 inches of water, clearing today. 7. Cool, more rain, writing on Animal Experimentation. Grace left on 7th. 8. Cloudy, Miss Gould takes me to Ashland in Auto. 9. Rain, cold, clearing in p.m. Mrs. Green comes. 10. Bright lovely day, warm. 11. More rain, warm and clear in p.m. Go bee hunting. 12. Rain in morning, clearing and cooler in p.m. 13. Cold, slept inside part of the night. Writing today in house. 14. Clear, cold, our first frost, hurt corn. Took 1 gr calomel last night. Feel well today, too cold for bees. 15. Windy, cloudy, cold, a dark disagreeable day. 16. Miss Burt comes at night. Mary Jane staying with us. 17. Fine clear day. work but little 18. Miss B. leaves us. 19. Fine warm day, ideal. 20. Lovely day, working again. Writing, C.B. John and I walk down to village in p.m. 21. Clear warm fine day. - There is this difference between the habits of our native bumble bees and the hive bee - The drones or males of the hive bee do not visit the flowers or feed outside the hive. The drones of our bumble bees do gather honey. from the flowers, at least in the fall they are apparently at that season self supporting. They differ from the males of the hive bee also in this respect they have a softer, more feminine hum than do the worker bees. Another difference in the two races of bees - see our native bees from the solitary bee to the hornets are free from barbs on their stingers; they can sting any number of times, while the honey bee can sting man, but once its stinger is barbed and if left in the flesh of its victim and causes its own death. 22, 23. Fine, warm days. 24. Lovely day, Curtis and Jane come over to dinner. Reporter from N.Y. Herald comes for interview. 25. Warm, more rain at night. 26. Clearing and cooler. 27. Cold, near a frost last night. Finish "The Chill of Science." 28. Clear, cool day. We got to the hemlocks in p.m. for spear mint. 29. Rain nearly all day. 30. Fine day still writing. Oct 1st. Cloudy, frost on top of trees on Montgomery Mt., raining in p.m. Sleep indoors. 2. Foggy, cold, windy till late p.m. when it clears. 3. Wonderfully, bright cold lovely morning. Frost last night. 5. Heavy rains at night N.E. 6. Cold wet. 7. Foggy in morning and misty. C.B. puts off going. Clearing in p.m. We go for wild block cherries. 8. Lovely day, clear and warm. We walk to Caswells, then to Buckwoods for beech nuts . Hathe and husband and children come at noon. 9. Clear lovely morning. C.B.and John leave. I walk down to station with C.B. Sorry to see them go, a box comes. from Julian, corn tomatoes and records. 10. Lovely day, very solitary here but write some. Go over home in p.m.; thrashing duck wheat. 11. Cloudy, mild light rain. House very desolate. Haul and out wood each day. 12. Clearing, mild. - A man may be cold and not shiver, but he will not shiver without feeling cold(?) or will a slight fever make the shivers run over one? 13. Day of great brilliancy, a golden day, not a cloud, cool, windy and cold last night, a poor night for me, some fever and sleeplessness in first half. Took 1gr Calomel. Below par today. Company yesterday from N.Y.,3 of them, enjoyed seeing them. I probably ate too much dinner. 14. Clear, still golden day. Emily and the children come today. Delighted to see them. I still have a little fever. - Man has slowly been acquiring new characters along his whole line of evolution, if these are not inherited what is? There is no evolution without the acquisition of new characters and this instant modification is inherited, passed on to the offspring. It must have been so in the past of geologic and biologic time. We do not see it today because today is too short. It is the race of man that has evolved - the change on gain is slowly added up in the individual. But no one individual along the line would show any appreciable gain or advance - unless now and then sudden mutations appear - sallies of the evolutionary impulse, which may be the case. Traits or features acquired in a mans life time are not inherited but the slow transformation of the ages are. 15. Lovely day, well again. We have a good time. 16. Calm, warm, hazy, Oct day. truly golden, We pick up beech nuts in the woods in p.m. a perfect day. The children very happy. I feel extra well today. 17. Cloudy from the So, rain near I think. 18. Heavy rain till p.m. S. and then E. Write amid the noise of the happy children and do well. 19. Clearing, the dear children and E. have just gone, oh, how I shall miss them. The hand of little John twinkles good bye far down the road. Fog and mist out on the nets. I see the wet road above the village shine in the sunlight. Oh, how I shall miss the children, so much better they were than last summer, a great change in Ursa. 20. Still, mild, cloudy day, threatens rain. Very lonesome, a had cold developed last night, sore throat, poor sleep, yet I write today and do well. 21. Still cloudy and threatening, mild, cough and blow and sneeze 'a good' deal, a touch of fever, but do not feel much ill, mind clear and active. - The eye of a fly must be after all be a very delicate instrument. Is his provider of vision multiplied by all these hundred of eyes? Try to burry your hand down upon and see how he watches and waits for you to strike, raising his wings a little to be ready on the instant, not often is your hand quicker than he is. How surey he sees when your hand start on its downward deadly stroke and springs for his life. How much mind has he? 22. Cloudy with light rain, warm, I write in a.m. gather beech nuts in p.m. 23. Rain and wind all last night, but clear and lovely this morning, ground full of water, showing pools and rells in all fields. I walk over home at 7, with my laundry. 5 days of rain and mist and 1 day of cloud 24 Windy colder, a good sleep last night. Walked over home this morning. The woods all naked now. Feel better. - No doubt at all that our blue bird is a branch of the thrush family. Just now I see them eating choke cherries in a tentative hesitating kind of way as if it were a habit thus dimly remembered. Generally insectivorous, they yet are at times fruit eaters, I have known them to live on the berries of the hard back (Lotus) all winter. How interesting it would be to know just how far back in the history of the world this divergence of the blue bird from the thrush family took black and all the conditions that led up to it. 25. To go Gilboa today to see the Laner, a cool clear day. Go to Eden's at night; E. and Mag well. Stay till Friday the 27. Eden in better health than for many years. Walk down to Hiram's grave on Thursday p.m. The day mild and fine. Cough raise a good deal. 27. Come to R. on morning train. Walk up in a mist of rain. 28. Clearing and colder, snow on the highest Mts. 29. An ideal day, clear, still and mild. Go to Caswells to dinner. Get things ready for closing the house. 30. A mild day, cloudy till 10 a.m. then clearing. John drives me over through the head of Red Hill into the town of Halcott, to the grave of grandfather and grandmother. Kelly and the graves of Uriell Thomas Kelly and his family, my first visit, grandfather and grandmother have been there 57 years. Grandfather died June 10th, 1854 - my first year season away from home - teaching school at Tongore, grandmother died in Dec the same year, one 88, they other 87. How well I remember the little man and the big or stant woman. Granny was a Siscom. Uncle Thomas died at 63, in 1869. They all lie in family burying ground on the old farm of uncle Thomas, sloping East, a pine tree and a balsam fir stark at the head and foot of the graves, 8 children of uncle Thomas there, all dead under 40. Took dinner with Gib Kelly in head of Red Hill. Had not seen him for over 40 years. We were boys together. He is 75, very white and bent. a hard worker all his life. In p.m. went with Gib to the graves of his father and mother, uncle and aunt Martin Kelly. The grave yard is on a big mound of sand and gravel left by the old ice sheet, a warm lovely afternoon. Drive down Red Hill by uncle Martins of a place and by uncle Edmunds, then over the Mts. home at 5 p.m. Glad I went. 31. Raining this morning. Start for West Park at 8 1/2. Find all well at home. Nov 1st. Clearing, work in study. go to K. in p.m. 2. Cold, windy, clear. go to K. in p.m. Send Ms to C.B. 3. Go to K. Write in morning 4. Clearing, Go to S.S. in p.m. to meet some Vassar teachers. 5. Fine day, mild. 6. Rain. Go to K. for electricity. 7. Clearing, mild, go to K. cold about over. 8. Clear, windy, cooler, working on M. S.S. 10. To N.Y. today, to Dr. J's, then to Mr. Evans in p.m. 11. At Mrs. E's. 12. Go with C.B. and the Johnsons to see glacier marks in Morningside Park; then to church to hear Merrill Wright, a bright and radical sermon, but disconnected, fragmentary no logical connection, no evolution. In p.m. meet some Columbia professors at Mrs. Es. 13. Walk in park with C.B; feed gray squirrel, beech nuts. To Rowlands in p.m. 14. At Rowlands, cold gone, at the normal college in p.m. Meet many interesting people. 15. At Rowlands, go with C.B.to H.M. and Co. on 40th St. East. C.B. looks much better than when she left R. To reception in Carnegies at 4 p.m. Meet many well known people. The Carnegies very gracious to me. Heffley, Slacks, Frank at Rowlands at night. 16. To Mr. Childs today, chilly weather but bright. 17. With Mr. C, to his Club at Smithtown, a fine day. 18. Rain heavy last night. Eat and sleep well. To N.Y. in p.m. and to Dr. J's. To theatre at night to hear Hamlet - by Southern and Marlow. 19. Poor sleep last night. To Wright Church again today. His sermon "After God what?" a variation on Emersons line "When half gods go, the gods arrive". A bright sermon but lacking in unity and coherence. To Frank's at Orange in p.m. Nov 1911 20. A pleasant time at the Franks, to N.Y. this morning, meet C.B. at Turners office, Rowland with me. Home in the p.m. Snow here, chilly. 21. Cold, partly cloudy. 22. Bright chilly day, write in the study. 23. Cold, clear, down to 20 last night. Seem to have gained 2 or 3 lbs in N.Y. Weigh 138, in winter clothing. Feel strong and well. 24. Rain. 25. Clearing, mild. 26. Sun, colder, walk to S.S. 27. Still writing. 29. Close house today and Mrs. B. goes to P. Julian has the grippe. 30. Thanksgiving, Julian better. I go to P. and stay all night. Dec 1. Fine day. 2d. Pleasant day, but cold, C.B. and Dr. Baker come in p.m. We go to S.S. 3. Cloudy cold day, a good time at S.S. Roast duck for dinner. C.B. looking well but discouraged, a delightful time around the open fire last night. They leave on evening trains. I go to P. 4. Nearly 4 inches of snow on ground this morning, down to 14+ a touch of real winter. 5. Clear fine day, cold, I write in P. 6. Lovely day, getting milder, I write in P. 7. Still cloudless mild day, snow going fast, an Indian summer day in winter. I came up to W.P. yesterday. Writing today in my study, river like glass, smoke or vapor drapes the horizon walls, ground bare in many places. Feel well. Letter from C.B. yesterday. Dec 1911 8. Another clear, calm veiled soft day like yesterday quite remarkable. Write in my study on Bugsons view of the Intellect and on the chill of Science. Health very good, writing fatigues me less than ever before, been at it now nearly 5 months. 9. Still mild and clear. Go to P in p.m. 10. At P. write in morning, day warm and nearly clear. Snow all gone. 11. Indian Summer weather continues, a strange stillness has fallen upon the weather, it seems asleep and dreaming of Oct. no wind, no cloud and but little frost, a thick white haze maple all the landscape and lies banked around the horizon, a Dec Indian summer. Came back to W.P. yesterday p.m. Mercury near 60 12. Warm, near 60, a honey bee yesterday p.m. about my wood pile. Is the hum of the bee in Dec, the knell of winter? We shall see, cut wood in p.m. yesterday and then walk at S.S. Eat well, sleep well, write well, am well, still working on science piece. No frost last night, signs of rain. - The newspaper is good for relaxation, you can read it with your eyes alone. It is a mental laxative. If you are congested with literature and philosophy read the newspaper and you shall not know there is such a thing or ever has been in the world. You will soon be empty of all thoughts of them. It takes the mind about as much as whittling does the body. To talk of the educational value of the newspaper is like talking about the educational value of horse trading or of the stock exchange. 13. No frost last night, a change to cooler this p.m. without rain, clear and cool tonight. Farmers plowing, Julian and Hud at work in vineyard resetting posts and blasting rocks. Hud dug out a snake the other day a garter snake - about 2 feet underground. The snake was bunched up in a kind of knot and stiff and striped. I brought him to my study and the warmth soon made him very lively. I kept him 3 days and then let him go. He steered for the wood pile. I hope he finds a safe retreat. 16. To Ossining this p.m. no time there; then on to N.Y. at Dr. Johnsons, meet McDonald again. Overflowing with life and scotch anecdotes as usual, I greeted him with a good hug. 17. Bright but chilly. Go to Ossining with C.B. The Finns meet us in auto, drive to Briarcliff Lodge and about the country. Stop at the Van Costland house built in 1691. Franklin and Washington used to stope there. Enjoyed seeing it. Find an enthusiastic reader in Miss Vaul. Back to N.Y. at night. 18. To Floral Park, with C.B. to look at a house. House no good. Lunch with the Childs's. 19. At the Rowlands, write in my room. Lunch with Garland at the Players Club. 20. Write in my room, a chilly day. Lunch with Mr. R.W. Johnson; then to see Priest Taft, lay a corner stone of building for the blind. Taft looks sleek and happy. 20. Cloudy chilly day. To Huntington with C.B. looking at lots. Lots of lots for sale, but not the right one, visit the Whitman birth place, new villas going up all about there. Back to N.Y. on 4.30 train. 22. Raining. To John Bigelows funeral, with Mr. Howells. See several famous and some infamous men there. Mr. Bliss drives me back in his auto. 23. Rained all night; See C.B. in p.m. and then home to P. 24. With Mrs. B. Then home to W.P. 25. Clear, calm, mild day, like an Indian summer day in here. Some frost last night. Go to dinner at monastery with Julian, a pleasant time. Predict a storm by tomorrow. River very smooth. Blue bird voices in the air this morning. 26. Mild, cloudy day. Go to P. in p.m. am finishing the two essays. "The Phantoms behind us" and "In the noon of science." Have written both of them over 4 times. 27. Rain a little last night, calm misty this morning. Have just been reading Paul. How eloquent, what good literature, their Epistles would never have come down to us had they not been good literature. They are full of the wisdom of the good - full of the things that save us in this world. Paul was really the father of Christianity. 28. A windy March like day. Flurries of snow in the air. Write in my study on "Living matter". 29. Clear and cold, mercury 26. Write in my study. Blue birds still here, no snow. 30. Colder, down to 18 degrees this morning, a storm and colder weather coming skating on the ponds. Feel about done with my writing for the present. Will and gaining in flesh. 31. Snow last night - nearly 4 inches. Stay in P. with Mrs. R. Dinner at Mrs. Kirbey's. 1912 Jany 1st. Bright sharp day. Dinner with Mrs. B. make the calls. To W.P. in the p.m. Never saw the river free from ice as it is now on new year day, none at all. 2. Clear, cold, down to 12 or 14, this morning, milder during the day. Mr. Suley come to photograph me. Work in morning. Health first rate as long as I keep the drainage system open. 3. Bright clear, down to 20, milder in p.m. Go to P. Send 2 papers to century. 4. Pretty Cold night; flurries of snow this morning - George Eliot says in one of her letters. "In the country the days have broad open spaces and the very stillness seems to give a delightful roominess to the hours" Well said. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 At W.P. or in P. writing each day, cold getting severe. 10. to N.Y. today and out to Pelham with C.B. Like her new house, cold, cold. 11. To East Orange at night, cold. 12. Snowing this morning from N.E. cold. Back to N.Y. 13. Very sore throat last night. Hoarse this morning with fever, my old trouble upon me. Dr. Leo come in and puts me on a diet. 14. Feel pretty bad, fever about 101. Dr. L. doses me with drugs. P.m. C.B. comes in, feel better, fever leaves me and does not come back. The cold symptoms pronounced, as at W.L. last Oct, very cold - 3 below in N.Y. 13 below in Washington. 14 below at West Park, 25 and 30 below at other points see Hudson River valley. 15,16,17,18. Indoors all these days, writing some each day in Rowlands sky parlor. C.B. comes in p.m. Thursday and writes some letters for me. 19. Raining out today and up to Pulham with C.B. and Mrs. J. and then home in p.m. clearing, snow much melted. 20. To Kingston today to see about the Martin suit. 21. Mild day, walk in p.m. 22. To Kingston again. Fine day. The suit put off till March 20th. Back to P. 23. Mild thawy day, cloudy. Up to W.P. in p.m. Lost 3 lbs during my illness in N.Y. Begin to feel like myself again, appetite pretty good, sleep good, cough and blow still. 24. Clear, colder, Mrs. B. not yet able to start South. Go out to Vassar in p.m. Put in shape the Ms. The Breath of life in morning. 25, 26, 27. Cold, near zero flurries of snow. Ferry frozen up. 28. Go up to W.P. walk over the ice, 3 below zero. 29. Milder, flurries of snow and hail send 2 papers to Atlantic. Do not start for N.Y. as had hoped to do. 30. Cold, still in P. 31. Start for Pelham at 10. Reach C.B.'s at noon. Cold day. Feb 1st. With C.B. helping her settle in her house. I put up Feb 1912 shelves. Mrs. B. hems things and helps in the kitchen. 2d. Cold. Do not go to the P.P. Again dinner in Philla. Work for C.B. 3d. Cold, still at work and quite contented. 4. Cold, snowing, rugged winter weather. Write a letter. Go to Mt. Vernon in p.m. to call on Miss A. 5. Cold. Busy on shelves e.t.c. 6. Cold, make a book case for C.B's living room. 7. Cold, but bright and still. Write letters and correct M.S.S. Appetite good, too good. Am slowly gaining lost flesh. C.B. nearly settled - looks very thin and thick. Janys and Starlings and Juncos here. 8. Off for Chattanooga this p.m, cold. 9. In W.Va this morning, snow still on the ground and all the way to Knoxville Tenn. Byred K I farmers plowing. Reach C. at 6 p.m. a smoky wind. Clim W. meets us. 10. Began snowing in the night, looks like winter on the Hudson, snow all day, 10 inches, a lunch at the country club in p.m. many fine people. Winter without but warm cheer and hospitality within. I hear myself eulogized in true political orator fashion by ex-commissioner Evans. I merely excuse myself from making any reply. We spend 6 days at C. in a fine hospitable house. See a good many people. On the 12th we go in auto over the Chickamauga battle field. See two broads of quail on the ground where the soldiers bled and died. Saw a hawk pounce down upon a bird by the road side. 13. Rain all day, snow nearly gone. 14. To Lookout, net in p.m. 15. Gone by to our friends and off for Arthurs Ga. Reach there at 6 p.m. Dr. Loach meets us with carriage. Mch 4. Cold cloudy day. Keep well here and enjoy myself. Work each forenoon writing on the value and origin of life, and reading much in Tyndale, Halckel, Fesk and Bergson. Some bright, mild, lovely days. Mercury down to 28 and 9 several times, many rainy days, see many people, very appreciative. Lunches and dinner and auto rides. Set for portrait to Miss Stanton, appetite good, too good, gain in flesh - up to 141 1/2 a week ago. De Loach very happy to have us here, a fine fellow, a fine mind a few robins here, the hylas piping in the marshes. Rain yesterday, minde very active most of the time. The red hills look rather forbidding. Athens a beautiful town - approaches a Northern university town in beauty. On Mch 1st, to the Orr's to dinner, cold and chilly The 2d to Morris to dinner. Today we go to Prof. Merrill's we plowing or planting yet here too wet. 8. Much rain and chilly weather the past 4 days but milder today but little sunshine; farmers a month behind with then work; too wet to plow. Keep well; write each forenoon and walk in p.m. to Miss Slantons studio to sit for portrait. Robins apparently starving about here. No food, no warms. They are picked up dead. We brought on in two feeble to fly. Kept him a day and night, fed him angle worms and he flew away with much vigor. Probably tons of thousands of them have starved in this state. 9. Rain in the night, off at 6.30 for Savannah, clearing before noon. Reach Augusta at 12. Drive about the city in auto, a friend of De Loach, a fine town, clear and warm. Leave for Savannah at 2 1/2. Reach S. at 6.30, Mr. Lester meets us. Out to his place 10 miles from S. near the sea in auto, a fine ride. 10. Clear fine day at Mr. Lesters, a good house, hospitable people. Fine marine views, an arm of the sea flank, the place on the South. Vast brown marshes looking like a great rug stretch away for miles, lives of dark pine forest here and there in the distance. Stroll and walk about enjoying the sunshine, news reporter in the p.m. also [Mr.] Prof W.J. Hoxie the Thorian of Georgia, like him much, looks like a bird with his sharp features and keen eyes. Was educated in Marr, knows the local natural history well. Enjoy my talk with him. 11. Bright in a.m. Go to Savannah. Return t 2 p.m. cloudy and cool. 12. Rain last night and this morning clearing and windy by 10 a.m. Write some. In p.m. a big auto van full of school girls from S. 50 of them from 8 to 18. enjoy seeing them, Mr. Hoxie again. Am drinking the artesian water with good results. 13. Lovely bright day, but cooler. Write in a.m; walk and catch crabs in p.m. with De Loach. Last night the cuckel of the marsh hens in the marsh was to me a pleasing sound, now and then we see marsh hawk beating about over the marsh or dropping into it. Yesterday morning a great blue heron went heavily by over it. The marsh looks like a vast tawny rug. 16. Very heavy rain making a flood throughout the state. In p.m. meet the club woman of S. at Huntington Club. 17. Fine day and warm. 18,19. Fine warm days. Walk and write and see people from S. 20. Warm day, write in a.m. go to Ossabaw Island in p.m. with Mr. L. a fine sail of 12 miles. 21. Warm, back from the Island. 22. Warm, 82, meet the Craig's in a.m. 23. Warm, leave S. at 2 1/2 for Washington. 23. Reach W. at 11 a.m, clear and much colder. The dawn of the capital the most welcome sight. - A vision of other and younger days - looks almost like my nature hills. It alone is unchanged; all else how changed. 24. Raining, am reading Fiskes "Cosmic Philosophy" Too much an echo of spencer. "The dissipation of motion and the integration of matter" - those wooden times play as prominent a part here as in Spencer's pages, while F. has not that perfect mechanical rythm of sentences and the art of nesting his ideas one within the other like a set of boxes that S. has, S. has marked his system out with the regularity of the multiplication table. His idea follow each other like twice, two make four, twice four make eight e.t.c. Such logical coherence and consistency would be hard to equal, such precision and such barronness to the spirit.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: September 9, 1896 - May 27, 1897
Text: 1896 Sept 9. Cool bright day, from the north. No heat yet this month. Whippoorwills still calling feebly and briefly. Julians arm much improved, sprained badly over two weeks ago. 13. Chapman came last night. Cloudy to-day and mild. In P.M. we all go to cut a bee tree down near black pond -- 3 miles. Find some one has been there before and cut it. 15. Charming Sept. days, warm, still, peaceful. No frost yet. Heard whippoorwill again to-night. Grapes all off. Hiram and I sit here on our porch...
Show more1896 Sept 9. Cool bright day, from the north. No heat yet this month. Whippoorwills still calling feebly and briefly. Julians arm much improved, sprained badly over two weeks ago. 13. Chapman came last night. Cloudy to-day and mild. In P.M. we all go to cut a bee tree down near black pond -- 3 miles. Find some one has been there before and cut it. 15. Charming Sept. days, warm, still, peaceful. No frost yet. Heard whippoorwill again to-night. Grapes all off. Hiram and I sit here on our porch in the twilight after our supper and talk of old days. How I love to hear again the names of the hired men who worked for father so long ago, and some of whom I knew as a little boy. Hiram remembers them all. There was George Jenkins and Rube Dart who cut a fallow up above the "clover meadow". Hiram used to carry them their dinners, '35 or '36. Then Dan H. Montgomery about 37, then Jo Jenkins, then Gus Steward, then Abe Meeker about 1840, (still living) then Zeke Kelley, the Pete Tiffany then Barlow Tiffany and so on. The more recent hired men, who recalls them? They seem of no account beside these early figures, and yet they were the same. With what indescribable feeling I think of these workers over the old fields. The dogs father had too, how each one stands out, and the oxen and the horses! Oh, youth, what is the secret of thy illusions? 16. Much cooler this morning. Changed in the night, and the wind kept me from sleep. Turns out an ideal day -- work on my "Philosophy of the hard times."17. Rain from S.W. sets in about 10 a.m. As I sit here working over my Whitman M.S. I hear the jays call and the winter wren scold in the bushes at the corner of the house. Foliage beginning to turn. 19. Rain last night and this morning with continuous low distant thunder. Began after midnight. Nearly two inches of water. The air thick and murky to-day and warm. A clear off shower at 6, and cooler breath. 20. Clear and cool and windy. A look of fall in the air. (-- Eddies are always in opposition to the main current.) In P.M. Hiram and I walk to Brookmans swamp and poke about the woods. A day of wonderful brilliancy and beauty.22. Cloudy with light rain. A bad headache all day. Sit in doors at SS. 23. Cleared off last night, and much colder; feels as if a killing frost was near. 26 Lovely day, warm and clear. Spent part of it in the woods. Acorns falling everywhere, like the noise of falling stones rattling through the trees; quite startling at times Such a harvest of acorns I do not remember; but no chestnuts this year. 28. Mild and still, but overcast. Lowne and Booth come up. No frost yet. Oct 6. Mild [crossed out: fair] weather with much cloud since my last date. Start for Boston to-day Stop in Albany and walk about with the girls of St A.See the lotus in Bloom in W. park. The flower like a dream of Cleopatra. Reach B. at 9 P.M. 7 Cloudy, drizzlly till afternoon. About 3 P.M. speak before a womans club at Newburyport. Not very proud of my effort -- too much of an effort. Dine with Mrs Spaulding on Green St. A remarkable woman clear strong mind in a feeble body. Shows me [crossed out: an] many autograph letters. One from Emerson date 1838 to Dr Hedge, interests me. E. had been to N.Y. had seen much of Bryant, likes him, praises his simplicity, manliness etc. but says he lacks culture, has no time for books or thought but "spends his days weltering in the foaming foolishness of newspapers."8 Ride through Mass on this bright Oct. day. Stop over night at the Pratts at Malden Bridge in Columbia Co. 9 Lovely day, reach home at 5 P.M. 10 Hard frost last night, first of the season; kills tomatoes and corn. 18. A cool week with one day of pretty heavy rain; only one day of sunshine, no frost. All the woods crimson, and orange and yellow -- yellow greatly predom-inateing. All the week at Slab sides. Every night Hiram and I and Nip sit here by our open fire and read and talk and nod. Chapman and Brewster came yesterday for the day. Brewster a fine attactive fellow.21 To Doylestown, Pa. where I speak in the evening to 1100 people, the court house is full to the wall. Do not do very well, do not speak easily and smoothly, and the audience not very sympathetic, jaded I suspect from the daily and nightly lectures of the three preceding days. Room too close. My under-shirt is wet with perspirations when I have finished. A beautiful Country is Bucks Co, like England; a rich rolling country every inch cultivated. As you near Phila things have a very finished substantial look; the bridges, the embankments, the roads, the station -- all suggest England. What a contrast to New England this Phila region presents in its fertility, its farms etc. and yet how below mentally. In these higher regions, the contrast is as great the other way.22 Bright and sharp; back home at night. At D. saw people asleep in my audience for the first time; it had a depressing effect upon me. And that orchestra band in front of me with their stolid indifferent faces -- that depressed me, a wet blanket the first thing. I was more nervous than ever before and felt yesterday like cancelling all my engagements. I am no doubt shortening my life by this foolish lecturing business. -- I notice that womens hats do not have anything like so intimate a relation to the head as mens hats do -- they seem more arbitrary and accidental. They appear to hover about the head or to have alighted there by chance. They in no case conform to or take the shape of the head. But is not this largely true of womens entire dress?-- It is not till we get away from home that we see how our native hills and mountains tower up. -- Nov 1st Last of Oct fine and mild; many real golden days. Yesterday Mr Chubb and Mr Shaw with 6 boys from the Brooklyn High School came and stayed till 5 P.M. to-day. A fine time. A nice lot of boys; I find their youth contagious. Cloudy but warm to-day. 3d Election day; clear and warm as Sept. No chance for Bryan I fear, tho' I would gladly see him elected just as a snub to the millionaires. 8. A mild week, with heavy rain yesterday and last night. All the streams roaring. 9. Go to Pottsville Pa. to speak; -- am not in good formand speak very poorly. A large audience in an opera house -- cant see the faces of the people nor see my notes -- footlights glaring up in my face. Once the audience tittered in derision I think. I can't recall at what, probably at my awkwardness and failure to see my notes. Dont think these Pa. audiences care for me or what I have to say. I am much cast down. I find I must have the sympathy of my audience and if I fail to get it the wind is taken out of my sails at once. I am a poor machine -- never run twice alike, too sensitive; am apt to do extrememly well, or very poorly according to circumstances. I am called Doctor by nearly every body, and fine doctors very common all about me. It seems to be a favorite title here, as Colonel is in the South. 11 Am so unnerved that I jump my Brooklyn appointment to lecture and [grossed out: g] ask them to get Garland in my stead. Sleep very poor for nearly a week now. 15. Cold wave, the severest of the season, with a white wash of snow night before last; froze quite hard last night. Hiram and I still at S.S. 22. A rather mild pleasant week Spent two days in P. at Court. Nearly clear to-day and growing cold. Hiram and I have only a few days more at S.S. 23d Coldest night of the season, but clear and getting milder to-day. The Whitman book came Saturday, -- think it has reality -- that the reader will on the whole have the sense of having come in contact with real ideas and distinctions and not with mere words. Could have made it much better if I had givenanother year to it. 26 Thanksgiving; warm as Sept. Clear and Indian summery in the afternoon. Mercury above 60. Play croquet with Gordon girls. Hiram leaves me to-day to be gone several months -- thus closing a curious and interesting chapter in my life. He leaves me pensive and vacant. Hiram never looked into one of my books lying here on the table while here. When the Whitman book came I said to him with the book in my hand "Hiram here is the book you have heard me speak about as having cost me nearly 4 years work and which I re-wrote about four times." "That's the book, is it?" said Hiram, but never showed any curiosity about it, or desire to look into it. Of "A Year in the Fields" he looked at some of the pictures, but not all. Some of the home scenes he did not recognize.27. Warm as May with clouds and S.W. wind. Mercury 70. This morning poor Harry Sutcliff was killed by an express train near W.P. station. The event gave me such a shock as nearly to use me up. The best boy in the place by all odds. Sturdy, sober, religious, industrious, faithful -- a loss to the place and to the state. His black eyes and hair, and his rosy cheeks, made him a delight to look upon. I saw them take a samll bible out of his breast pocket while examining the body. He was on his way to his work about 6 1/2 A.M; stepped out of the way of an up train and into the way of the down expess. He had been attending the revival meetings here the past week, had had but little sleep, was [crossed out: up] at a party the night before till midnight, and was probably half asleep when the train struck him. Farewell dear Harry.I do not forget this day that 44 years ago my little sister Eveline died. It came off warm that after noon like to-day -- after a severe spell of winter weather. 28. Still warm and showery. A severe cold wave reported to be near. -- I shall never be aable to tell how much I am warped or biased in Whitmans favor so that I am barred from taking an inde-pendent view of him. I would give anything to be sure that I see him as he is, to be his judge and not his attorney. I early fell into the way of defending him and it may be, may be that I can take only an expert view of him The moment I begin writing about him I become his advocate; my mind slides into the old rut or seems to at once. I must think further about this.-- One singular thing about Whitman was that common unlettered [crossed out: people] persons did not feel that he was separated from them -- they looked upon him as one of themselves -- with a difference that they did not quite understand but which did not disturb them. My hired man S. C. took to him greatly, and Peter Doyle and W. were real loving comrades. Some would consider this trait a defect, but I consider it a great merit -- without the [crossed out: W] breadth of relation to man-kind which this implies, W. would not be the inevitable democrat he claimed to be. Dec 3d Cold wave -- down to 10 no snow --began to get cold two days ago. 5 Mild bright delightful Dec. day. Roads dry and dusty. 8. Mild and pleasant the past few days. Prof Triggs came Yesterday. We have had a day and a night [crossed out: at] in Whitman land and much talk and real intellectual intercourse. I think Triggs will yet strike out something new and valuable in the way of criticism -- may be formulated the principle of the new dem-ocratic criticism. I told him Kennedy had written me that an old Yale professor of his, had said recently that Whitcomb Riley was the true poet of democracy instead of Whitman. We agreed that Riley was a true democratic poet, but not at all of command-ing genius; he suggests nothing is nothing but Riley. He is a specimen and not a genius a tribe; he is a local flora but not botany. There is nospiritual or intellectual stimulus in Riley, one welcomes his poems as he welcomes any real and genuine thing; but they are minor productions, they are light craft that do not draw much water, Walt Whitmans keel scrapes the deepest bars. He could do nothing in the waters in which the Hoosier poet disports himself. W. is not the first or only democratic poet, but he is the first all inclusive one -- the first one in whom the democrats spirit have come to full maturity and proceeds to take possession of the world in its own right and confronts the old types with an egoism wqual to their own. Riley is a Hoosier poet. W. is a world poet. 9. Rained all night; mild and sunshiney to-day. Go to P. to hear Sam Maclaren-- like him better than I expected. Very clever. That delicious scotch speech is of itself a bribe to me. I seem bound to like everything uttered in it. 10. Still mild -- no front -- partly overcast. -- Looking over the poetry of some of the minor Bribisle poets -- David Gray. Massey Dolson etc. Their world do not cut through the origin of things glimpses of the pathos beauty of life, but not of its mystery, terror or power. We are never lifted to the heights or plunged into the depths. -- Probably the main thing about Whitman after all is his tremendous egoism, the thrust and power of the personal pronoun. At first this rather [???] and irritates me, what a colonal egotist, we are apt to say; but by and by we come underits power and see that it is not out of proportion -- that the man makes his worlds good that he is not above man but of the and would bring the whole race flush with himself. It is the egoism and ever living presence that makes the Leaves a man, in the sense that no other work is, of course it is the personal quality that tells in all writing and in all action too. How much of a man are you? is the "I" expression of mere personal conceit, or of a deep broad natural egoism? We usually call it character but by whatever name, it is the man back of all. -- Are W's ethical values greater than his literary or artistic values? But does not the ethical value of any piece of writing finally depend upon the literary value? upon the manner of presentation? A sermon aims at ethical value but if its literary value be low will its ethical value be high? I think not. Every page of Emerson has an ethical import which is enhanced by the poetic quality of the writing. Teh goody-goody books are good ethics, but they do not strike [crossed ou: ???] home because they are poor literature. W's ethical or patriotic or philosophic value will not save him; these things would not save the Bible -- only an effective presentation can embalm them. Matter and manner are both equally important. The younger writers, Stevenson, Pater, Howells, James have the manner but not the matter -- they have nothing important to say, but they say it extremely well. The matter is always in the man, in his personality, in the comprehensiveness of his relation to life and to nature -- in that something we call wright and authority. How extremely clever Howells, how he tickles the literary and visual sensebut he gives one no adequate sense of bulk or power -- he has no deep sigificance. The new men are all light-weights. They do not love greatly, or feel deeply or think profoundly. Dec. 17 On my way over to Slab sides to-day was attracted by great hulibaloo among the chickadees and nuthatches in a hemlock tree. Such a chorus of tiny voices I had not heard for a long time. The tone was of trouble and dissent, if not of alarm. The nuthatch I think was the red bellied. I gazed long and long up into the dark dense green mass of the tree to make out the cause of the complaint. The chickadees were clinging to the ends of the sprays, as usual, very busy looking for food, and all the time uttering their plaint. At last I spied the cause -- a little owl on a limb looking down intently upon me. How annoying such exposure and hue and cry on the part of the birds, must be to the little lover of quiet and privacy! 19. A little flurry of snow last night; cooler and windy this morning. -- In N.Y. last Sunday heard a sermon on Nature and Evil by Merle Wright. Sound in its philosophy I think but lacking in vividness and concreteness in its presentation. It was Whitmans doctrine of evil -- that evil is temporary or unripe good, or a necessary part of the good, I should have said. My brethren, there is no abstract or absolute evil, there is only temporary and passing evil. Evil in human life is what hinders and defeats, and gives pain Ignorance is an evil when it does these things; Knowledge is an evil when it does these things. Evil tends to extinguish itself. The currant worm is an evil to the current; its course, if unchecked, is to kill and destroy that which it feeds uponand thus bring about its own destruction. The same with the elm beetle or potato beetle. Fire is an evil when it gets the upper hand of you, and tends in the same way to self extinction. There is no principle of evil as the theologians have taught; things are evil with reference to us and our wants. There are antagonistic or mutually destructive forces in nature and the present state of things in the physical cosmos, is the equilibrium brought about by the endless clashing and warring of these forces. There is no such thing as cold, there is only heat; no such thing as darkness; true is only light. In a general survey evil is imperfection, and imperfection is a condition of growth, and hence necessary. -- The case of young harry Sutcliff and his death upon the R.R, still runs in my mind. It was said that he had recently been heard to say that he wished for death that he might join his mother in heaven. The revival meetings here at the church which he had been attending every night seem to have filled him with such thoughts. The engineer of the train said at the inquest that he thought he must have been deaf, as he paid no heed to the train screaching and thundering behind him in the still morning air. The up train was not yet in sight or hearing. How shall we account for it? What deadened him to the sound of the train? Some think he was meditating over the prayer meeting which he was to conduct that night in the church. If so what power of abstraction he must have had! Miss Gordon [crossed out: th] saidshe believed God took away his reason at that moment, because he had other use for him! Think of such a view of the almighty as that! It was the will of God of course. If a man is struck by an engine going 40 miles an hour it is the will of God that he should be killed -- the world is thus made. Was it the will of God that he should be upon the track and should fail to hear the approaching train? Of course it was. [crossed out: Have] Given all the circumstances and conditions the physical and mental forces acting upon him would of course land him just there and just thus self absorbed. In this sense everything that happens is inevitable and is thus the will of God. 20 A bright, still sharp day. Mercury down to 18 this morning. No snow. I do not forget that this is the 16th anniversary ofMothers death and the 93rd of fathers birth. Much thin floating ice in river to-day. 23. Winter, full fledged, upon us at last. Snowed all last night and all day to-day from north with mercury at 20 or lower; snow light and very dry, nearly one foot. 24 Clear, down to zero and below; river closed -- bright now ice in front of us -- Extract from letter to admiring stranger -- "I am glad to hear that words of mine have been a help to any body. I think they have been a help to myself have deepened my love of nature and added to my resources. Writing or speaking from our heart, no doubt deepens the channel of our thoughts and feelings. -- One season when I was 15 or 16, I had such a desire to go away to school. To this day I can occasionallysurprise a remnent of that desire in my mind, or a sort of lingering whiff or odor of it. I wanted to go to Harpersfield. Dick Van Dyke a neighbors boy [crossed out: went there] had been there and was going again in Sept. and I wanted to go with him. Father half-promised that I might go. He said I must help do up the falls work first. There was a field above the sugar bush that had to be crop-plowed. I must do that. So at it I went -- the first and last field I ever plowed. Day after day in the September weather I followed the plow, all the time thinking of Harpersfield. What a charm the name had for me. I lived in its atmosphere for weeks. But I never got there. Dick went and I stayed behind. Father when the pinch came, said no, he could not spare the money, the home school was good enough and I must wait But thinking it over at this lateday I conclude I went to Harpers-field after all, or that it came to me. The desire, the ambition, the dream, [crossed out: was] were probably more to me than the reality itself would have been. It gave a fine tone to my days. The disappointment was a good discipline, it threw me back upon upon myself and helped to clinch my purpose to yet go away to school upon money of my own earning, which I did [crossed out: in] a year or two later. How different with my own boy; he has but to wish for schooling and it is his. Is it best so? I doubt it. I fear he will miss the great educational value of defeat and denial. -- If there were no freshets or floods in the creek, its channel would no doubt be more easy and uniform, but we should miss the great deep pools. The unsightly banks of gravel and drift is the price paid for the deep pools. -- The dangerous thing is the desire to write -- the literacy itch; the only safety is in having something inside you that presses for utterance, some thought or experience that will be expressed. Xmas; Two or three degrees below this morning -- the trees all feathered out with white frost plumage. Madam angry and abusive as usual -- all because I did not bring home a lot of worthless stuff for Xmas. -- Business Depression -- That the whole energy of the civilized world can be turned into business channels -- into trade, manufacturing, farming mining, rail-roading, with all the stupendous aids of science, and not produce too much of evey-thing -- this is what the political doctors do not see. That production must outrun consumption undermodern stimulated conditions, is self-evident. One man now does the work of twenty or more, and the currency has not increased in proportion. The per capita criterion is not the right one. The volume of goods to be handled and consumed is the measure. If these increase faster than the currency, prices will fall, because more things must be bought with less money. 31 A warmer spell the past few days. Today bright and clear and the sun melting the snow. The month goes out beautifully. Jan. 1 Clear and sharp, mercury at 16 at tem am. Clouds com up hurriedly and cover the sky. -- A good motto to start the new year upon: Set thy mark low as regards thy deserts, high as regards thy duties. 4 Still warm and soft, mercury about 50 degrees. Snow nearly all gone, no rain yet. A few days ago I saw and heard bluebirds. Spending my time writing a little in the forenoons on literary themes, sawing wood and walking in afternoon. -- To a certain critic: Can't you see that Whitman admits of and justifies this kind of statement -- Can't you see that is is all made out of him and that, therefore, the substance of it must be in him? Can't you see that it is not outside, cut and dried, eulogy, but a sympathetic drawing out and re-statement of his intrinsic values? Could I have written the book had not thesubject suggested it? or begot it upon me, as it were? You might as well say I eulogize Nature in my other books. I give you the result of the contact of my spirit with Whitman's. Whatever there is there comes from him through me. Could I have siad these things of Tupper? 7 Mild clear weather, like November. Snow all gone; ice on rive broken up in places. Bees have flown to this well. Five bluebirds yesterday, says Julian, eating berries of poison ivy. 8 Clear and a little colder, mercury down to 20 degrees this morning.9 Bright, sharp day, mercury 17 degrees this morning. I write in forenoon and go over to SS in afternoon. I do no forget that it is the 13th anniversary of Father's death. No snow. -- I wonder if there is another so-called literary man who spends his time as I do -- in the solitude of the country, amid the common people. Here I sit, night after night, year after year, alone in my little Study perched upon a broad slope of the Hudson, my light visible from afar, reading an hour or two each evening, and then to bed at 9. No callers, no society, no proper family or home life. Not in years has a person dropped in to spend the evening with me. Occasionally Julian comes in afterhis return from school, and we talk awhile. (Julian is developing a very quick, keen, and eager intellignence.) Up in the morning before daylight and lend a hand in getting breakfast, and then the furnace and a few chores; the fifteen minute walk to the P.O. and back; building a fire in the Study; a little reading and then, at 9, to work with my pen till noon. Then dinner and a few chores, then sawing and splitting wood for the next 24 hours, then a walk to Slabsides, or elsewhere; then a little reading and dozing in my Study; then supper and darkness again. Every day and eveyr day in winter the same. What long, long thoughts I have! What constant retrospection, what longing for the old days and people! The world goes by meafar off. I hear its roar and hubub, but care little to mingle in it. It is mostly vanity and vexation of spirit. 17 Rain last night but not heavy. The last bit of snow gone. Clear today here, snow squalls in the Catskills. Colder in pm. 18 A cold wave, down to 20 degrees this morning; ground like iron; ice on river one broad glare. Sky clear with much wind. Health unusually good these days, and mind eager and active, even prolific of ideas. -- Just looked again into Dr. Johnson. His essays do not seem to have been spoken out of his real mind at all, but out of some kind of artificial or put-on faculty, like most sermons one hears, or the editorials one readsMost men are wiseer in talk than in writing. In writing we are apt to dip the cup too deep. Now if you want the cream of the milk you must not dip too deep. Real wisdom is light. After a man passes middle life, and have on wisdom, it is on the surface of his mind, and withing easy reach. Set him after it with his pen, and the chances are he will get but little of it. He will be too formal; he will get himself up for the occasion there will be no ease or indifference in his method; he will go to delving in his mind, and we will not get that simple self-expression we are after. The last benefit of a conversation is that it makes a man simple, and makes him value the plain, near by things. What is interesting in a man is what he himself has felt or experienced. If you can tell us that, we shall listen eagerly. The raw man does not know this, but seeks the far-off or the deep=down. Hence the best writing is like talk, it is so direct, and there is so little beating around the bush in it. Hence comes in the value of the interviewer. If he get real talk out of the politician, or the celelbrity, the chances are that his report will be vastly more entertaining and meaty than a speach or a letter from the interviewer would be. Or, it is like nudging the tree -- the ripe fruit falls easy. The pen often brings off unripe fruit, like a determined shake. We make a dead-set at the mindWe are determined it shall yield up its fruit. Talk is spontaneous, writing is premeditation and labor. In Dr. Johnson's talk, you touch the real man; in his essays, you touch only his clothes, or his periwig. In letter, too, people are apt to give us their real selves, women especially. Carlyle wrote as he talked; but the reading is less than the hearing because the voice and the laugh smoothed it. The printed page is rough. Now a smooth road does not add to the pleasure of riding or walking any more than a smooth page, a steady flow, adds to the pleasure of reading. And many of Carlyle's sentences do give the mind a jolt. It seems as if the German language must bruise the eye at least, with all its capital letters.-- Say a recent writer: "All health changes are evolutionary, not revolutionary". In fact, are not all revolutions eveolutions? we shall soon have no use for the word revolution. The French and The American Revolutions were certainly evolutions, growths, expansions. 20 Cold, down to 6 degrees aboce; ice like glass. 21 Snow last night, turning to rain; sploshy and foggy this morning. A great change. -- It is better to be too soft than too hard, is it not? We win more love, we have more enjoyment; we are more flexible; we can give ourselves more freely and entirely.P.M. Quite warm, sunshiny; snow nearly all gone. Sit in my summerhouse, Julian and I, for ten minutes; insects dancing in the air. 22 Bright and warm; only a little frost last night. -- If I write my Autobiography shall call it, "How it was with me." 25 Cold wave, down to zero in some places here, 6 degrees above at my house. How true it is that life blossoms but once for us, and that is in youth. The persons and events we knew then are primary; they made the world; they are part of the frame of things. All later ones are secondary and are soon forgotten.The later men who take the places of those we knew in our youth, seem like substitutes, mere make-shifts, and of no account. The old men, the real old men, why, they are all dead long ago: we knew them in our youth; they were always old, old from the foundations of the earth. These old men are mere imitations. We can remember when they were not oldl It is all put on. The grandfathers and grandmothers whom ew know -- think of any present-day grandfathers and grandmothers being anything more than mere counterfiets of them! 28 A good-sized snow storm came up the coast; snowed all night and till noon today, 9 inches. A tearing wind thisafternoon and all night. 30 Bright, cold; zero in many places, 10 above at my house. Feb. 1 Still bright and cold, 3 degrees below this morning. Still brilliant winter weather; sleighing farily good; hauling manure and muck. Julian and I still alone. Mrs. B. in Poughkeepsie since the 35th. -- A nuthatch feeding on the suet on the tree in front of my window uses his tail to frighten away the chicadees; spreads it suddenly like a fan, showing its brilliant colors of white, blue, and black. It seems to be his only weapon. The chicks are getting so they do not mind it. Just now he sat for nearly a minute near them with his tail spread, or opening and shutting it, while a chick ate away undisturbed. 5 Cold this morning, near zero. Ice harvest begins on the river today. -- Hiram comes again at noon, looks well. A big "row-jow" in the kitchen at night, all for Hiram. If it was spring, we would move to Slabides at once. 6 Milder, begins raining slowly in afternoon. 7 Still slowly raining, with fog -- a bluebird a few days ago. -- As we sit here at night with our minds reverted to the past, I love to ask Hiram again about the men. "In what year did Pete Tiffany work for us?" I ask. "In '44", says Hiram. What a strange feeling it gives me; what a vision of the year passes before me; What a far-off innocent time it seems to me! How many greatsouls were about in the world at that time; they seem to have kept the earth warm. Oh, how pathetic is the retrospect, how unspeakable! It all comes to a focus on the old home, father and mother in the flower of their days, and the brood of us children all under the paternal wings. -- When I see in the tlocal papter that a child has been born to some one in Roxbury, why should I think of father and mother, and feel a nameless pang. I do not know, but so it is. I can hardly analyze the feeling. Their last baby was born there over fifty years ago. I think of the joy they had in their children, and aof all their outlook upon life, and how it is all past and hushed so long ago. I see myself as a little boy rocking the cradle again, or minding the baby, while Mother bakes or mends or seeps or washes I hear her voice singing. I see Father pushing onthe work of the farm. Then there is another feeling. It seems late for babies to be born into the world; the show is about over; the curtain will soon fall; what can remain now of interest compared to what we have seen? It does not matter that one's reason tells him the world is old and played out only to him; that grandfather at my age probably felt the same, and his grandfather, and his, and his, felt the same; that to the young the world is young and untried, and full of promise, as it was to us in youth -- it does not matter I say, if this be so, the actual, concrete feeling remains the same, and life is a tale that is nearly finished.10 Clear and mild this pm, mercury only 3 degrees below feezing last night. Mild since Sunday, the 7th. Snow nearly all gone; ice harvest cut short; doubtful if any more ice is cut. Hiram at work on a new wagon-box. I hear his hammer as I write. Not well the past three days. Sore throat and general lassitude. 19 Was quite seriously ill the 16, Grip, I suppose -- fever and much pain. Dr. Read came three times. Am slowly mending now. Cattarh in head and lung remains. Was shut in the house from Thursday till Thursday, a kind of purgatory. A fine snow on the 11th about 10 inches. Colder after the snow. About zero one morning. Began to thaw Tuesday and has been bright and thawy since Snow rapidly disappearing. Good say weather. Ice men in despair. 25 Go to N.Y. Stay till March 1. Stop at Hotel New Amsterdam with Hamlin Garland; a fine fellow, much talk, very profitable to me. Dine and lunch here and there as I am invited. Do not gain much in strength -- up too late o' nights. March 1 Start for Washington this pm. Snowing in N.Y. 2 Lovely, mild, soft spring day in W. Walk out over the Rock Creek bridge; how the buried past comes back! 3 Rainy and Chilly. 4 an ideal day. Hang about the great inauguration crowd. See McKingley's hat as the carriage drives by. Do nottake much stock in him, tho' his face is a strong one. Saty in W. till the 9th. On Sunday, the 7th, Miss Merriam and I walk to the woods; a bright but chilly day; find a single hepatica on Piney Branch where I used to pluck my first hepatica long ago. 8 Overcast and chilly. Frank Baker, Miss Merriam and I walk up Rock Creek above Blagden's MIll. Woods grand and new to me. 10 Home today. Ice in river broke up last night. 11 Bright, lovely day, sparrows, robins, bluebirds all about. A starling over by the station. 12 Threatens rain. Sparrowsvocal as of old. Do they touch me as of old? I try to htink so. Hiram at work on the hen-house at SS yesterday. I go over in PM and sit near, and look on and try to realize that it is the Hiram of my boyhood, actually working here in this solitude. Only a little frost last night. -- In Washington I flitted about for a moment amid the old scenes of other days, throught the halls of the Treasury, the Rotunda of the Capitol, the Monument lot, past the houses where I had lived, along Piney Branch and Rock Creek, full of thoughts of the past. Here I had stood or walked with Channy; here I had strolled with Walt' here I had wandered in solitude with my youth. How it all came back to me but with a pathos I did not then feel.14 Snowing after a day of great brightness and sharpness. 2 1/2 inches. 17 Clear and shapr, down to 15 degrees this morning. Strength slowly recovering. WP Slow rain all night, fog and mist today; ice nearly all out of the river. Sparrows and robins singing as of old. 21 Damp, misty with signs of clearing this morning. Roads very muddy. Mercury above 40 degrees. On 19th it was up to 52 degrees. 23 Light sprinkle or rain last night. Warm and spring-like today; all the early birds here including phoebe. In afternoon Hiram and I move over to Slabsides and take up the old story where we dropped it last Nov.24 began raining early in the evening. Wind in the east htis mornign and raining slowly. Storm came up via Georgia. One robin, one sparrow, and one phoebe here this morning to keep me company. Also the mourning-doves. I fee llike a toad that has got out from under the harrow. 29 After five days of blustery, chilly, squally cloudy March weather, we hae clear skies and a prospect of warm, cam days. Froze last night. Promises a splendid say day among the Delaware hills. At SS reading Economics, and touching up some Mss. Last night, sitting by the fire, Hiram and I again referred to the old names and events of long ago. That little span of one's youth, how its memories dominate one's life, especially as one grows old!April 1 The fifth of the bright, sharp days -- days from the North. Froze quite hard last night, not a cloud today. Yesterday Julian and I paddled up the Creek to Black Pond for ducks. No ducks seen. A warbler in song in the woods, probably the pine warbler. A flock of rusty blackbirds on the margin of the stream all singing in concert, a musical jangle; some of their notes very pleasing. I paddle up and Julian paddles back. Nip falls overboard twice, and then shakes the boat with his shivering. We return by Tom Riley's and Tom shows us where a hawk killed his rooster on Sunday. April comes in dry, hard and brilliant -- a face of steel. 2 Bright crystalline days contintue, 8 or 10 degrees of frost every night ideal sap-weather; roads getting dusty. Not a cloud, sky a hard, intense blue. Van Ingen and daughter Josie up yesterday painting my portrait. Miss Ball of Vassar, and a Mrs. S up at 4 pm. Take them out to Julian's Rock -- two jolly women. 3 My 60th birthday. Clear and sharp as usual. I spent the day thus: After breakfast I read and wrote till near 11, when Van Ingen and his daughter arrived. Sat for Josie to paint my portrait till 12. Then had dinner; then talked and read paper for an hour; then sat again for Josie for an hour. All 3 go over to the house and poke about. Day much warmer. Forgot to say that after breakfast I helped Hiram saw off the butt of his hickory log -- a lugging, half-hour piece of work. Health good, sleep ditto. Back rather weak and easily tired since the Grippe left me; mind fairly active; spirit pretty good. 5 The end of the brilliant days. Clouded up yesterday pm, and last night a gentle rain. Cloudy and mild this morning. 9 Heavy rain, rained all last night and near all day today from 3, probably 2 inches of water. Mrs. B. gone to Saratoga. Julian here with Hiram and me. 10 Bright and cool. Arbutus beginning to bloom. 11 Sunday bright and fine. Julian and I and the Taylor girls go to Sunset Rock in PM. The fresh green rye patches beyond Black Pond and the pink and red flush over the swamp maples along the Creek make a very pleasing April scene. J. and I see a Marsh hawk (male) alright in a field and devour something. I go there and find a half [???] white footed mouse. Find a hand full of my fine arbutus. A charming day. 12 Quite a frost last night, but day promises to be fine. [crossed out: 13] Fine day. Spoke in P. in the evening before teachers association. 13 Frost again last night; bright sharp day 14 Warmer, threatens rain; heard water thrush 15 Rain from NE. Sat by fire reading Walker on Money and watching my pot of beans baking in the chimney corner. Rain not wanted. Amasa set out 1200 celery plants yesterday. Rain heavy in afternoon.-- Walking in the woods I gathered a handful of hepaticas, some of them sweet-scented, as I came along I said this is what most of the poets do; they aim to gather a handful of poetic flowers. If one hepatica or one group of them is so beautiful there amid the dry leaves and woody rubbish, why shall we not gather a hundred of them and find the beauty multiplied an hundred fold? But it is not so. We gather the flower but not the beauty of which it was the occasion and of which it was only a part. In the room the bunch of flowers look tame and common place enough. The beauty was in the contrast, the unexpectedness, the separateness etc. In the poem there is just this too much of skimmed off or culled beauty. Its connection its genesis is not there; the best part is left out.16 Bright and cool after the rain, light frost last night. Stopped last night in the wet spongy meadow in front of Dick Martins and heard the "Wood cocks evening hymn", The bird was calling in the twilight, "yeap" "yeap" or "seap" seap" from the ground, a peculiar reedy call. Then by and by it started upward on an easy slant that peculiar whistling of its wings alone heard, then at an altitude of 100 feet or more, it began to [crossed out: circle] drift about in wide circles and broke out in an ecstatic chipper, almost a warble at times, with a peculier smacking musical quality; then in a minute or so it dropped back to the ground again, not like the lark, but more spirally, and continued its call as before. In less than five minutes it was up again Looking in the direction of the sun now in the late or mid after-noon, the soft maples stand in a rosy mist or nimbus against the vivid green of a meadow slope or rye field beyond. How pleasing the prospect, the maidenhood of April. The old dreams, the old longings come back. Oh, April, how I love you. 17. More rain; begun in the night. A disgust of rain seems near. 18 Easter Sunday; light frost again last night, no real warmth yet. Day promises to be bright and mild. 19 Warmer with threatening clouds from S.W. First heard whipporwill on the 16th 20 A sudden and very severe cold wave last night, as if some one there in the North had opened a big window and let the Arctic currents flow in upon us. The whole atmosphere seemed chilled in ten minutes. Mercury dropped from 60 to 22 before morning with strong wind; formed ice nearly an inch thick; killed some, if not all the young celery; killed all my cherries, and I fear the currants, too. 21. Very cold again last night, about 24 degrees here, and 28 at Riverby. Milder to-day: a wonderfully clear and delightful day, Great damage to fruit buds all over the country. Below zero in northern Michigan24 A soft brooding, slightly veiled April day, a female day, bewitching full of sentiment. Shad trees in bloom, warblers just arriving, turtle dove softly calling, swallows twittering over head, social sparrow chanting, farmer plowing, gardeners planting, downy wood pecker drumming, violets blooming. The streams and little brooks run full and clear, the river is full of shad and herring, the hen if off the nest with her tender brood. The cow hides her calf in the dry leaves in the woods, the sheep steer for the uplands, the sow nurses her "faint pink litter" in the sun -- in short it is late in April and the tide of life is mounting in all things. Mercury promises to reach above 70 degrees.25. Our April hot spell upon us at last -- three days now of summer temperature -- to-day goes above 80. Everything growing on a jump; currants and cherry trees just beginning to bloom. 26. Cooler with light rain in the night. Clear and fine. How sweet is the world. 29. Frost again last night, but not severe. Spring comes reluctantly. -- How free is Arnolds criticism from anything subltle, curious, far fetched; no hair splitting, no special pleading, no ingenious turnings and [???] He always keeps to the broad open road. It is always the common sense view, touched and heightened by his fine poetic and literary quality. Here in is a lesson for me.April 30. April goes out like a dream, soft, warm, (above 70) veiled; the maples in a thin yellowish green veil, the cherry trees draped in white, a mist of green in the orchards and woods. -- To a poet friend in the city How I pity you; how much you are missing that a poet ought to see, -- the first dandelions by the road side, the grazing cattle, the succulent nip of the tender grass, -- the plower turning the furrow, the hen with her brood, the children on their way to school with hands full of violets and wild flowers; the emerald rye fields and a thousand other things that make the country so charming these last April days.May 1st Cloudy, with spurts of rain from N.E. Cooler. 2. Still cloudy with dashes of rain at long intervals. All the forest trees touched by the wand of spring. Poppletown Hill looks classic with its vivid green and brown. 5 After 4 days of cloud and rain the sky is again clear; ground well soaked. Cool. Mrs Hale and her friend come Monday the 3d. Two very interesting women. The new woman is a great improvement on the old. She loves the open air like a man and is nearly as unconventional. There seems to be more poetry in her soul than in the man's. 7 A perfect day yesterday. Rain last night from the West, Cool, and clearing this morning.10 May, No fault to find with May now; warm S. wind yesterday and to-day, a greenish yellow over all the woods; the time of the blooming of orchards at hand; apple trees great bouquets, pear trees mounds of snow; warblers arriving; just heard the Connecticut again, as I did last year. k-chink, k-chink, k-chink, chr-r-r-r, or nearly that, very bright and animated song; delivered on the wing also as it flew to a new perch with quiviering wing. Seems related to ground warblers. Yesterday morning when we first got up, at 5, Hiram called my attention to some large black object [crossed out: upon] about mid way of a tree near the top of the ridge back of Ingersolls. It seemed as large as a turkey. Hiram said he bet it was a coon. I felt sure it was an Eagle. We kep an eye on it for nearlyan hour; then we saw it move, presently I saw a gleam of white as the bird bent forward to preen its plumage; then it stood up and lifted its plumage and wings and shook itself; a bald and no mistake Had he passed the night there? I hope so. By and by having fixed himself for the day, he launched into the air and flew directly over the house. The thought of him lingered all day. What attracted him here attracts me -- the wildness and seclusion; the precip-itous gulf etc. Noble lodger, I hope you will come nightly to my craggy retreat. It is an inspiration for all day to look out of the window as I get up and see thee upon thy perch. Fine shower in afternoon. 13. Rain all day. Rain yesterday also. The drains here full of water; a freshet in all the streams. Rain from S.W. and rather warm. Johnson and his wife left to-day. Came Tuesday night. Enjoyed their visit much. apple bloom beaten off by the rain. 14 Every thing sodden this morning, the sky as well; fog and heavy clouds. May in the sulks. Bright and warm in afternoon. 15. Rain again last night. Clear and lovely this morning. Rain enough to stand us a month. 18 Loveliest of May days, this the fourth in succession. A kind of shining nimbus diffused through the air 22 23 Bright, clear cool day, after some rain; very beautiful, -- in the [???]. 25 A fine rain again last night, rather warm to-day.26. Cool; wind N.W; frost farther north. No real heat yet this spring; fine grass and grain weather. promises of a big hay crop. 27 Go out home to-day on early train all well, Boys working on the road.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1 Nov 1898 - 2 Apr 1899
Text: Nov 1st A bright mild day. I spent part of it at S.S. trying to write; the thought of Nip constantly hovering about my mind. Men of my temperament make much of their griefs. It is anther form of our self indulgence. We roll the bitter morsel under our tongues and extract the last drop of bitterness. It is probable that I make the death of Nip the occasion to gloat over the past and of that which can never return. This is my disease, it is in my system and the loss of the dog brings it out...
Show moreNov 1st A bright mild day. I spent part of it at S.S. trying to write; the thought of Nip constantly hovering about my mind. Men of my temperament make much of their griefs. It is anther form of our self indulgence. We roll the bitter morsel under our tongues and extract the last drop of bitterness. It is probable that I make the death of Nip the occasion to gloat over the past and of that which can never return. This is my disease, it is in my system and the loss of the dog brings it out afresh. It gives an acute form. But I was deeply attached to him, and the thought of him will always be precious to me. In afternoon go to Vassar to hear Prof Bracq lecture on French Criticism. Not an original mind.2nd Mild, S.W. wind with signs of rain. Alone at S.S. Of all the domestic animals, none calls forth so much love, solicitude and sorrow as the dog. He occupies the middle place between the other animals and man. Our love for him is below that for our fellows and above that we have for any other dumb creature. How many men there are now in the [crossed out: country] world, millions of them, whose love for their dogs is next to that they have for their friends and families, and their grief at their loss next to a domestic bereavement. My grief for Nip has lost the acuteness of the first day and night, but I carry in my heart a constant heavy sorrow. I rather wish I had buried him in some secluded spot near by instead of here in front of the house, where I could have gone on occasions, withdrawn from other thoughts and things. I fear I shall cease to notice the humble grave constantly before me. 3. Bright, Clear, still sharp. A pretty severe frost. Spend the day at SS. 5. Mild, fine weather. Go to West Point to see Princeton and the Cadets play foot ball. A sombre hue to all my days. 6 Light rain last night. Clearing today, with prospects of cooler. Leaves nearly all off. 9. Beautiful day, mild, still, with gleams of sunshine. Go to P. at night, a black experience. 10 Heavy cold rain all day, began in the night. Probably 2 inches of water. 11 Clearing and growing much colder. 12 Mild fair day. at S.S. 13. Fair day. " " 14 Severe frosts, fair day. 15. Fine day. Go to P. in afternoon and evening. Feel much better. 16 Severe frosts; fine bright day. 17 Cold slow rain all day. 18 Fog and mist all day, rain setting in at 4 P.M. and continuing all night. 19 Still raining from the North. Last night came the sad news of the death of Prof. Van Ingen of Vassar, a man I have known and loved many years. A genial, hearty, frank, simple man, and a fine artist. I met [crossed out: saw] him Tuesday night on the street as well and hearty as I ever saw him. He was going to the dentist. I walked along with him. He urged me to go home20 Rain continued slowly all day yesterday. Clearing this morning and cooler--but still mild. To-day they bury Van Ingen. I should be there but no train or boat. Genial soul, again farewell.with him--said he was coming up on Sunday for the day, and there we parted to meet no more in life. Farewell, farewell. --Last night as I was walking along the road my ear was attracted by the fine, shrill lisping and piping of some Kinglets in an apple tree. I paused to see what was the occasion of it. There were 4 or 5 Kinglets all more or less excited, and two of them especially so. I think the excitement of the others was only a reflection of that of these two. They were hopping about each other, apparently peering down upon something beneath them. I suspected a cat concealed behind the wall and so look over, but there was nothing there. Observing them more closely, I saw that the two birds were entirely occupied with 22 Start for Cambridge to-day, a clear day. Reach Boston on time, 9:05 PM. Julian finds us at U.S. Hotel, looking well and happy. 23. Find rooms at Felton Hall. 24 Light rain. Go out to Belmont to dinner with Kennedy. Julian and I walk out and enjoy the walk greatly. An enjoyable day. 25. Clear sharp day. Go to Boston in P.M. to hear Zangwell, a discourse full of point, wit, and sense. A hatchet-faced man, with hair that suggests a wig; it seems to sit upon his head rather than to grow out of it. Voice not big or strong but agreeable. One of the coming leaders in literature. 26 A full blown winter snow storm, began last night; a tearing wind; a fog of snow; street cars all stopped, trains delayed, milk men snow bound. Continues near all day, 13 or 14 inches, from Phil. to Maine. N.E. gets the brunt of it. Temperature at freezing. 27 Clear, sharp, a white world with green grass under the snow. Shovels and snow plows everywhere busy. Travel and traffic resumed. Began writing to-day in Harvard reading room. 29 More snow--about 4 inches. Dec 4. Rain this P.M. becoming pretty heavy at night; takes off half the snow. Dine with Prof. Shaler. 5. Near all day in Boston and at the Athenaeum. Walk back. Fine day. 6 Sharp, nearly clear. My heart palpitation nearly gone. Sent off a paper to Century on Saturday, on Wild Life About My Cabin. Must begin another. 7 Fine day, snow more than half gone. Walk to B.--From Dorothy Wordsworth: “At once the clouds seemed to cleave asunder, and left her in the centre of a black-blue vault. She sailed along followed by multitudes of stars, small and bright and sharp.” Appropriated by W. in his “Night-piece.” Day after she and William gathered sticks in the woods, bringing home “large burthens” of them. Day after day they walked to Stowey with Coleridge. Once she went alone and returned in the evening with him. --A vol. of George Meredith’s poetry in my hands for the first time, “Lyrics and Sonnets." Find I have little use for him. The utterance is thick in even the best passages. He is a poet undoubtedly but the poetry rarely runs clear in more than two or three lines at a time, while much of the time it is mud, mud, opaque as a dirt road. His thought is so swathed in hiswords, his cumbrous, tortuous epithets, that it can hardly go at all. One feels in reading him, oh, the beauty of ease, limpidity, simplicity. To be difficult is not to be profound. Opacity is not the same as depth, harshness is not a sign of power. Plate glass offers the eye no resistance, but this wavy or twisted and contorted glass bewilders and obscures. Browning’s glass has a twist in it, but Meredith’s has smoke and sand. We have a right to eternally demand of every poet or writer that he speak clear and distinct. We may not always catch his ideas, but we shall understand his words. Verbal opacity is not to be tolerated. When Whitman says “The cloth laps a first sweet eating and drinking” I do not know the idea he wishes to convey, but his language is as transparent as can be. 10 Pretty cold--about 20. Write in forenoon and walk to Boston in afternoon. Dined with Prof. James on the 9th. Like him much. Mrs. J. a very attractive and entertaining woman. Prof. Harris of Andover there, like him too. Young James a very handsome [crossed out: youth] young man. 11 Still cold and cloudy. Winter seems really here to stay. Julian comes down and sits a while with us in the morning. --“It was yielding to the gusty wind with all its tender twigs. The sun shone upon it and it glanced in the wind like a flying sunshiny [crossed out] shower. It was a tree in shape, with stems and branches, but it was like a spirit of water.” From Dorothy’s Journal. p. 65. 17. After a restless night I got up with a chill. Continues till noon, then fever and pain in back and limbs. Take quinine. 18. A wretched night, no sleep, intense pain in flesh and bones. Is it ague? Have the Dr. A little better during the day. 19. Mild and bright, walk out a little. Poor sleep; pain not so severe. Walk to P.O. Go to lunch with Dr. Cleghorn in P.M. Meet Dr. Bowditch. 24 Much rain and fog the past few days. Fever left me some days ago, but liver or kidneys still wrong. Feel much below par. My sickness the grippe; much of it all over the country. 25. To dinner with Trowbridge at Arlington. His cider does me good. A pleasant family. 26 Bright and sharp. Am better, begin to feel normal, not thepeculiar weakness of two years ago. Hear from Hiram that Eden is better. 30 Bright and spring like 55 degrees, fear it kills the winter. Go to Boston and review contract with H.M. and C. for $750 per year. Yesterday lunched with Scudder and met Higginson. H. was very agreeable and complimentary--a fine, scholarly, accomplished talker and diner out. Looks ruddy and well, tho’ his voice begins to show his 75 years. 31. Light rain, still mind. I am gaining my strength very slowly. 1899. Jan 1st Winter upon us again in earnest. Rain and snow yesterday, snow with rapid falling temperature all night. Cold this morning with 6 or 8 inches of snow. Air full of snow. At the library last night was surprised to see a paper of mine in N.A. Review, sent it two months ago. No proof was sent to me. See in it some sentences that should have been changed or stricken out. I seem better this morning. A poor day yesterday. Cough about over, but strength and ambition at low ebb. 5. Mild and spring like--snow nearly all gone. We go to Salem. I stand for some time on Gallows Hill where the witches were hung, among them an ancestor of mine, Rev. George Burroughs, over 200 years ago. A typical N.E. landscape, barren and rugged, low broken rocky waves with a ragged covering of turf--a body of rock with a tattered and torn covering of soil. Nothing to mark the site of the hanging. If I had the means Iwould put up a monument there. Walked about the streets of S. and into the Roger Williams house (Witch House). Thought often of Hawthorne and many other things. Health below par this day--one of my bad days. 6. Feel more like myself this morning. Snowing and growing colder. March weather. Julian just in. Told me he had been reading Howell's and Thoreau’s Walden. Liked T, but was disturbed by the economic problem he presents etc. 7 Storm over. Colder and clearing this morning. Last night attended dinner of the Russell Democratic Club, a guest of Col. Higginson. H. made a fine and telling speech. Much rain and sleet yesterday and some snow last night. Feel almost well today. 9 Cool, crisp weather--seem about well again. Called at Col. Higginson’s yesterday P.M. Julian and I dined at Professor James’ in the evening. 10 Cold and clear--down to 3 above this morning. Go to town in morning. In afternoon pack up and get ready to leave in morning. At 3 Julian comes in and we talk till 4--about his courses, his future career, etc., a long and interesting talk. The boy is evidently to be a story writer, says he loves it etc. Every day or two a new plot comes to him. Urges me to write a novel etc. It pains me to leave the boy but perhaps it is best. We have had many long walks together, but all things must end. 11 Leave C. this morning at 9:15. Julian bids us good by in the electric car. A cold morning, 3 above. Reach Albany at 4 1/2, wait 2 hours for train to P. Reach P at 8 1/2. 12 Find room and board at 69 Market, a little warmer. 13. Go up to W.P. A mist of snowand rain; ice 8 or 9 inches. Men at work marking. 14 Mild, heavy rain at times; threatens another break up. Evidently winter can not keep his hold. That terrible blow and snow storm of Nov. 27 was premature and seems to have demoralized the weather forces. It was too violent for Nov. Then the warm spell of the 5th seemed [crossed out: to say the] a fit sequel. Winter has got to see-sawing or wobbling and probably one extreme will follow another till spring. 15. Mild and March like today; a tearing March wind all last night, snow nearly all gone; ice crop threatened. 19 Fine, mild day. Go to N.Y. stay at Gilder’s till Tuesday morning. Weather beautiful, dry as summer, and mild most of the time. See Zangwill, Howells, Stockton, Miss Edith Thomas, Helen Gray Cone, and others. Call on Garland several times.Never saw N.Y. more beautiful, the long vistas of those streets, the fine weather, the slight haze, the beautiful women, all filled the eye. Stay two nights with Miss Burt, one with Chubb, one with the Gills at Bay Ridge. A heavy thunder shower on Tuesday night the 24th, like July. Rained hard in the afternoon also. 28. Back home, (to P.) to-day. Mild day. 29 Bright day and sharp. A long walk north of town. No snow, roads dusty. 30 Clear and cold. Go up to W.P. Ice-house being rapidly filled; ice 9 1/2 inches. 31. Flurries of snow this morning and colder. A long walk in P.M. with Booth. Feb 1 Flurry of snow last night. Clear this morning, mercury about 10. Not a flake of snow yet to impede the ice harvest. No scraping. --A certain bacillus thrives only in the aqueous humor of the eye of the white mouse. --Have been trying to re-read Byron through Arnold’s Selections from him. How barren it all seems to me. A strenuous spirit, but not a poetical one. Eloquent, oratorical, but rarely poetic. The quiet luminous beauty of true poetry is not in him. Feb 2nd Winter keeps his grip this time. Mercury still low (14 degrees). This morning still clear and dry. Saw winter wren yesterday at Highland. A little brown bird darted quickly under a bridge, emerged from the other side and stopped under a log on the side of the bank. It curtsied and gesticulated and I saw it was the winter wren. As I followed it up it took refuge under logs and brush and stone like a mouse. --For the production of such a poet as Tennyson (judging after the fact) an old ripe civilization is necessary, long ages of culture, a leisure class, a deep rich social soil, great personages, a great history, etc. Poets of the same type in this country are feebler because they are not the outcome of the same social and historical conditions; they are planted in a thinner cruder soil. Whitman, our only poet of first-class power, is not the product of our cultured and refined classes, the Church, the College etc., but of the people, the democratic masses. He strikes his roots into a soil that is deep and fertile; the blood in his veins is fresh and well-oxygenated. He is great because the people are great. Tennyson is great because the culture and heroism of the British upper classes are great. Emerson voices the religious aspiration and idealism of N.E. Longfellow its social culture and refine-ment, Whittier its philanthropic and reformatory spirit, Lowell its scholarship and patriotism, and these poets are great only as their antecedents and environment are great. Whitman alone has the continental life and push of [crossed out: the] a great democratic people back of him. All the unpoetic and repellant features of his work are expressive of American conditions, natural and social. He could not have arisen in England, because the conditions he implies do not exist there. He is as legitimate in America as T. is in England, and English and European critics see this and hail him as our first poet. We may deny him, and strive after the Tennysonian fineness and mellowness, but we cannot reach them [crossed out: it] or equal them [crossed out: it], power alone lies with him. 3rd Rain freezing on the trees and making skating for the boys on the streets and side walks. 4 Ill to-day--fear it is a return of the grippe, felt it coming 3 days ago. At night call Dr. Otis, temperature 102 1/5, pulse 90. No grippe pains, signs of cold in head and lungs, take 14 gr. of quinine during day. Dr. Otis gives me some tasteless water in 2 tumblers; by mistake I come near drinking one of them up. 5 Poor sleep, but fever nearly gone this morning. Keep in bed till afternoon; painless but content to lie in bed. Snows all day, slowly--2 inches. 6. Mild, cloudy, no fever or pain this morning, but not disposed to much exertion. 7 Feeling nearly well and take several walks. A fine mist of snow all day. Sun almost shining at times. Mercury 15 at 8, and 20 at noon. 8 The mist of snow thickened to a full-blown snow storm in the night with a fall of 3 or 4 inches. Still snowing this morning pretty hard; winter in earnest again, mercury 15 degrees. Weather predictions wide of the mark. Now at 10, storm becoming violent. 9 Clear, cold, mercury at zero. Go up to W.P. 10 Very cold, from 8 to 15 below this morning. Cold all over the country. Not quite well yet. 11 Continued severe cold. -12 below here. Cold all over the country, the record broken in many places. 7 below in N.Y. Great cold and snow suffering in Texas. Return of the fever yesterday P.M. Am better this morning. How the snow sings this morning under the wheels and runners. -15 below in Washington. 25 below in Parkersburgh, W.V. 35 below at Millbrook this Co. --Scott in his diary (date Feb 14, 1827) says of Sir George Beaumont, that he was a great friend of Wordsworth and understood his poetry, which he (Scott) considers a rare thing, “For it is more easy to see his peculiarities than to feel his great merit, or follow his abstract ideas.” How limpid and easy of understanding W. seems to us. I am led to ask will such opacity as George Meredith’s seem clear to the next generation? 12 About zero this morning and snowing. Winter has got hold with both hands this time and with his old time grip. 13. A raging snow-storm from the North. Mercury 3 and falling--the most rugged streak of winter weather I have seen for years. In Chicago the temperature has averaged about zero for nearly a week. -40 below in N. Dakota. Great loss of cattle in Texas. 14 Storm raged till middle of the night, at 5 one could hardly see half a block-- Fall of snow near 20 inches over a wide area. Storm said to have been 1000 miles wide. 35 below in Ky. The peach crop must be killed as far south as Georgia. One of the great storms of which one sees but few in a life time. This morning the streets of P. suggest those of ’88. All trains are stopped. I felt sure Feb. would give us snow enough. Two days in doors. 15. Bright and cold-- 2 below this morning, a return of the fever yesterday. --Scott said of himself "that if there be anything good about my poetry or prose either, it is a hurried frankness of composition which pleases soldiers, sailors, or young people of bold and active disposition.” --“No chance of opulence is worth the risk of competence” Sir Gilbert Elliot, quoted by Scott in Journal. --“An orator is like a top. Let him alone and he must stop one time or another--flog him and he may go on forever.” Scott, in Journal. “do not let us break ordinary gems to pieces because they are not diamonds.” Scott, Journal 16 Mild, threatening snow. Light hail and rain at night. 17 Mild, snow melting fast. 18 Still warmer, snow will run to-day. 19 Still mild. 20 Warm and clear, mercury 50, snow melting fast. 21 Still warm with signs of rain, mercury 50. 22 Threatens rain. We go back to W.P. Mrs. B. better. Clear and warm in P.M. 50 degrees. Glad to be here again and out of the accursed city. It all began to have a sickish look to me--people, boarding house and all. Been gone 3 months. 23 Bright, but cooler. Go to P and buy a harness. 24. Mercury down to 22 this morning. Clear. Go over to Slabsides. Men hauling muck. How good it looks to me over there. I am again established in my bark covered study and trying to resume the thread of my life. Rather weak yet from illness and want of exercise. 25. Bright and cold: down to 10 this morning. Begin to feel like myself. 26 A slight return of the grippe. Fever and langor last night and to-day. Rain and hail all day. 27 Warmer; rain over apparently. 28 Clear. Mercury 20. Walk over to Slabsides with Dr. Gordon. March 1st Nearly clear. Mercury 28. No birds yet; snow nearly gone from the road and fields. Spirits dull these days; the grippe seems to have made me much older. --Unless you can write about Nature with feeling, with real love, with more or less hearty affiliation and comradeship with her, it is no use. Your words will not stick, they will awaken no response in the reader. There are two or three writers now making books upon out-door themes that I find I cannot read. The page has no savor, it is dry and tasteless. The writers have taken up these [crossed out] nature themes deliberately, as they might any other; they have no special call to write upon them. I have tried hard to be interested in Gibson’s work, but I can not. It lacks juice, unction. There is feeling in his drawings, but not in his text. Bradford Torrey is the only nature writer at the present time, whose work I can read. 2nd Began snowing in the night, snowed all forenoon--about six inches. Mercury at freezing. First song sparrow to-day, but not in song--in a little hemlock near my study. 3 Bright this morning: snow melting--fear the sleighing is short-lived. Boys hauling muck. Snow disappeared like dew. Sleighing spoiled by noon. 4 One of the typical disagreeable March days, fog and slow rain slush, slush, every where. This is the price we must pay for the exquisite days of April. 5. Heavy rain in the night with thunder. Rain and fog and gloom this morning. Life dull and spiritless. Blue-birds in the air over the hill, and again near home in P.M. A change to cooler at 5 P.M. 6 Clear, lovely this morning, mercury at 30. Air above streaked with blue-bird calls, a sparrow in song under the hill. Day too fair, not a cloud or film till near sundown. A weather breeder. 7 A violent snow storm from N.E. Began at 8. Now at 12 there are several inches of snow, and it is still blowing and snowing like great guns. A male blue-bird on the maple in front sits behind a limb, but at times he is almost blown from his perch. Acts like one of the worst storms of the season. So much for yesterday’s brightness and blueness! Snowed till night, 8 or 10 inches. 8 Fair and quiet. Snow in drifts. Hauling muck again. Overhauling my letters last night and to-day. A sad task. 9 Cold this morning, down to 12. 10 Milder, Sleighing poor in places. 11 Mercury at 40. Snow going fast, cloudy threatening rain. Go to P. 12 To Julian, After I had kindled my study fire this morning at 8 1/2 you could have seen me come forth and greet a robin--the first robin who sat calling and saluting and laughing on the top of the old maple in front. Then you could have seen me standing on the edge of the bank listening to the song sparrows down toward the ice house, then to the blue-birds high overhead, then to a flock of blackbirds going North then to the call of the jack snipe. The river was hidden by fog--the trains heard but not seen, and mist dimmed thelandscape all about. Clouds covered the sky, wind SW. Still, mercury above 40. The most spring like morning yet. What does the robin say? I think it is “all hail” “wake up” “how have you been?” “glad to be back" "ha, ha, ha.” --Reading Lockhart’s Life of Scott. Read Scott’s Journals while in P. in Feb. What shall one say of Scott? A prodigious man; prodigious worker, player, eater, drinker (on occasion). Copious, fluent, abounding in all good feelings and instincts. He wanted a great deal of everything--money, friends, retainers, land, dogs. He was [crossed out: prod] a prodigal nature--prodigal of himself, of his time, of his means. Lived his life fast and under pressure and was used up at 60. Not fine or delicate, dull of nose, obtuse of palate, heavy of ear, but all but inexhaustible. He has no style, or rather hisstyle is that of the great average mass of mankind--ready, fluent, transparent, but nothing in and of itself; lacks individuality and delicacy. Nothing is felicitously said, but all is well said. The words have no aroma, there is no intellectual pressure, none of that kind of heat and intensity that turns carbon into the diamond. No suggestiveness, no phrase that lingers on the tongue, akin to Southey, but greater by far. The finest, best work can never be done with such rapidity--some of his novels written in six weeks--The Bride of Lammermoor written during great and acute bodily pain. A wholesale writer. One has no purely literary or artistic pleasure in reading him, but the pleasure of companionship, of health, of a flow of animal spirits, of content with a copious brotherly nature. What saves him from oblivion then, and makes each succeedinggeneration turn to him for entertainment? Is it his humanity, his atmosphere, his geniality and a kind of perennial youth in him? The same as in Homer. He does not savor of Art, but of life. He was so canny, so copious, so ardent--a world by himself. He does not appeal to a select circle, but to a great multitude. He has great magnetism and the kind of attraction that great bodies always have. A poor critic--he thought Campbell really a great poet--and Crabbe--and could not see much in Wordsworth--could not understand him. He did not want the rare--he wanted the abundant, the plenteous, but he wanted it alive and growing. Writer of impromptu novels to buy farms with, says Carlyle. 12 -10 1/2. Ice just began to move up, very slowly.13. River dotted with great masses of languidly moving ice fields. A futile attempt at a thunder shower [crossed out: last] yesterday afternoon. Much thunder (not heavy) and light dashes of rain--as one so often sees in summer. Spend the day at Slabsides with Booth and Lowne. Seem quite well again and life has a better flavor. 14 Colder, cloudy, mercury 28. Looking for Julian home from H. J. Came on 5:04 train. I met him at station; looks fairly well, tho, a little pale. 15 Rain and hail nearly all day, mostly rain. Julian goes on the river. Gets 2 ducks and a “duckling." 16 Cold. J. walks over to Black Creek in P.M. Sees some ducks.17 Bright and cold--down to 18. Julian and Hud go over to Black Creek and spend the day. Plenty of ducks but poor luck in shooting. Each fire 9 times and get only one duck. 18 Snow all forenoon--3 inches, rain in P.M. Julian goes on the river; ducks very plentiful and tame, but the vast sheets of floating snow--acres of cotton batting--impede his boat; impossible to row through it. He gets two black ducks. 19. Rain, rain; the snow saturated with water and clinging to the earth like a bather’s suit--every dimple and depression brought out. Heavy rains at 5 and change of wind to N.W. Colder with snow squalls at night. 20 Cold and windy. Julian and Hud go to Black Creek. No ducks. 21 Cold, down to 15 this morning. Julian and I go on the river. Water covered with thin ice that cuts two holes in the boat. A flock of wild geese. J. puts me ashore at Pratt’s dock and he tries for some ducks in front of ice house; gets one. Then tries for the geese. I watch him a long time with the field glasses and get much excited. His tactics are very clever. At the last I see all the geese stretch up their wings and launch into the air; no, not all, two lie flopping on the water; then comes the report of his gun. He is a mile or more away, opposite Hyde P. The geese go up the river, and alight, and linger about till 3 or 4 o’clock. We do not try them again. One more duck falls to J’s gun; then we bring up the boat to be mended. 22. Snowing from N.E. now at 11, about 3 inches; river covered with [crossed out] a sheet of wet snow. Weds. 22 In afternoon snow ceases. Julian goes down the river, gets 8 ducks, 4 at one shot. Calm, and misty and chilly. 23 Mist, fog, and rain. March at its worst. A more disagreeable month I never saw. Julian off on the river again. 7 ducks. --Occasionally Scott’s metaphors are suggestive. When at some public dinner they praised him for what he had done for Scotland, he said in reply that [crossed out: he described no] what he had done was analogous to what the servant does who scours the brasses; he had rubbed up Scotland a little and brought out its beauty. What he really did was to invest the scenery with a deep human interest; he made it the theatre of his tragedies and dramas. He spread himself over the landscape. He did not try to brighten things up, but he added something out of himself that stirred the imagination of the tourist. 24 Bright and cold, sleighing till noon. 25. Cold, down to 20, hazing up towards night--with signs of coming storm. Julian on river again. 7 ducks. 26. Sunday. Began snowing in the night, about 3 inches; light snow till 10 o’clock. Cold wind from North. Julian leaves on the 10 o’clock train for Cambridge, looking much better than when he came. Why should I be sad? It is for the best. But I have no other companion. Sun shines at 11. 27 Clear and cold, down to 18 this morning, wind N. Men digging post holes. 28 Snowing again this morning--the same subject continued.--Looking over some pictures of African birds this morning, it occurred to me that there were fashions among the birds as well as among the women, and that they were about as absurd and capricious in the one case as in the other. --always approaching the monstrous, the women, by their dress, always exaggerate some part, as the hips, the bust, the arms, the hair, so with the tropical birds. Now it is the tail, now the crown, or neck, or rump, or bill, to say nothing of colors. And the same sexual purpose lies back of each--to captivate the male in the one case, and the female in the other. 29. Rain all night, with snow squalls in the morning; ground overflowing with water. Appearance of a cold wave. March grows worse and worse. It one extreme follows another April must be fine.Yesterday morning on my way to P.O saw a large flock of gold finches, 50 or more, in a maple, holding their spring musical jubilee--earlier than ever before heard them. What a fine musical jangle it was--a sort of spray or shower of fine musical notes. They all sat motionless, and apparently each sang independently of every other. Had they sung in chorus, the effect must have been striking. Presently some of them began to fly down to some weeds, and the jubilee gradually ceased. 30 Cleared off yesterday before noon with cold wind and snow flakes in the air in P.M. This morning clear and windy. Mercury about 25. Health good all this week and spirits bright. Trying to write out my lecture on “The Art of Seeing Things.” 31 Milder, overcast. Professor Bracq calls. I finish my paper. Walk to Mr. Acker’s in P.M. April 1st Quite spring-like, tho chilly; good sap day; birds very merry. How I delight in the tee-hee of the robin. Sometimes it is nearer a "ha ha, ha." Ice at last all disappears from the river. Write to Julian and return his story. Poor boy, how he is yet to toil and sweat before he can shine in print. 2nd Still hard and cold--only a few degrees above freezing in the middle of the day. Flurries of snow each day, with streaks of sunshine. Walk to S.S. in afternoon. Finish “The Art of Seeing Things"
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1903 (January - August)
Text: From Jany 1st, 1903 to Aug 26, 1903- When I [open] begin a new vol. of my journal, the thought always comes, what sad or glad events of my life will this vol. hold, Hiram's death is recorded in the last and Myron's, What death (rund) will this hold? What heart and soul experiences? yet but few of these are recorded in my journal. Jany 1st. Go to N.Y. to attend the Sorosis breakfast with Mrs. Childs, meet Miss Dascum - a handsome girl and genius I think. Stay with the Childs till the...
Show moreFrom Jany 1st, 1903 to Aug 26, 1903- When I [open] begin a new vol. of my journal, the thought always comes, what sad or glad events of my life will this vol. hold, Hiram's death is recorded in the last and Myron's, What death (rund) will this hold? What heart and soul experiences? yet but few of these are recorded in my journal. Jany 1st. Go to N.Y. to attend the Sorosis breakfast with Mrs. Childs, meet Miss Dascum - a handsome girl and genius I think. Stay with the Childs till the 3d. Then to N.Y. Stay with Miss Stephens at 80 W. 105th st, till Wednesday the 7th. See Many people. Go to see Mrs. Firk -(too stagey) and Julia Marlow, Julia very lovable and sweet. The most natural acting I have seen in a long time. Excellent, N.Y. free from snow7th. Home this afternoon in a gentle snow storm - good sleighing. 8. Sharp fine winter weather. 9. Clear and cold - down to 8, Robins still here. See 4 or 5 inches on the river. 10. Clear and cold - down to 12. Health above par this winter so far, not withstanding the sour looks and brutal woods in the kitchen - no let up there - every hour of the day 11. Down to 10. Begins snowing at 9, snows gently till late p.m. when rain sets in. Clearing off at 9.24. down to 7 this morning. Cold all day See on river 9 inches. 25. Cold snow storm from N.E, Began in the night. A winter wren this morning. This is entirely an insectivorous kind, where and what insects does it get such a morning as this. - Almost 6 inches of snow. - Why did a man like Spurgeon - A man of real power, produce no Literature? His expression says the London Academy was as direct as blow, and yet very little thus he left or said has any Literary value, H is quality - was a personal quality that you felt in his speech, but do not feel in his writing; he could not give himself through his pen. He was a coarse grained man and literature demands something fine.26. Clear and pretty cold after the quiet snow storm, snow like features so light and dry the foot hardly puts it, 7 or 8 inches. The air this morning is full of shining slowly falling frost scales - star filings, a high note calling, and the winter wren here. See harvesters scrapping off the snow on the river. 27. Growing milder with signs of storm. 28. Raining, began in the night. - I see that Higginson, in his Lowell Institute lectures continues his efforts to belittle Whitman. I had just been looking over H's book "The New World and The New Book" and had been struck by its thinness and supe ficiality and when a friend sent me a Boston paper containing his lecture upon Lanier and Whitman, I said thisis in strict keeping - the man can really see no further or deeper than that - only to surface culture and polish can he respond. There is no background to the man, no depth of native human soil. His ideas are like plants grown upon a rock or upon hardpan - shallow rooted. His style is very readable, crisp and tease and full of apt and learned illusions. - Good after dinner talk, but it does not draw as much water as a western steam boat. Thin, thin, thin and very cultured. Think of belittling Whitman because he did not enlist as a soldier and carry a musket in the ranks! could there be anything more shocking and incongruous than Whitman killing people? One would as soonexpect Jesus Christ to go to war. W. was the lover, the healer, the reconciler and the only thing in character for him to do in the war was what he did do, nurse the wounded and sick soldiers - union men and rebels alike - showing no preference, he was not an athlete or a rough but a great loving, tender mother - man, to whom the martial spirit was utterly foreign. It was well enough for Higginson and Lancier to go to war - but Whitman! - he would not have been Whitman, could he have done it. Then his poetry, its elemental largeness and simplicity, the absence of all trickery craft art, elaborative artificial adornments, existing solely for the personality behind it, which itSets off and reveals - never taking on, airs on its own account; vital, real, concrete, stimulating, formless if you pillars, as nature is formless, though abounding in exquisite form - often [a] whole pages that are like a mere bunch of herbs on wild growths, without any connecting tie save the hand that holds them - plucked herbage of his breast, as he says - every line the vehicle of will and personality which you can no more escape than you can escape gravity. It is expecting too much to expect that such a man as Higginson should see anything in all this. I pity him.28. Clears off warm and spring like. Mercury art 48, sleighing nearly gone. 29. Foggy and warm, a little rain. A robin on the bare ground as in spring, his past cadet forms sharp against a streak of snow. 30. Raining briskly and mild as April. Health still good. Clears before ten. 31. Clear, windy, much colder. - What is more mysterious than the flight of birds. the power or effort put forth seems so inadequate for the speed. Then it is not applied in the direction of the resulted motion. The wings beat up and down and the motion is at right angles to this. See the animal run or the man walk or swim; his effort is in the line of his motion.Then behold a hawk or buzzard sail and soon with set motionless wings and attaining the speed of a train of cars!. How is it done? how in the power applied to the air. Even the awkward flight of a butterfly, with its broad stiff wings, heating the air up and down is a puzzle, how does it get ahead so fast? Feb 1st. Mild, windy, sunshine and cloud, ground bare in places. 2. Mild, cloudy, rainy in p.m. hard at times. Clears off at sundown, fog. 3. Clear, mild spring like, still. Blue-birds calling, mental skies over last. Poor steep last night. Trying to finish up the Jamaica Sketch - poor, good sap day. 4. Rain, rain and fog; began in the night.4th. Series of thunder showers at night lasting an hour or more - blinding flashes of lightening very often. Rain continues but not heavy. 5. Clear and much colder with wind. 6. Windy and cold - March weather. 7. Clear and fine - mercury 24. John Elliott and his cousin at Slabsides. Good ice boating . - The Chickadees has a note like "sweet cicily" uttered in a shuffling gingling tone. Sleighing all gone, roads getting dry in places. 10. Mild, start for Florida. See C.B. at G. a three hours walk and a fire on the hill, very delightful. 11. To N.Y. raining, meet Miss P. stay at Mrs. S. 11. Clear and colder, Binder and I go to Floral Park in p.m. In the evening Mrs. Childs and I go to Brooklyn to hear Mr. Dowell play12. Mild and spring like; all day at Floral Park. 13. At one p.m. start for Fla reach Washington at dark all night through Va. and N.C. 14. Daylight finds us in dense fog in S.C. a forlorn looking country - scrub oak and pine barrows, poor yellow and red soil, Georgia, flat walery, barren. Fla, not much better. Reach St. Augustine at 2 1/2 Sun shines, warm - 80 - a beautiful town, walk through the old fort and sit on the parapets. - All very interesting, spend the night. 15. Take train to Grant which we reach at 4 1/2, sail over Indian River to Oak Lodge Mrs. Latham's place. Stay here till Thursday when we startfor Manatee. 20th. Reach Manatee from Tampa by steamer at 1 1/2. Old Ramus nest glad to see me - Raining. 21. Fair day, windy, cold, wear light overcoat when we drive out. 22. Fine day, write letters. 23, 24, 25. Days at Raven nest, walking, dreaming, writing letters and driving with Mrs. A. Getting hot. 26. Hot, 80. Ruth and I row up the river in p.m. begins raining at 3. warm as a rain in July. Health excellent - but Old Adam very troublesome. March 1st. Leave Manatee for Sanford, pass the night at S. 2. Monday, take steamer down the St. Johns, a gray coolThe scenery repels me. Nature here is too crude and watery and harsh and she has [been torn] not been subdued and tamed, but torn and mutilated and singed by the hand of man. She is wild but not beautiful, she has not yet wholly emerged from the water, she is yet half saurien, Some of her vegetable forms suggest reptiles (the palmettos and mangroves). The sail I walk on plays an important part in my life, I strike roots in to it, I draw sustenance from it, I sympathize with it, but I never could strike root in this sand heap. My life would stagnate in this flat country, probably in any flat country. The most beautiful thing here is Live Oaks with their long gray beards of swaying mass. They suggest Wall Whitman.So poor, untidy, disshouled the land looked in S.C. - endless pine and scrub oak barrens on a yellow sandy unfertile looking soil - no country homes, no thrifty farms here and there a negro cabin raised up from the ground on piles; at long intervals a scatters ram shackle millage about a R.R. Station; here and there a measly looking cotton field dotted with stumps, a dense fog enveloped the land out of the loomed, the most hag like and weird looking dead pine trees I ever saw; such are expression of woe, almost dantesque, as if they had perished in the agony of some great cataclysm like the eruption of Mt. Pelee; yellow paths and walls liading off here and there into the scrub. From Columbia S.C, to Jacksonville It is almost anan uninhabited and an uncultivated country - torn an ruined ditch pine woods - half the trees dead or lying upon the ground; Life and there vast areas of standing water amid the trees - forbidding, unwholesome - then muddy rivers out of their banks of flooding the woods for miles. In Ga, the live oaks begin to be seen and the moose drops expresses, occasionally in the woods a low tree of delicate pink bloom, then masses of the red bloom of the swamp maple, but apparently no end to the loose and torn pine barrens, meadow larks, sparrow hawks, mocking birds, buzzards here and there, yes and turtle doves, and a few ,blue birds and other smaller birds.Dr. V and Mrs. Frank Baker announce the marriage of their daughter. Mabel Whitman to Mr. Alfred Hulse Brooks. on Monday, February the twenty-third. nineteen hundred and three. 1728 Columbia Road. Washington D.C.Mch 2d. On the St Johns - cool cypress overcast - shows of [his oak] heavily branded with moss, Edging the water a lower growth with tender green leaves, beneath them a green carpet of water hyacinth in which cattle to their sides in the water are grazing. The a fringe of palmetto then broad open savannas miles in extent - Leafless mass draped and swathed moods - here and there a tinge of green upon them live oaks? A fringe of low newly leaved trees and bushes at the waters edge. Swamp maples in full leaf White elder (?) in bloom. Can almost jump a shore in places - not 10 rods wide.Lots of fish crows - a blue heron - kingfisher, a few fishermen man making a raft of logs a shabby house now and then at the waters edge. - Some cleared land with house and orange grocers - 2 white herons. - Swarm of blackbirds, a robin cows up to their bellies in water. - Some half way up their sides - rating the water hyacinth. - 3 1/2 some fishermen by a fire on shore with boats pulled with nets. One rows out with a fine display of fish in his boat, but we bred him not.day, many novel scenes along the river. 3d. Reach Jacksonville in the morning; take train for Washington at 9 am.. 4. Reach W. at 10 this morning. Bright and spring like. Spend 3 days on W. and live more in the past than in the present. All it so changed but the dome and the air and sky. 7. Raining. Leave W. for N.Y. at 10. 8. Reach home this morning at 10. Cool, rainy. 9. Wild, overcast. 10. Wild, Overcast peepers at night. 11. Robins and song sparrows - in song, crow black birds here and high holes calling.12. Lovely spring day, mercury near 50, an ideal day. The heel of the last snow bank has disappeared. Roads drying, no frost on ground. Yesterday Julian and I went to black creek, saw many werts making their slow way from the woods to the marshes. Heard the song od the brown creeper for the first time in my life, by black creek, a bright hurried song, suggesting that of water thrush, but briefer and smaller. 13. Clear, white frost this morning. Letters about the Atlantic article keep coming all heartily approving.Mch 15. Still mild and lovely - no frost. The first toad song two nights ago. The clucking frogs in the pools about same time. Hazel met in bloom, snakes out. Many letters of congratulation and approval await the long article in Mch. Atlantic, one from Prut Roosevelt ending by asking me to go with him to the yellow stone Park in April. At Slabsides saw and heard first fox sparrows. 16. Cloudy, storm coming, cooler. 17. No storm; lovely day. 18. Cloudy, mild, still. 19. Ideal spring weather - such we can hardly hope for a month later; roads dry, grass greening birds jubilant. Elm tree buds bursting arbutus.showing the color, mercury above 60 degrees. Plant peas at Slabsides. 20. Warm moist S. W. wind. no rain yet; how happy the birds; rather gloomy those days, for all the promised trip with the president. Rather stay at Slabsides than be for two or three weeks in the storm centre of his party. Butterflies yesterday - two kinds, one in Slabsides -the Painted Lady, Mercury near 70, a day at Slabsides alone sweet and healing, hepatica blooming. 21. Light warm rain from S.W. with a little thunder about 8 1/2 grass greening rapidly. The little bush sparrow here this morning with his tender trill 10 days earlier than usual [nearly one month earlier than usual at least never heard it no march before] At sundown now the air above the marshes is punctured and torn by the multitudinous cries of the hykes. The sound almost pains the ear.22. Pretty heavy rainfall in the night, cloudy today and much cooler. Soft maples and elms in bloom. 23d. Dark and rainy - a traditional equinoxial, cool. p.m. a powerful rain nearly all day - everything a float. 24. Warm as May, clearing, still very dark, water, water, everywhere. Grass very green, air full of happy bird voices; fog on the river. This morning the air is streaked here and there with that wild delicate pungent odor [that has] the origin of which has so often puzzled me in the spring. How delicious, almost thinking it is - the first odor of bloom. I am now convinced it comes from the elm bloom, I could trace it this morning to the elms, a soft maple here and there is opening, but the elms are greatly in the majority.Two soft maples near my study and the odor is here. 25. Clear, cooler, a frost last night. the air full of the pungent elm bloom odor this morning - never knew it so pronounced. - If one did not know from experience that the steam in iron pipes could d make sounds like this blows from hammars, how hard it would be to make him believe it. What; the soft formless vapor is a hollow. pipe imitate the sharp ringing blows of hammars? how abound26. Leave home for N.Y. 27, 28, 29. With Dr. Johnson's family. On night of 28th attend dinner at Mr. Carnegers given in hours of Sidney Lee, not Twain, Howells, Stedman and many others. 30. Go to the Harlands at Plainfield N.J. 31. To White House for the night. April 1st. off with President Roosevelt on his trip to the Yellowstone Natt Park. With the President till April 24th, when I go to Spokan Mach, with Mr. Gilbert - Supt of N. Pacific. April 3d. Was at Madison and Milwauke, May 1st. Man Lewiston, Idaho, with the Gilbert girls.May 12. Reached Gills ranch in Northern Montana at noon today. Stay there till Friday the 15th when he drives me to the train 60 miles at Haslam. 18. Reach St. Paul. 19. In Chicago with M.M. 21. Reach home at 4.20, very hot and dry, no rain for over a month, mercury 90. 22d. Hot. 23. Cooler but no rain. 24 and 25. Cool, no rain. 26. Cool, go to Slabsides. 27. Warm, cloudy, threatens rain. Weight when I returned 168lbs. Hope to write up my trip sometimes. 28. Brief shower in morning. Heavy shower in p.m. 1 1/2 inch in 1/2 hour, another shower at5 o'clock, not so heavy, about 1/2 hour with much thunder. Never was rain more needed; may make half a hay crop. Three birds nests yesterday with Laura and Mary, a bush sparrows on the ground a phoebes by the falls and water thrushes by the falls, the young just ready to fly. 29. Colder; bright lovely day. 30. Colder, bright lovely day. 31. An idylic day at M, walk in the fields - a meadow larks nest and a pewees nest and an hour with June in the pringer up the woods - May and June in one. June 1st. Cool, clear, wind month. 2d and 3d. Cool, clear, wind month. No signs of rain In the west floods and great loss of life and property. 4th. Cool, the opposite shores of the river hidden by smoke; the sun a copper globe.- Old Mr. P. said of the shower the other day that it was an addity - that it came from the west and that it cut right across the navigation of the air. - "We are the product of things as they are" said my neighbor the other day as we were talking about the floods and cyclones in the west and the drought in the East and the contradiction which both cases presented to the theological notions of a beneficent providence. We are the product of things as they are. No thought or account is take of us in the administering of the affairs of the cosmos. If any thought was even taken it was from the beginning. After the process of life and development has begun we take our chances and win [options] than we lose, else we would not be hereThe contribution of things is on our side; we came out of those conflicting forces; the delays, the failures, the loss and suffering have been unspeakable; thus was a part of the plan, but the gain has been steady. If drought and flood were the rule and not the exception, man would soon disappear from the earth. There is no providence in the old sense, only law, not one hairs weight of the universe steps in front of man to guide or shield or help him. He is a part of the system of things and goes with the current - is bitter destroyed by it or upborne by it; it regards him not any more thus the river here regards the boats upon its bosom. Drought and flood occur in obedience to natural law; They are an end toman, as the storm is an end to the tree which whips and breaks it, but the race of trees survive and man survives all the ends that have so far beset his path - plague, pestilence, war, fire and flood. There is nothing special and particular in the universe directed to man, anymore than to anything else, no providence, no god that watches over him; he is cared for, if at all, from within and from the foundation of the mould, when the life of the planet goes out his will go out. 5th. The cold and the smoky obscurity continues. 6. A little warmer, smoke unabated. 7. Cloudy; signs of rain. 8. Some rain.- Real observers are as rare as real pacts, so few people know or can tell exactly what they see; so few people can draw a right influence from an observed fact, so few people can help reading their own thoughts or preconceptions into what they see, only a trained mine can be [spotted] trusted to repeat things as they are. What did or does the Indian really know of the wild life around him - except as it related to his personal wants? What does the farmer know of the wild life around him except that the crows pull up his corn and the skunks and minks and foxes destroy his poultry. He will kill every hen hawk he can under the delusion that the hen hawk kills his poultry. He does not know from actual observation the relation, beneficial or other of the wild creatures to hisagriculture. Hunters and trappers and woodsmen generally can tell you the ways and habits of the particular game they pursue, but of disinterested observation they are not as a rule capable. They see certain things accurately, what it concerns them to see and draw just conclusions along certain lines, but of the real life history of their game thus know little. The farm dog learns certain facts about woodchuck; he knows they came out of their holes to feed on grass - that at such timing they get panther and further from their dens, thus every few minutes they sit up on their [harmikes] and look out for danger and in hunting them the old dog takes advantage of all these facts. That is about all he knows about chucks and it is all it concerns him to know. The knowledge of most hunters and trappers is equally limited.- That fake Wm. J. Long has only to set his foot in the woods when all the wild creatures swarm about him eager to show off. They get up private theatricals to amuse him, dew, moose, caribon, bears, congers - animals to shy that an ordinary hunter or camper out lucky if he gets a glimpse of our once in years of wood life- all besiege him and are the most unheard of things before him. Deer have a regular inches on the buch in front of his tail, running around in small and large inches to amuse him and teach their young how to handle themselves; jays and red squirrels play at the game of following each other through the woods and stealing each others stones of nuts; mose get in the way of his camera and he fails to drive them off with shots from his rifle, bears stop inthe path before him and dispute his right of way, a wild cat does a partly piece of acting on a beavers house for his amusement and C and H. 9 and 10. Cloudy - no rain. 11. Showers; rained nearly all night or about 12 hours, 2 inches or more by noon of the 12th. 12. Clearing in p.m. 13. Sunshine with showers in the distance; weather looks very unsettled. 14. Clifton Johnson came last night Rain nearly all day from N.E. 15. Rained all night, and is still raining, ground full of water, cool. - Rained slowly all day. 16. Cold and cloudy. 17 and 18. Cloudy with some rain.19. Some sunshine 20. [Began] Rained nearly all night. Began again at noon slowly. 21. Rained all night hard and has rained nearly all day hard. 22d. Rained in the night. Sunshine an hour or two this morning, then clouds. 23. Began raining again at 10 a.m. slow rain all day from N.E. and cold. The ground is overflowing everywhere am paths in the woods are all the beds of little streams - noon saw more water. 25. First clear warm June day. 26. Ideal June day - boat races. 27. Lovely day. 28. Warm and fine.29. Began raining early in morning, a steady heavy rain for 8 hours. Cold a fire in my chimney. 30. Clearing, shower in p.m. hot. July 1st. Rained in early morning. Clearing in fore noon. Very hot and humid, mercury 86. 4. Getting warm, ... 7. M.M and Mary Newton today 9. Very hot day 10. Still hotter, President and Mrs. R. come today, a great day. Wrote it up for Dr. Barrus. 11. Cooler. 12 and 13. Cool. 14. Go to Mohonk, a shower in p.m. 15. Cool. 16. Cool back home today. 17. Fair and a little warmer. 18. Start for Twilight Park, rain in p.m. and evening, cool. 19. Rainy cool day. 20. To top of High Peak with Miss H. Hermit thrushes, winter wrens, olive backed thrush in song, also Golden Crowned Knight - a fine insect like song, hardly noticeable; first thought it was the Black poll warbler but even more mincer than this. The brown creeper there, but not singing. Dense fog most of the time. Returned at 3 just a down pour set in - a tremendous shower. 21. Light showers here and there. Come to Roxbury in p.m. 22 and 23d. Rainy. 24. Lovely clear warm day, ideal. 25. Lovely clear warm day, ideal. 26. Warm and mostly clear.- In some cases nature is not a bit adaptive - certain currents of life flow in very narrow channels. When the lady bug had destroyed the scale insect in Cal. it died. It could not feed upon anything else. 24. Superb day after much rain. 25. Ideal day; excellent hay weather. 26. Fine warm day. 27. Still fine but cool. 28. Still fine but cool. 29. Shower in p.m. much thunder. 30. Rainy, showery, warm 31. Clearing and very cool - In June clearing and after the heavy continued rains, the "pupers" appeared in the pools and marshes again and made them vocal for a few days. The drought of May must have destroyed their eggs or young and they knew it and came back tot try again? How else can one explain their 2nd appearance? they usually have the marshes in April.Aug 1st. Clear, cool - a perfect day; the Hermit thrush this morning. - I am beginning to see things as in a dream - Is this really so? - I am the least cosmopolitan of men. - I am as local as a turtle, I am at home in only one spot - here. In all other places I simply pitch my tent for the night. - I see Johnny mowing below the new [barel] barn - gone now, alas! - Curtis is there with his fork pulling back the grass, Ed and Chant and Frank are moving [with their] by hand. I hear the distant cowing of crows and the baying of old spott. The fog of the valley of the early morning is now slowly moving across the sky in ragged white and dim colored clouds.Aug 6. Stay at old home till today, much rain during the time. Go to Twilight Park to sit to Mr. Rowland for my portrait. Rain in p.m. and evening. 7. Wet and cold. 8. Fair day but cold, Stay at the Park till Saturday the 15th. 15th. Fair and warm; reach home at noon. 16. Rain all day 17. Fair and mild, at S.S. again writing. 18. Fair 19. Showery in p.m. and warm 20. Dark, misty, rainy; rained in the night, and again in p.m. Clearing at sundown, warm.21st and 22d. Fair warm days. 23. Warm fair day. Rowland here. 24. Fine day. 25. Rain with thunder this morning. Sun shines at 10 a.m. - Michelet says that birds float, and that they can make themselves lighter than the air by swelling themselves at null!! 25. Two heavy showers in p.m. 26. Cloudy and cool.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1884
Text: March 27 Across the county to Benton's today. Afternoon bright and mild. All the streams full of water, and not a leaf or weed or rush to hide them. How naked and watery the landscape looked, yet refreshing and good. It is pleasant to see the water courses full of clear hurrying water. There is something so vital and renewing in water. This too was the liquidation of winter; his rigid icy form full of life and motion. The little brown brooks, how swift and strong they ran; and the larger...
Show moreMarch 27 Across the county to Benton's today. Afternoon bright and mild. All the streams full of water, and not a leaf or weed or rush to hide them. How naked and watery the landscape looked, yet refreshing and good. It is pleasant to see the water courses full of clear hurrying water. There is something so vital and renewing in water. This too was the liquidation of winter; his rigid icy form full of life and motion. The little brown brooks, how swift and strong they ran; and the larger creeks, how they pushed on trailing their ragged skirts along the edges of the fields and marshes. [crossed out: Little saucer-shaped pools and lakelets in the][crossed out: meadows and pastures, showing the greening turf beneath them] Many a slope [crossed out: sends in a] runs down to a little saucer shaped pool or lakelet - a turfy apron filled with clear water. The cattle sun themselves upon the damp sward without fear of ague or rheumatism. No obsolete water courses now. The creek seeks out many an abandoned bed and lingers and loiters there as if dwelling upon the memory of other days. The golden willows, their tops as yellow as if the sunshine had become fixed there, a kind of permanent gilding, how the eye lingers upon them! A bountiful supply of water! It reaches or laps away many a parched place in my memory. Only desires and afflictions go out toward the full streams. No fear of drought in Nature now, no stagnation. Her circulation is brisk. No cure for a festering pool like hydropathy; no relief for a parched field like the wet-pack. Here and there an elm or an oak stands in the midst of a clear pool as if rising from its bath. And all the waters are clear and sweet. No corruption now, no liquid mud, as in a summer freshet; no dead water as comes down-stream with the fall rise. All is trout water; all is spring water. Here and there on the brown earth a dab of new green where the warmth of a spring has made itself felt. Now the first notes of the brown meadow starling come up from the browner meadows, now the red shouldered black bird perch in the golden willows or amid the cat-tail flags and utter their liquid brook-side notes. 31. The top of a high barometric wave-a day like a crest, lifted up, sightly, sparkling. A cold snap, without storm, issuing in this clear, dazzling, sharp, northern day. How light, as if illuminated by more than the sun; the sky is full of light; light seems to be streaming up all around the horizon. The leafless trees seem to make no shadows; the woods are flooded with light; everything shines. [crossed out: The day is] Day large and imposing, breathing strong masculine breaths out of the North; day without a speck of film winnowed through and through; the golden beams of the sun sifter of all obscurity. Day of crumpled rivers, of crested waves, of bellying sails, high-domed, lustrous day. The only typical March day of the brilliant heroic sort we have had.April lst Welcome to April, my natal month; in many ways the most poetical month of the year, the month of the swelling bud, [crossed out: and first] the springing grass, and the first shad! Month of the first birds nests, [crossed out: and] the first plantings, the first flowers. The door of the season first stands ajar this month, and gives us a peep beyond. The month in which to begin the World, in which to begin your house, in which to begin your courtship; in which to enter upon any enterprise. The bees get their first pollen this month and their first honey. All hibernating creatures [crossed out: crawl] are out before April is past.Now at 11 a.m., the day is soft and brilliant; a let-down from yesterday, but equally fair, the wind blown out, and only drifting a little this way and that. The air quivers above the fields, looking, Julian says, like oil; it is the mingling of hot air and cold. Phoebe calls, the bees hum, the sparrow sings. To my delight in these things come the thought, with a fresh pang, "father is in his grave."April 2nd Out of the sharp brilliant days comes snow as I predicted. [crossed out: lazy static days] The snow-crystals were forming in the crystal air; that light in the north was the light of the forge where the ice-spears were being shaped. Snow all day, much of it melting as it falls. April 3rd My 47th birthday - my first fatherless birthday. I have lived to see my father and mother grow old and die and be buried from my sight. Well, it is the order of nature that the child should look upon the grave of his parents, rather than they upon his grave. I should have been at the old home today but for this storm and snow. But how empty and desolate that home is I know full well. Health pretty good, but more lameness or soreness in right leg than ever before; left leg quite free from it; arms strong, with only now and then slight twinge of shooting pain. Seem to be stronger in many ways than one year ago. Three or four inches of heavy snow on the ground. I roll up big snow balls for J. uncovering a strip of green grass behind me. - New girl came April 1st our 25th girl. 7. Go home to-day in afternoon. Walk up from the depot through mud and snow. Snowbanks high, roads full. Reach home a little before dark. Hiram Olly and the new dairy-maid alone in the house. No father to open the door for me now. Hiram well and cheerful-more so than I expected to find him. An empty house. I look about the familiar kitchen and wander through the other rooms as in a strange kind of dream. While eating my supper am shocked by being told of the serious illness of Channy Caswell, my niece's little boy to whom I am greatly attached.8 A day of great brightness and clearness - a crystalline April day that precedes snow. I go up in the sugar-bush and linger for an hour about the old place. The air is still and has the property of being "hollow" as the farmers say; that is, it is heavy, motionless and transmits sounds well. Every warble of a bluebird or robin, or caw of crow, or bark of dog, or bleat of sheep, or cackle of geese, or call of boy or man, within the landscape comes to ear. The smoke from the chimney goes straight up. Then I walk down to Abigails and back. Shore-larks in the bare fields run or flit before me. I hear their shuffling, jingling, lisping, half inarticulate song. The crows are conspicuous in the brown fields, or against the snow-banks, or in the clear sky. How still the air; one could carry a lighted candel over the hills. The light becomes very strong and the effect of the wall of white mountains rising up all around from the checkered landscape is very strange. The blue dome of the sky rests upon them. In the afternoon go down to Smith Caswell's to see Channy. Walking fearful-mud and melting snow every where; walk the walls when I can. Cut across the hill to Smiths. See a woodchuck here and there. Poor Channy verybad; am alarmed when I look upon him, sitting nearly up right in bed, almost panting rather than breathing. Smith and Emma apparently not much alarmed. Say he is better than yesterday, and has a little appetite. He is very nervous, makes no complaint, but rolls his head from side to side a good deal, just as my little sister Evaline did 30 years ago, when she was dying. Oh, I fear it is death. Some strange affection of his right lung, perhaps an abscess, the return of the danger passed through last fall. I stay but a little while; cannot bear to be near the suffering child. Stop and take tea with Curtis. A sad walk home in the early evening.9. A crystalline day in the spring brings crystals. Snows nearly all day. No "hollow" air now, the hollow filled with a snowbank! Boil sap in the woods [crossed out: in the ???] nearly all day amid the wet falling snow. The sparrows will sing now and then amid the storm. Thoughts of father and mother and of my early and late life on the farm fill my mind. 10 Still stormy and squally and unpleasant. Boil sap in the woods; everything covered with wet snow. When I go down to dinner at noon Olly tells me they have just heard of Channy's death; died last night in his mother's arms. Poor stricken Smith and Emma what will they do is the first thought. He was their all, and a boy of rare sweetness, gentleness and intelligence. In the afternoon Hiram K. Jr. drives me down, Abigail, Olly and myself. Can I ever forget that look of utter despair upon Emma's tear drenched face as she came and threw herself upon me! "Oh Uncle John, he is gone, he is gone, my darling! [crossed out: he] and I was all alone with him when he died." What words had I to comfort her, or to comfort him, when he came towards me, as if for succor, none. I could only pour out my tears with their own. I loved the boy dearly and never so much as when I saw his lifeless form lying there in his crib, and when all love was vain. [Crossed out: Such] It was enough to break my heart to look upon him, he was so beautiful. Asleep, but oh, such sleep; such repose, with that pensive, heart-breaking look about the closed eyes, that death alone can give. Oh, that look, who can describe it, the look of a sweet innocent boy who has met a speedy death! It defies all words, the memory of it is a sorrowful, yet beautiful possession forever. [crossed out: In the] Curtis and I go down to the grave yard and select the spot for his grave beside his uncle, Chaney B. Deyoe, whose death, 10 years ago, come May, was my first great sorrow in this world. By fathers new made grave I pause with such thoughts as few may know, and by Mother's, and by the graves of all my dead. Curtis says to me "here I suppose we will all lay "one of these days." Yes I reply, here is to be our last bed." Each trying to talk carelessly and hiding any emotion. Whose place will be next to father I mentally asked and had my own thoughts. 11 Boil Sap with Hiram in forenoon. In afternoon go over the hill, walking fence-tops and, to see old Mrs Smith once more. Stop and have another look in Grandfathers old house, with long long thoughts. Mrs. Smith in bed for the past three months quite helpless, slowly sinking into the dark gulf. Not dark to her mind tho, but all light and peace. She lay and talked to me as if in health, cheerful, alert, curious, canny. The sweet, pious, old Scotch woman who left her native land (Forres) near 50 years ago. She had known me as a baby, and now as a gray, saddened man. Her son William from Iowa, whither he went 15 years ago, with her all winter and I could see, intended to stick to her till the end. Every night he reads a chapter in the Book, and she lying there on her back, conducts family prayers. He told me much about the West and his life there that was interesting. About 4 I say good bye and never again expect to set eyes on the dear old Scotch woman.12. Bright and clear. Again I walk down to the house of death over my former course, with many long pauses on the brown, sun-drenched hills and fields. Smith and Emma calm with now and then a paroxysm of grief. In afternoon we bury the dear child beside his uncle and all is over. Foolish and illiterate John Hubble preached from the text. "Be still, and know that I am God" Oh, how I should like to have talked from that text, if I were in the way of such things In the morning of the day Channy died, he asked to be taken to the window to look out (nearly always a fatal sign) "How sweet the birds do sing" the dear soul said. I know well when the loss will be felt most keenly by Smith and Emma - if there can be degrees in such suffering. When they wake in the morning after the blessed forgetfulness of sleep. Oh, what a pang the first waking moment will bring! Abigail said she heard them weeping and moaning about 4 o'clock. My God, how my heart bleeds for them! 13. Another bright, still day. Boil sap in the woods till noon, then to the train and home at night. [Crossed out: 15] 14 Julians birth day - bright and warm, and vocal with bird songs. Pluck some dark blue sweet scented hepaticas, nearly as sweet as arbutus. 15 First warm south rain of the season. How fresh, how welcome it is. The grass greens as if by magic. Robins laugh, high-holes call, sparrows sing. Sparrows, phoebes, and blue birds are building nests. 16 Warm, wooing, moist, half sunshine, half shadow. The warmest, most spring-like day of the season. Julian and I walk up to the P.O. See the honey bees working on the pussy willows. Walk back on the R.R. track, blood-root and dicentra in bloom, also arbutus. Paint and fix our boat. The way Arnold steers clear of the novel, the curious, the surprising, in fact, of everything fanciful, far-fetched, or strained or violent, leads people to accuse him of dealing only in common-places. But this is not quite just. His ideas are easy and obvious and near at hand, and this is his glory, as it is of all great writers. It is the application that is fresh and surprising. You must look for no bric-a-brac in his pages, no curious specimens, no novel or fantastic ideas, but the most common and universal ideas. 20 Sunday. A walk to the woods. First swallow today.April 21 North wind for nearly a week now, today becoming nearly a gale. The river this morning wears its sternest, most masculine look. The tide is breasting the wind and there is stiff opposition. A great molten mass down there, rolling and heaving, in strange contrast to the dark motionless shores. These days when the sky is free of clouds, the sun seems traveling in a dim pink haze. At a little distance from the sun it becomes quite distinct and gradually fades away at a greater distance from him. The same condition of the sky that begat our crimson sunsets and sunrises last fall and spring.April 23 A charming April morning, [crossed out: the day] still, smoky, dreamy; the day reposing, sleeping as in a hammock after the long period of windy boisterous weather. The boats of the fisher-men float in a dark firmament of water. The gummy fragrant budscales of the balm of Gilead strew the road. They are like the beaks of birds. Indeed the scales are falling from the eyes of all the buds now. There is some-thing very suggestive about these dropping scales. The snakes and frogs shedding their skins, and the birds shedding the outer webs of their feathers, are samples of the same process. The chick escaping from the shell is but a bud dropping its scales. The bursting buds of the poplars and hickories give forth a gummy perfume. One may often catch a whiff of this bud perfume on the April air. No fragrance of May bloom is so bewitching. The bees know the value of the gummy buds; here they get their propolis to varnish their hives and seal up the cracks, etc. They probably carry it in their jaws. (Quimby says on their thighs and is doubtless right) Buds are kind of seeds. Many birds live on them, as the grouse, the grosbeck, [crossed out: Sp] English sparrows, etc. Think of the slow silent falling of the scales all through the woods - Nature unpacking or undoing her parcels and throwing the wrapping away.The quickening of the earth at this season is in streaks and spots. All the more fat, moist, and genial places in the fields green first. Along the fences the turf awakens before it does in the middle of the lot. Soft maple in bloom; first anemone to-day. A great many sweet scented hepaticas to-day. P.M. a day of great lustre and beauty. Columns of smoke from burning rubbish. So beautiful the day, like a rare jewel, and yet it is gone before one can thoroughly seize upon it.April 27. A Sunday of great beauty and warmth. Signs of a drought. Yesterday went to the woods with my P. correspondent. Saw honey-bee gathering pollen from blood root. A rough, bushy, neglected piece of ground was starred with these flowers. Apparently the rougher the ground the more delicate the wild flowers. The flower of the blood root enclosed [crossed out: by] or partly enclosed by the leaf, is very striking and beautiful. Bees gather pollen from the adder's tongue also. A great many sweet-scented hepaticas this year, more than ever before. The keen relish of the earlier April days begins to wane as the heat increases. April 30. A ride to Coxsackie; met Mary Hallock Foote and her husband and children on the train en route for Idaho. A woman with a rare charm - full of genius, and full of womanliness. Said my "British Fertility" made her sad; quoted Holmes's remark that "grass makes girls"; thought instead of troubling ourselves about "Woman's rights" we had better look to woman's health, and study physiology and the laws of life a little more; all other questions were premature. A bright lovely day. What pleasure to ride through the country at this time - spring so visible upon the ground, but hardly discernible yet in the trees, as if the latter waited to give the earth a chance. How vivid the green here and there; the homefeeling, the work of man in the landscape, is enhanced and brought out. Nearly every farm house has a more genial and expressive look than it will have bye and bye. How the green deepens all about the barns and rich moist places. How friendly certain nooks and slopes look, as if one would like to recline there or walk there. Here and there a little meadow water-course golden with marsh marigolds. Here and there the bloom of the red maple shows vividly against the tender green of a slope beyond. The fresh-plowed fields, too, and the teams plowing or harrowing, the [crossed out: far] sower sowing, and pausing to regard the flying train - how it all pleased! Oh, Spring, all thysights and sounds are fresh and pleasing. The harvesting looks wearisome, but the sowing and planting, how attractive! There is nothing cloying in nature now, but all is appetizing.May 1st A soft, gentle May day; the sky white, the sunlight veiled. The first shad trees just in bloom; currants blooming; the tree tops in the woods slightly misty with swelling buds. The songs of the song sparrow and of the vesper and bush sparrows come in at my open door with scarcely a pause. English maples in bloom, native maples with large buds. Byron says, "So far are the principles of poetry from being invariable that they never were nor ever will be settled. These principles mean nothing more than the predelictions of a particular age, and every age has its own, and different from its predecessor. It is now Homer, [crossed out: it is] and now Virgil; once Dryden and since Sir Walter Scott; now Corneille, and now Racine," Now Byron, and now Tennyson.When the lean Kine in Pharaoh's dream had eaten up the fat Kine, they were still lean and ill-favored. There is a kind of tape-worm greed in most of us, for wealth, fame, etc., that is is never satisfied. May 3 To Roxbury this afternoon; to Smith Caswells at night. Poor Emma, how haggard and pale she looked. Smith told me he could think of nothing else but Channy. When he was talking with anyone, he said he did not think of what he was saying. In the morning we go up to Hiram's, through the fields and woods. In the afternoon I go over to Edens with Ed. 5 Raining. Eden and I go a-fishing, but with poor luck.10. A cold wet week, much rain; a flood in the streams. To Stamford on the 5th, to Delhi on the 6th. On the 7th, Curtis, Hiram and I went down and sodded father's grave. A cold, wettish day. I cannot set down my thoughts or feelings here. On the 8th to Andes and home in the evening. Mrs. B. here The leaves coming forth rapidly. The rarer birds arriving. Emma said Channy went to school this spring one week and two days. What a brief career! What pathos in that "week and two days"!- Depth of feeling, depth of emotion, profundity of soul, are much more important than extent, or correctness of knowledge. To feel deeply is better than to see clearly - soul is worth more than intellect, love outweighs understanding. Feeling, emotion, stamp future generations, stamp the child unborn; [crossed out: the] science does not. The grandeur and importance of the Puritans was not in what they believed, but in how they believed it. Science laughs at their beliefs, but the world was shaped by their seriousness and power. The grandeur of the Biblical characters is in their depth and sincerity of feeling. Who would not expect greater men to be born out of an age of Puritanism than out of such an age as ours? Serious, earnest men - with such are the secrets of power; to such belong the world, not to mere men of knowledge.Sunday May 18 - A delightful day. The height of the apple bloom; great clouds of white and pink petals against the green. A pale, yellowish green lace-work of foliage over all the woods. The fringed polygala in bloom. The trees across in Langdons woods individualized as usual at this season. Some of the oaks a delicate flesh tint. 22 Getting hot. Foliage all out except upon the oaks, button balls, and a few other trees. The apple-bloom beginning to fall. Two orioles dart into an apple tree and shake down the white petals like snow. The cotton of the pussy willows [crossed out: ?] ripe for the breeze. Air full of bird voices, The cluster of young leaves of the hickory on their long stems are surrounded at the base with a frill or ruffle of flesh-colored inner bud scales. Along an old wood road in the woods the little frogs (hylodes) as thick as grasshoppers in a summer field. They are all out of the marshes and in the woods now. 24 Thermometer 90 in the shade. - To what extent does this law of the sphericity of the globe, this circular law of nature, pervade the mind? Probably it pervades it entirely. Probably the very conditions of consciousness, and all our intellectual processes have reference to the fact that the earth is round, and that up and down have no meaning in absolute space, and boundaries and limitations no meaning. May 27th. A charming day; the 10th anniversary of dear Channy B's death. Clover just blooming; all the birds busy; farmers planting corn; dandelions holding their frail gloves, like lamps, above the grass; first butter-cups athand. Thinking of starting to-morrow for New Haven to see Ingersoll. Just learned of the death of Maj. Bates, of the Comptroller's office, an old friend of mine; rest his soul in peace. 28. Rainy and cold; to NY and thence to New Haven by boat. 29. With Ingersoll about New Haven. A walk to "East Rock" in morning; to Maltby Park in: afternoon; very cold season a little later than at home. 30. Heavy frost last night; great damage to gardens and vineyards all over the country. Grapes and strawberries all killed about N.H. In the low lands, ferns, sumac, ash, butternut killed as in September; an autumnal odor on the air. 31. Home today at 7 p.m. Find little or no damage by frost to my fruit and vegetables. But back from the river vineyards suffered severely.June 1st Bright cool day. Found a female gold-finch in the bushes near the study with one wing tied by what appeared to be a kind of tough elastic web. The outer quill of the left wing was fastened by the end to the end of a feather on the rump and the bird was helpless and made little effort to escape me. It took quite a little force to liberate the wing. When the little bird found herself free, she darted like an arrow and screamed with delight. Probably just such an accident never before befell a bird. Was it a spider's web? Looked like it, but stronger and more adhesive. As tough as bird-lime, but no bird lime about here. - Just finished Morleys essay on Emerson. Full of bright, strong things, but by no means the masterpiece Arnold's essay on same subject is; less simplicity, directness, ease, clearness; it is more difficult, scatters more, and not so easily abridged or reduced to its lowest terms. Some English critic saysthat Newman and Morley are the only two British writers now who have the quality-of style. But [crossed out: Arnold] Morley has far less style than Arnold; in fact, cannot approach him in the qualities that make the master. 2. Clear, cool and rather dry. Here I sit and see my days go by, my days; one by one they pass, and there are only just so many of them, all mine, but no hand of mine can stay them. They pass just the same, whether one is ready for them or not. If one could only hoard his days and use them when best able to, or when most needed, like his income! But this day of mine, when gone, is gone for all eternity. June 3rd As a writer, especially on literary themes, I suffer much from the want of a certain manly or masculine quality, the quality of self-assertion - strength and firmness of outline of individuality. I am not easy and steady in my shoes. The common and vulgar form of the quality I speak of is called "cheek". But in the master writer, it is firmness, dignity, composure - a steady unconscious assertion of his own personality. When I try to assert myself I waver and am painfully self-conscious, and fall into curious delusions. I think I have a certain strength and positiveness of character, but lack egoism. It is a family weakness; all my brothers are weak as men; do not make themselves felt for good or bad in the community. But this weakness of the I in me is probably a great help to me as a writer upon Nature.I do not stand in my own light. I am pure spirit, pure feeling, and get very close to bird and beast. My thin skin lets the shy and delicate influences pass. I can surrender myself to Nature without effort. I am like her. That which hinders me with men, and makes me weak and ill at ease in their presence makes me strong with impersonal Nature and admits me to her influences. - I lack the firm moral fibre of such men as Emerson and Carlyle. I am more tender and sympathetic than either perhaps, but there is a plebeian streak in me, not in them. This again helps me with Nature, but hinders with men.- A green snake in the grass in front of my study; disposed carelessly across the tops of the bending spears, all but invisible; by mere chance I see him as I lift my eye from my book; first think it is some plant. After a while he slowly, very slowly, like the hand of a clock, draws himself down into the finer grass of the bottom. After he has reached the ground with the forward part of his body, he still keeps his tail upright, which slowly sinks into the grass like a green stalk going into the ground. All this for protection I suppose. He was practically invisible.5 Very hot again, 88 in shade. The June perfumes upon the air; the night air heavy laden with the odor of the honey locust; the wild-grape scents the lanes and wood sides. The earlier grasses in bloom, wild strawberries just ripening; the hives sending forth their first swarms; many birds busy with their second nests: black-berries blooming; the daisies and the buttercups paint all the fields. 9 A quart wild strawberries today below Hollands. The nest of the golden crowned thrush on the edge of the fields under a pine; nearly stepped upon it; admirably concealed; 4 white speckled eggs. Hot and dry. Mrs. B. gone to Delhi.June 16. Cool and very dry. Idling away the summer days reading Plutarch, Bates, Amazon, and Sainte Beuve. Mrs. B. still away at Delhi. - It often occurs to me how trivial and insignificant my life is compared with what father's and mothers was. What a battle they fought, how arduous, how prolonged. Full of care, full of work for over 50 years. The paying for the farm, the self-denial, the ceaseless toil, the rearing of a large family; my ease, my leisure, my freedom from responsibility, [crossed out: almost?] quite unknown to them. Up early and late, winter and summer, the large dairy, the spring work, the haying and harvesting the fall harvesting, the buttermaking and early in their histories, spinning and weaving, and making of the clothes, their simple pastimes - going to Red Kill, or over to Uncle Thomas's once or twice a season, and at intervals of 10 or 15 years driving to Pennsylvania to see their friends there. I can recall but three trips they made together to Pa: once when I was a child of 5 or 6; then when I was 18; and again in 1871, while I was in England. It was a great event for them to drive there and was discussed and planned for years in advance. It took them 3 or 4 days each way. Mother went alone to Pa. in 1876.[crossed out: I can] When I was a youth father grew the flax and made the tow from which mother made our linen clothes and linen for the house. He grew the wool also from which our winter clothes were made. Mother spun the yarn, and and the cloth was woven at a fulling mill. How slight my toils and troubles, and my little essay writing seems compared with such lives. The blue-devils never found them idle and vacant as they do me. There is no panoply, no shield like utter absorption in work. A large family too shields and fends one, and to be a part and parcel of your neighborhood, of your townto belong there, to have grown there to have been put there by destiny is a great matter. What comfort they had in their church, in their "yearly meetings", and in their "associations"; what comfort in the intercourse with their friends! They lived on a low plane as it were and the ambitions, the doubts, the yearnings, the disappointments - all the most far reaching shafts of evil fortune, passed over their heads. How gladly would I too have filled my house with children! How gladly I would have surrounded myself with troops of friends; how gladly would I take root and become one with my fellows!19. Very hot, very dry. No rain since May 27th. June turning to dust. The eye of the day has an infernal glare, like that of a maniac. - Do I believe in answer to prayer? Yes, when the faith is perfect. But if men knew the secret of the Lord in this respect, their prayers would not be answered, because they could not have faith. If they knew that putting themselves in the right attitude, in properly opening their minds and hearts, in other words, a proper exercise of faith-if they knew that this was the answer, the blessing they sought instead of something bestowed, as from one person to another, I fear they could not pray. It is [crossed out: necessary] a scientific necessity that you believe the blessing you ask will be granted, and this act of belief is the blessing, and the humility, and feeling of self unworthiness that goes with it. My prayers would not be answeredbecause I cannot believe. I know the secret; they would be insincere and false. I know that prayers are self-answered; that the laws of mind and spirit are such that every sincere prostration of the soul before the Supreme Good is ennobling, tranquilizing, healing. Can there be any doubt say that the soldier, or the general, who before going to battle, has worked himself up to an exalted state of mind, that he falls upon his knees and devoutly and believingly prays God to help him overcome his enemies, will fight more courageously and heroically, than another? The belief that God is helping him is a kind of intoxication; it nerves his arm; it fires his heart, and the victory is already his. Of course God helps him in no other way, not in the way he asked or expects; he is self-deluded and hence self-helped. His belief that God is helping him is God helping him. So, in a thousand other matters. The child is quiet and goes to sleep while it believesits mother is in the room with it, though she may have left long before. Battles have been won by generals not knowing when they were beaten; an attacking column has pressed on against great odds and won the day, because it believed that the other wings of the army were engaging the enemy at another point, or attacking them in the rear, when such was not the case at all. (See one of the battles of Frederick.) Man is strong in his delusions. If he believes in miracles, then miracles practically happen. No ghosts are seen after men cease to believe in ghosts. No witches are hung or burnt after men abandon the belief in witches. The evil eye is in the power of fear and superstition. All these things involve curious psychological laws. A belief that a Supreme Being, a supreme Father, is watching over you in times of danger, in shipwreck, in battle, etc, begets tranquility and [crossed out: comfort?] clearness and steadiness of mind, and intrepidity of spirit, and hence, to all intents and purposes, Goddoes watch over you. The danger is not in danger, but in the fear of danger. The man who is lost in the woods, or on the plains, and prays to God sincerely for help, has all his wits and senses sharpened by that act of faith, and is thereby helped. Because this is so, because mankind [crossed out: have] has in all ages, the heathen and pagan, as well as the Christian, been blessed by sincere prayer to [crossed out: their] the gods, [crossed out: they] men have come finally to pervert and vulgarize prayer by asking for outward, material good. They pray for rain. As soon pray for an eclipse, or for a full moon when it is the old, or for high tide when it is in the ebb. They also seek to influence and change the mind of the Unchangeable. All Christendom prayed for Garfield but it was of no avail, because his wound was mortal. Does prayer ever stop theyellow fever before frost comes? Is there any case where it is safe to let your piety offset a neglect of sanitary observance. If sewer-gas gets into your house, will holiness keep the distemper out? No vaxination is a better safe-guard against small-pox than prayer, no matter how serious. Faith may move mountains, but it never yet removed stone in the bladder, etc. Thou shalt not pray for outward, material good. The fond mother prays that her son may be kept and guided in ways of virtue, but it is the love of virtue in her own heart which [crossed out: she has] he drew in with the milk from her breast, that saves him, if anything. She prays that he may be kept from shipwreck or from sickness and death, but alas how often is he not. But let the mother pray for him still; it will do her good, if it does not save him.Pray for spiritual good, for humility, for contriteness, for tranquility, for singleness of heart. It is strange that mankind has not learned that it is only such prayers that are answered. That God is really "without variableness, or shadow of turning", and that serious aspiration after the high and the good is itself the blessing. What remains for us who cannot pray, who cannot believe in God as something objective and apart from us - a supreme man or parent that bestows or withholds gifts and good? This alone, and this is enough, to love virtue, to love truth, to keep the soul open and hospitable to whatsoever things are true, and of good report and a constant desire and aspiration for more light, more truth, for nobler and simpler lives is better than any spasmodic appeal to the Supreme Good. There need be no delusions or illusions. God is not a personor a parent, or even the "moral and intelligent governor of the universe"; prayers are not mechanically answered, but the more we love truth and virtue, the more we love any noble and worthy thing, the more we grow in grace. If my child were to die of mortal disease, I could not pray God to reconcile me to the terrible dispensation, as my fathers could have done; but I could see in it the same law that gave him life, that upholds the world, and could say "thy will be done." Unless poison kills, and fire burns, life were not possible. If natural law is violated, pain, and maybe death, is the result: I would not have it otherwise. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" The universe is good; it is good because it is adapted to my constitution, it was not shaped to me, but I to it. God did not make the light to suit my eye, but the eye to suit the light,The benefits of pain, of struggle, of sorrow, of fiery trials, are inwoven in the nature of things; the race has come through a fiery furnace, and obstacles strengthen; we are chastised and the species has grown and been evolved through chastise-ment. In no other way does God mould and shape us. It is a greater consolation to me to know that the universe is governed by unalterable law, than that it is subject to any capricious and changeable will. I like to know that what we call God is without variableness or shadow of turning. We know now what to depend on. Strict justice is and must be done to every creature, else life and nature would miscarry. I ask but justice, yes, I demand it, and let me not flinch and whimper.June 22. The only meaning, the only truth that underlies the doctrine of vicarious atonement, is the lesson of unselfishness, to live and die for others - a new doctrine that probably had much to do with [crossed out: its] begetting modern philosophy and humanitarianism. The ancient world, the earlier races were selfish, and to suffer and die for others was a new doctrine to it. This is one of the ways of salvation, salvation from present [crossed out: ?] selfishness. In any other sense the idea of vicarious atonement is preposterous and an offence to the nostrils. That Christ could or did save you or me in another way than by exemplifying to us a noble, unselfish life, is a fable, and a vulgar, debasing [crossed out: ?] fable. Every man or martyr who dies for a principle for an honest conviction, dies for the race. The old martyrs died for you and me just as much, and in the same way, that Christ did.26. A fine rian last night from the north after great heat and a drought of one month. Too late to help the meadows, but will save other crops. Cool and fresh. - There is a thought that has often knocked at the door of my mind and as often been invited in, but which I have never been able to get fairly entered and seated and entertained - this, namely, that man is a part of nature that his conscience, benevolence, and virtues, intelligence, etc., come out of this great savage brute nature. What does it mean? I must brood up on this some time.27. Cool and delicious. The river all light and motion this morning; ten thousand diamonds flash from its surface. 29 Tranquil summer days; elder in bloom; chestnut trees just getting hoary. Looking down upon our forests at a distance the foliage seems to call or boil up - the impression of arrested or impending agitation, and of a swirling, rolling, upheaving motion. The feeling of repose is lacking. - Ten years now have I lived in the wilderness of Esopus and 27 years with a scolding wife. Yet many men have had a worse fate; the wilderness hath its attractions, and the scolding wife her good traits. She is by temperamentand physiology attractive to me, tho' her temper and mental makeup are my special antipathy. In her eyes I am one of the most selfish men that ever lived, and she herself a perfect martyr. She treats my writing and literary propensities as a kind of lazy self-indulgence that ought not to be countenanced a moment - twits me of sitting around and letting her be my "nigger" killing herself. She will not, she cannot see that she is her own nigger - the slave of the most deep grained and unconscious selfishness I ever saw. She does nothing for others, or to please others; but her life is devoted to indulging her own taste for cleanliness and order in and about her house; carried to such a degree that everyone else is made uncomfortable by it. She cleaned and swept me out of the house 3 years ago, and promises to clean me completely off the place. July 2nd 9 A.M. A little tragedy over the fence a few yards from me: two song sparrows, trying to defend their nest against a black snake. The curious interrogating note of a chicken who stood near by first caused me to look up from my Plutarch. I saw the raised wings and moving forms of the sparrows about a large tussock of grass and low bushes, and then the gliding springing snake. The sparrows darted about and through the little clump of weeds and low bushes, apparently trying to seize the snake or beat him off. Their wings and tails were spread, their beaks open from the heat, and struggle and despair and desperation in every movement. I thought that maybe the snake was trying to charm them, so I looked on intently from behind the fence. The birds charged him and harassedhim on every side, but did not seem to be under any spell except that of courage in defending their nest. Every moment or two I could see the head and neck of the serpent make a sweep at them, then the bird struck at would fall back and the other one would follow up the attack from the other side. There was evidently little danger that the snake could strike and hold one of the birds, though I fairly trembled for them, they were so bold and approached so near to the snake's head. I saw him spring at them at least a half dozen times. How the poor birds panted and lifted their wings appealingly. Then the snake started for the wall pursued by the birds. A stone which I hurled at him failed to take effect, and he rushed for cover under the wall. I found the nest rifled and disarranged; whetherit had contained eggs or young I know not. The male sparrow had cheered me here many of a day with his song, and I blame myself for not rushing at once to his rescue when the arch one was upon him. There is probably no truth in the current notion that snakes charm birds. The black snake is the most subtle, alert and devilish of our snakes, and I have never seen him have any but young, helpless birds in his mouth. Getting dry again and hot. 90 degrees in the shade. 3rd To Benton's to-day, all of us; reach there about 2 1/2 P.M. Stay to B's till the 9th. A dull, heavy time for the most part. [crossed out: Mrs B.] Wife out of sorts. Mrs. Booth came Saturday night. Found Ingersoll here on my return. 11 Ingersoll and I and the Van Benschotens go to black pond after pond lilies. A good time. July 14 Ingersoll and I start for a climb among the Catskills. From Boiceville go to the Wittenberg. Pass the night there. Return to Phoenicia by way of Snyder Hollow. Ought to write a short article on the trip. 18 Very cool, for the past ten days, almost like fall. Moses cried, "When, Oh, Lord, shall I find thee?" God said, Know that when thou hast sought thou has already found me." "The best prayers", says Joubert, "are those which have nothing distinct, and which thus partakeof adoration. God listens but to thoughts and sentiments." "To ask is to receive when we ask for a genuine good." "We always believe that God is like ourselves; the indulgent affirm him indulgent; the stern, terrible", - Joubert. He said when he left Paris he parted from his friends, when he left the country he parted from himself. - Ours is a mechanical age. Its voice is the steam whistle loud, dissonant, hideous. A row boat shoots along over the smooth glassy surface of the river; reminds me in some ways of a spider spinning its web, something seems to be drawn out from its stem [crossed out: and be] which shows a long widening line on the surface of the water.Indications of mid-summer. Flies aggressive, dispute your dinner with you at the restaurant, disturb you after your noon nap; swallows perch on the telegraph wires; song birds begin to let up; white elder blows; buckle berries on the mountains; rye cut; grass ripening; goldfinch and cedar birds nesting; first thistles in bloom; meadow lilies hanging their flame-colored bells above the grass; here and there in wet woods they have peculiar charm seen at a distance; large flying grasshoppers; first cicada; harvest apples.- Thompson says that in Africa dogs do not bark nor cows low; he thinks because of the danger from lions and other wild animals. - The water from the sprinkling cart raises a dust. - An addition of fuel checks the fire. - [crossed out: a] The slackened boat is tossed by its own swells. - A sleeper is disturbed by his own snoring.July 22nd Still cool and autumnal like - How different the feeling and purpose with which I sit down to read the bible from that with which father and grand-father sat down to read it. I sit down to read it as a book, a curious and instructive legend, and to suck the literary value out of it; they sat down to read it as the authentic word of God; to learn [crossed out: his] Gods will toward them, and to feed their souls upon the spiritual riches it contains. It was a solemn and devout exercise with them; with me it is simply a search after truth and beauty, in a mood more critical than devout. Yet I cannot help it; I cannot read it otherwise. I cannotbelieve the Bible in the way that father and his father believed it. It would be hypocrisy to pretend I could. This reading of it was the best for them, and is not my reading of it the best for me? There is perhaps more religion in the eye with which I read nature, than there was in the eye with which they read it; and there is more religion in the eye with which they read the Book than in mine. Father and mother no more doubted the literal truth of the Bible than they doubted the multiplication table; they knew it to be true; their own experiences told them so. Experience was their guide and test, not reason; and there is no more fallacious guide in such matters than experience. By experiencepeople believed in witches and spooks and signs and wonders etc. When people began to reason about witches, belief in witchcraft ended. When you begin honestly to reason about the Bible, and to exclude all feeling, experience, and sentiment, you cannot [crossed out: to] believe it other than a great primitive book - the greatest, perhaps, because the most human. The [crossed out: inspired] word of God truly, as all good and wise books are the word of God, as every wise word ever spoken by man is the word of God. The Bible is naked, as it were; faces entirely toward God, eternity, etc., whereas other books face toward the world, or towards man etc. Its burden is God, righteousness, etc. There is no pride of letters here - no pride, but only fear, awe, and worship. It transcends all otherbooks so much in this respect that we have come to look upon it as a record of God's word - an exceptionally inspired book. It is full of error, of course, full of human infirmities, but it is [crossed out: flod] flooded with the sentiment of God, and the aspiration of the soul toward the Infinite; and this is the main matter. It has been productive of great evil as well as good. It is not science, but fable, parable, imagination, ecstasy, etc. Experience, I say, is not a safe guide in certain regions. Self-delusion is so easy; it is so easy to fall into the error of looking upon our private likes and dislikes as decrees of the Eternal, true and binding on all men. The believer knows that God speaks to him through the Bible, therefore the Bible is literally true, the miracles and all. People experience over and over what they call religion; with many it is merely a mental excitement and exaltation of feeling, and is transient; with a few it results in a real change of heart and of life. But I never knew a man who was addicted to lying or to cheating ever to be cured of it by [crossed out: ?] experiencing religion. He will lie and cheat still. The scolding wife scolds still. But habits of swearing and Sabbath-breaking, are often broken up. An honest man and a good neighbor is honest still, whether he "gets" religion, or not; and the fool is not cured of his folly. We are not at all affected in our likes and dislikes of people by their failure to "get religion", and probably God is not.A sinner with large charity, an open heart and hand [crossed out: ???] is more acceptable to Gods and men than the righteous man without charity. - The things that count with us after all are love, good will, sincerity, truthfulness, and by no means what the world calls religion. It is readily said that a man cannot have religion without love, good will, truthfulness, but if he have these, we need ask no further and that the church can help him to these, admits of serious doubt. A man who is honest through fear or compulsion, is not the man I want to deal with.- Some people are not susceptible of much culture. Some of the most learned men have little culture; it all stops with the memory and does not reach the spirit. The person who remembers the most of the book he reads, is probably influenced the least by it; its words stick in his memory, but its spirit fails to sink into his heart. 22. Wood-thrush, purple finch, wren, gold-finch, indigo bird, song sparrow, swamp sparrow, social sparrow, water thrush, tanager, still in song. In the Catskills the hermit thrush and winter wren sing all this month. But after midsummer the songs of most birds greatly deteriorate.That of the wood thrush and purple finch, I note, are much less brilliant and melodious than in May. As the plumage fades, the song fades also. - Resuming my remarks upon father's religion, and the religion of people like him: experience was a safe guide for him to go by; no other guide was possible for him; the clear light of reason he did not have; for him to have seen the Bible and the Church with my eyes would have been disastrous in the extreme; it would have been like blotting the sun from heaven; he would have had nothing to lean upon, nothing to give him joy or religious satisfaction. The avenues through which my spiritual nature [crossed out: is satisfied] is ministered towere closed to him, or were never opened. To have robbed [crossed out: he] him and mother of their hymnbook, of their faith, of their Bible, would have been the greatest cruelty. Their hymns that [crossed out: ?] are so flat and prosy, or else vulgar to me, were precious beyond words to them. How quickly they could give the reason for it, quoting the Scriptures about the carnal mind, etc, but of course this is not the true explanation. Their minds were much more carnal than mine. They had no taste, no culture, no ideality to satisfy, (these they would have called carnal and irreligious), but only the one thought of their soul's salvation, meaning salvation from some threatened evil in some future world. Their belief, their religion, was not disinterested. Yet I think ofthem with inexpressible love and yearning, wrapped in the last eternal sleep, the sleep of which they thought so often, and for which they tried to be so well prepared. And prepared they were; no harm can befall them; they had for them the true religion, the religion of serious, simple, hard-working, god-fearing lives. To believe as they did, to sit in their pews, is impossible to me; the Time-Spirit has decreed otherwise; but all I am, or can be, or can achieve, is in emulating their virtues. My soul can only be saved by a like truthfulness and sincerity. - How incredible that one's parents can pass away, that they are not permanent like the sun and stars!- Cool mid-summer. Thinking very often of father and mother these days; seem to see them, or some suggestion of them, wherever I turn. The first midsummer I have not passed at the old home for several years. - Up to certain grade of intelligence, I consider it a good sign if a man belongs to the Church. Then there is a higher grade in which belonging to the church implies a certain hypocrisy of insincerity. An intelligent, disinterested seeker of the truth cannot be found inside the Church in these days. - The newspaper gives currency to all manner of flippancies, levities, irreverences, ephemeries; its tendency is undoubtedly to beget a shallow, gossipy, loud, tonguey, irreverent type of mind. In the course of generations, the most serious consequences must flow from it - elephantiasia of the lip and tongue, metaphorically speaking. 29 Still cool with plenty of rain and now our measure is to heaped. Began raining last night and this morning a steady, heavy rain from the S.E. An old fashioned rain; the air all white with it; the gray rainy river with smooth dark streaks here and there; the farmer stands in his barn beside his half-filled hay-mow with his coat on, and looks out into the drenched meadows. - Only one or two feeble notes of the cicada yet heard; too cool for them. - Rousseau says "I in a measure dull the edge of grief in advance; the more I suffer in anticipation of it, the greater is the facility with which I forget it." Rousseau was in many respects like a bee drowned in his own honey. His imagination swamped him. - Speaking of nature, botany, etc., Rousseau says the ignorant "see nothing in detail, because they know not what to look for; nor do they perceive the whole, having no idea of the chain of connectionand combination that overwhelms the mind of the observer with wonder. He said of himself that he knew little enough to make the whole world new to him, and yet possessed knowledge enough to make him sensible of the beauties of all the parts. p 396. II "Behavior lawless as snowflakes" is from Rousseau. "Leisure-Studies" a good tile for one of my books, or chapters July 31st Start for Phoenicia on the 6:45 am train to meet Aaron for a trip to the woods. We start for head of Snyder Hollow at 11 a.m. Sprits of rain all the way. Reach Larkins, the upper inhabitants, at 1 p.m. amid quite heavy rain. We bring up at the barn. Larkin comes out and invites us to the house, but Aaron prefers the barn and the hay mowRain stops near night and I take enough trout for our breakfast. Mrs L. gets us some dinner. We sleep on the hay mow, and Mrs L. does not feel complimented that we prefer the hay mow to her feather beds. In the morning fry our fish [crossed out: on her] and make our coffee on her stove and eat in the barn, in front of the ox stall, the soldier in Aaron asserting itself once more. Make camp Aug 1st and take lots of trout. Play the old game of camping out and sleeping on hemlock boughs till Tuesday, August 5th Have a good time; must try to write it up. Aug 5th break camp and reach home at 7 p.m. on boat. Aug 6. Large, lucid, tranquil Aug. day; the grass fresh and green from frequent showers.Aug 8. What is your scheme of religion, your conception of this universe, as a theatre upon which God acts the drama of the salvation of man, in the presence of the facts and deductions of astronomy and geology? How these sciences take the conceit out of us. Man and his history becomes a mere episode, the ephemera of an hour like flies in summer. 10 Cool and overcast for past three days. Orioles pecking and destroying every ripe peach, mellow apple, and pear on my trees. These birds must look out. My gun will get its round black eye upon them if they don't beware. - Keeping to quite general terms, one may say that a great writer must have two things - namely, great power of thinking and great powers of expression. Some writers have onesome the other; a few have both. Did Emerson have both? That he had great powers of expression no one will deny; that he was a great thinker many will deny. His thinking lacked consecutiveness, the tie of logic; but it seldom lacked profundity; it always carried him through to high and safe grounds. Without the method of the philosopher he reached the best conclusions of philosophy. He carried the difficult problems by sallies of the mind rather than by siege. Hence the bright and aerial character of his page; it is the bird's view of the landscape rather than that of the traveler. Goethe was a more logical thinker, but not a safer or more profound. There are great thoughts in E's page, if not great thinking.Aug 11. One year ago today I and father walked over the hill to the old house his father built and where his youth was passed - the last walk we ever took together in this world, and the only time we ever entered the old house together that I can remember. Placid river, placid day. The boughs gently wag, the bees make lines through the air. The passing boats make a great commotion in the water - convert it from a cool, smooth shadowy surface to one pulsing and agitated. The pulsations go shoreward in long rolling shadows.Aug 12. [crossed out: Go to] Start for Marion this afternoon to visit the Gilders. 20th. Home from Marion today. Passed a week with the G's, a pretty good time. - Religion according to the conventional notion, is something miraculous - something entirely apart from life, from nature, from all that is necessary and inherent in [crossed out: life] man and things; something without which the best, bravest, most virtuous man may live and die. The antique world, the towering bards and sages of Greece had it not, the time was not yet ripe, the Almighty had not yet perfected his plans. Can anything be more preposterous and repulsive? I meet persons daily who turn a practicalreasonable, common sense side to life, to events, and things; but who, the moment the subject of religion is broached execute a partial summersault and stand on their heads, seeing everything in false relation: reason, common sense, no longer prevail; they seem to contemplate a condition of things arbitrary, artificial, preposterous, where miracles instead of law prevail. Truly are these things hidden from the natural man; it is only the unnatural man to whom they are revealed, as every lunatic is convinced of things that are preposterous enough to sane people.Sept. 1st A bright, cool placid day, very green and fresh, the 3rd, 4th, 5th, very hot, 90 in shade. 11. Very hot yet, from 94 to 96 under my old apple tree since the 4th. The hottest 7 consecutive days Ihave ever seen here. My time pretty empty; no thoughts, little reading (Herodotus and Stuart Mill). Some occupation as path master on the road. My Mothers birthday. Sept 20. Bright and cool: nearly a frost last night. Mrs B and Julian start for Delaware this morning. Mrs B. in a state of mind as usual. One of the most unwifely of women. The only attitude she seems capable of assuming toward her husband is either one of affected babyishness, or of insolent domineering. The attitude of deference, respect, love, obedience is as far from her as the moon. In nearly all her relations with me and with others, she is the proverbial cow that kicks over the milk.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: July 1, 1889 - July 1, 1890
Text: July 1 Warm, muggy and overcast. Work till 11 a.m tying up grape vines, then go to P. to see wife. Light dahses of rain. 2d Overcast, with light rain, enough in afternoon to stop work. Julian leaves me to-day to go to Hobart with Mrs. B. I hate to se him go. I shall be very lonely. He is all I have. He often tires me with his endless questions, but I find much companionship in him.4 Damp and cloudy till noon when a heavy shower falls; tie up grapes most of the day. Distressingly damp and...
Show moreJuly 1 Warm, muggy and overcast. Work till 11 a.m tying up grape vines, then go to P. to see wife. Light dahses of rain. 2d Overcast, with light rain, enough in afternoon to stop work. Julian leaves me to-day to go to Hobart with Mrs. B. I hate to se him go. I shall be very lonely. He is all I have. He often tires me with his endless questions, but I find much companionship in him.4 Damp and cloudy till noon when a heavy shower falls; tie up grapes most of the day. Distressingly damp and mildewy weather. Never remember the like of it so long continued. Four rainy days, this week, but not heavy till to-day. Must write an essay and call it "Look nearer Home" that is for the explanation of most or all strange or common things in matters near at hand. The question has a theological bearing. 9 Very hot for past few days; busy tying up the vines; heavy shower at 5 1/2 P.M., a regular down pour again. This willpass for the season of the great rains. The air seems burdened with humidity all the time. 10. More rain this morning. A day of cloud and damp, wind in the South 12 Go out to Hobart this afternoon Walk up to Edens from Depot. How clean fresh and sweet the country seems, the air full of the breath of meadows. How still the mountains, how serene in the light of the setting sun. Julian meets me up the road, with big trout stories on his tongue. He is well and happy, and has several fine trout for my breakfast -- and his. I stay to Edens till 23d. Go fishing with Julian about everyother day, and have pretty good luck. Take several 1/2 pound trout, and more 1/4 pound. One day J. takes one 11 inches long. I look on and enjoy his excitement. We fish at the mouth of the big spring run, wading out to our knees. Work a little in hay, read Amiel's Journal, and once go up on the mountain for raspberries. A quiet, restufl time, gain 6 pounds in 10 days. Go over to the old home one day and night, but am oppressed by the past and by Hirams poor management. To Homer Lynchs on the 23d and then home. Homer is breaking up. Killed by hard work and misuse of himself. Pals[crossed out:e]y is upon him. July 27 Indications of coming rain yesterday afternoon, but when the sun set [crossed out: the] a sudden flush came upon all the could, reaching the eastern horizon, and I said the storm had flashed in the pan, but this morning, lo the rain. It began before 7, and it has not cleared before eleven. Signs of an all day rain, slow and deliberate, from the N.E. 30 The hell of rain continues. A heavy shower yesterday at 5 P.M. and a down pour this morning that set the whole ground afloat. Wahsed my new vineyards badly, almost a cloud-burst.No wind here, but probably a cyclone back of the hills somewhere, as, in the midst of the rain shingle and leaves and small branches of trees and vines fell swiftly down from the clouds. It was a curious sight. How long oh Devil is this to last! 31 Rain continues, and the more it rains, the murkier and nastier the sky looks. This morning the air is reeking with vapor. Deluges yesterday all over the country. The very sky seems rotten. Said to be the result of a huge air wave from the Atlantic which has drifted in upon the Coast.Aug 3. Still the rain comes down Three tremendous showers this week and innumerable lesser ones. The Earth oozes water at every pore. Never saw my land so oveflowing. Seven days fo rain. Still the air is not relieved It is reeking with moisture and the sky is think and nasty. Flood and devastation throughout the country. This season will be as memorable as that of the great snow storm in March 1888. P.M. Showers all around us this P.M. and one now 5 o'clock, approaching from the west. A brisk shower at noon -- a terrible down pour at 5 1/2 for 15 minutes. Set all the land afloat again.4 Sunday. A fine day at last. Cool with wind in NW., but sky too milky yet. Drive down to Highland. Grape crops in that section and in every other, nearly all gone, the black and the red rot. 5. Rain again, takes up the tale where it dropped it last week; air think and murky, no motion, no wind, with a steady heavy (at times) rain from S.W. The destruction of all farm crops is imminent. If this is not hell, what is it? 11. Bright and cool, 3 fair days last week. The threatened rain of Friday and Saturday did not amount to much. Looks now as if the tide had turned and fair dry weather [crossed out: was] is at hand.Am alone in the old house. Wife and Julain at Stamford. But even this is better than housekeeping after the old style. I have peace at last, and am fairly happy. 14 Again the damnable rains are upon us. After nearly a weeks respite, and after we had all predicted fair and dry weather at hand, the rain began last night with such thunder, and is still (at 9 a.m.) pouring. I am nearly ready to believe in a malignant Providence at any rate. Looks like a deliberate purpose on the part of the weather gods to destory all the crops of the country. 15 An inch of rain yesterday. Mist and cloud till this afternoon.16 A lovely day, clear and cool. Champion grapes ripe. The girdled fruit shipped one week ago by Van B. 24 Dry dreamy August days at last. No rain for ten days. Warm and tranquil. The time of excursions at hand. Nearly every day boatloads of happy peoples go by with music and laughter. I work part of the time and sit and dream or read in my summer house the rest. Pick a few peaches each day Mrs. B. and Julian up at Stamford yet. Pretty lonely times, but not unhappy: better than housekeeping on the old terms. Van cutting weeds, Lute plowing in the grapes.25 A bright, cool day, spent it on the hills and in the woods of Dutchess Co. How delightful that long reclining upon the top of that pastoral hill in sight of the mountains! The slowly sinking sun, the bleating sheep. The marsh hawk prowling up and down low over the grass and now and then dropping down in it, then the sun setting in a notch in the S. Catskills, then the glow as of embers where he went down and then the rest of the idyl. 27 Clear, cool, dreamy August days, the air full of the chirping of crickets, boats drifting idly about the river, their sails white in the sun. I read and think or muse, read "Emerson in Concord"Sept 1st Clear, hot day. Spent the day in Olive with wife and Julian at father Norths. The old man very low; the spark of life only flickers. Hardly knew me, yet seemed to have a vague idea of me; spoke my name, and asked for me. Hawthorne said it required a continued freshness of mind to write his sketches, and he could not keep up to the mark more than one third of his time. It requries the same continued freshness of mind to write my out-door papers, and I fear it has gone from me forever. I cannot get up that keen fresh interest in things any more, I fear. 16 The funeral day of father North. The old man yields at last, died Saturday night a 1 A.M; buried to-day at about 3 1/2 P.M. at Shokan. I go up in the morning on first train. A brisk shower just as we reach the burying ground. I alone of all his friends get out of the wagon and go and stand by his open grave and throw in my handfull of dirt. He was 88 last April. A man of great activity and industry: not a lazy hair in his head, also a man of good will and fair dealing, much esteemed by all who knew him. What a picture his life would be if it could be written. I shall think of him a great deal as long as I live. Now there is no one living whom I can call "father". 21. Go down to Asbury Park to-day, all of us. Reach there at 2 1/2 P.M. Stop at the Bristol. The old ocean once more. Spend one week there. Eat and sleep like a boy. Gain a pound in weight Each day. Julian and I spend most of the time upon the beach. 28. This morning I am up early and off to Camden to see Walt; reach his house at 9 1/2. Find him eating his breakfast of toast and [crossed out: cof] tea and looking remarkably well, much better than one year ago.He stands a fair chance of outliving us all yet. Sit 3 hours with him and have much talk. He sits amid a perfect chaos of books, papers, letters, and MS and dust never saw anything like it. So serene and clean and calm, and such wild confusion in the room about him. Even the window papers were partly torn from their places and hung down as if to heighten the effect, if such were was possible. I expect to see him again in the afternoon, but my head ache comes round and I leave for N.Y. and at 6 P.M. take boat for P. 29 Reach home to-day. A lovely day and good to be here. While passing down the Jersey coast that morning the train seemed to have disturbed vastswarms of swallows (the sand martin I judged) the air was black with them for a mile or more; they were as thick as bees in swarming; there must have been a million of them. Did they pass the night in the sand dunes there, or why were they in that particular spot? -- Julain suggested a plan by which the world might be made to start anew again, or Creation made to repeat itself. He says pe[crossed out:a]el off the outer crust of the earth as you would the bark of a tree, till you come to the quick, the fluid and molten interior, and then life will begin again and may be surpass the present. "What shall we do with the crust" I asked, "Throw itoff into space" he said. "Let's begin to strip the old hickory nut to-morrow" I replied. 4 A mild soft, beautiful October day after the frost of two night ago. Julian and I again in the old house. J. goes to school. In the evening we sit by an open woods fire in the old fire place, and a real feeling of home comes upon me. I do the house work, as I have nearly all the time since spring. Mrs. B. in P. When Mr Brookman asked the old Irishman what he could do for him, he replied, pointing up, "Spake a good word for me to the man up above." The old fellow like the majority of makind concieves of God as a man -- a bigger manthan any on Earth, but still a man. Of course when we think of God as being, we cannot think of him under any other image than that of a man. 13. A pouring rain all night from the north. The drains all running agian, and a lake of water in the old cellar. Overcast and cold to-day. 14 A dark, cold windy day 15. Very windy. Partly clear. Drive to P. with stove for Mrs. B. 16 A day of great brightness and beauty the air cleaned and burnished by two days and nights of terrific wind form the north. How the maples glow in the sunlight! Much pleasure in loitering about the place such days -- sad pleasure.26. Ten days without rain and rather fine weather, two or three heavy frosts. The Armours left yesterday and again the house is dead. To-day I take a load of things to P. to set up housekeeping in some rooms. Do not like the outlook much. 27. Rain and rain. Julian and I alone in the old house. J. reading The Three Guardsmen of Dumas. I skim through Brigg's "Whittier". Not worth the candle. The more the old theology is stirred up the more it stinks. What is the use of pointing out the difference between one rotten potato and another? Pitch them both into the rubbish heap. In reading these things I often have to stop and examine myself to see if I reallyawake. It is incredible that man can really discuss theses questions, the question of infant damnation for instance. But they do and tell you all about the plans and purposes of the monstrosity they call God. It is sickening. I suppose the ancient races had no belief in the modern sense; they had fear veneration, worship, [crossed out: superstition] They saw things with the eye of imagination, not with they eye of reason. Nov 3. Sunday. A week of cloud and rain, not a gleam of sunshine for 8 or 9 days. Went to Roxbury last Monday to look after Hirams matters. Spent two days in the village; very wretched; did not go up to the old place; too painful.Much depressed because Smith and Emma are going to Connecticut. Hirams outlook very black. He must give up the old place. I shall probably lose heavily by him. Well, I did what I thought was my duty. I wanted to see him keep the old home. But clearly he is not competent to manage the farm. The end is at hand. It will be almost like losing father and mother over again to see the old home go into strange hands, but I fear I am powerless to avert it. 6 A bright, quiet lovely afternoon. Am living these days in the old house. Mrs. B. and Julian in P. Not much pleasure, evenings lonely. Read and muse, but not thoughts.at work today setitng posts in vineyard. 25. A mild but very wet Nov. so far. Last week it rained five days, a bad flood in some parts of the country, but not heavy rain in these parts. Only one considerable freeze this month. No snow yet. Spend part of the time in P. with Wife and Julian, but begin to see that I cannot stand it there; the same old story. Mrs. B. out of humor and worked to death as usual. I will live alone with my dog and cat. I suspect my housekeeping with that woman is about done. I simply cannot stand her temper and her want of intelligent interest in any worthy thing under the sun.I arrived down from the old house last week, and am again alone in the big house; but better this solitude than the horrible neatness and the sour looks and words [crossed out: of] on Cannon St. I doubt if my father ever stayed alone a single night in his house Probably none of my family, unless it be Abigail, have passed so much time alone in a house. Am reading Carlyles letters (from 1814-1816), wonderful letters, a wonderful man, so mature, so firm and sure upon his feet from the first! Hardly any of his opinions or criticisms during his 20s did he ever need to revise.26 A bright mild day. Spent the afternoon up by the creek screening gravel. I had real enjoyment, almost happiness. The bright sun, the full bounding stream hastening along within a few feet of me, the trees and rocks, the mild secluded place, my dog, "I-know" capering about, the brisk exercise etc. etc. -- it all went to the right spot. It dispelled my gloom and almost made me cheery. The walk home too near sundown, how it called up my many many walks along this road in happier days. I came back to a deserted house, but have eaten my supper [crossed out: in] with comparative satisfaction.26 What emphasis Carlyle lays upon work in his letters. How he nerves himself to it; how he exhorts and encourages himself and his bretheren. work, work, work is the only salvation he cries, the only road to happiness, in fact the only way to keep form going mad [crossed out: i]on this Earth. Some days he wrote 3 or 4 pages (of his essays) then again he says he has hammered his brain all day and not written a line. It seems hardly possible words and ideas came from him so copiously. In getting ready to write his essay on Diderot he read 20 big French books, one [crossed out: per] a day, reading 9 a.m. to 10 P.M. hardly stopping to eat and smoke. If his bodily digestion was bad his mental digestion was tremendous. What a mental mill to grind such grist day after day. 27. A thick threatening sky in the morning. Screen gravel again up by the creek till noon. In afternoon rain sets in with some sleet in the air. To-night I sit again in the empty house and console myself as best I can with books etc. while "I-know" snores [crossed out: by] beside the stove. 28 Thunder this morning and brief dashes of rain. A downpour all night. Even the side hills afloat this morning. Springs gushing out everywhere. A great prodigality of rain since May 1st A drunken spendthrift trying to see how soon he could go through a large fortune Dec. 1 A bright Sunday and cold. Spend it in P. In the afternoon Julian and I take a long walk, J's tongue running all the time. 3 Back home yesterday. To-day our first snow squall from the north and pretty cold Worked an hour in the morning in the vineyard, sat in doors rest of the day reading. A despatch from Roxbury; must up at 6 in the morning and out there again on Hirams business. A dismal prospect. To-night the wind roars about the house as my dog and I sit here by the kitchen stove. 4 Clear and cold. At Roxbury to-day. Hiram does not appear at the village as agreed upon, so I go home to seek him. Chant and Johnny are cutting wood down near the road. Find only a strange woman at the house; does not know here Hiram is. left home in the morning, may be back in 3 or 4 days, and may not, and she is very short about it. John Tyler is up taking care of his stock. It is very strange that he does not know where Hiram is, nor when he is coming back. He has evidently gone off to avoid me, poor soul! I stay all night and sleep (a little) in the cold chamber. In the morning return to the village and report the disappearance of Hiram to my lawyer. We conclude to send sheriff up and take possession of his stock and othe personal property. It begins to snow. I walk up to Uriah Bartrams. Uriah is well, but nearly 81 years old. Spent an hour or more with him. The death of Jim was a severe blow to him. He shows no childishness like father at his age, says calmly that he is nearly through with this world. At dusk I conclude to go out to Edens, may be Hiram is there. I walk up from the village in a light snow. As I reach the house I see Hiram through the window. I felt ashamed and humiliated for him. I go in and greet them all barely speaking to Hiram. He looks confused and guilty. I quickly open on him, tell him the sheriff is in possession and that heis to be sold out etc. etc. Much talk and discussion follow. I try to show him how utterly hopeless it is for him to hope to go on with the farm without ruining me etc. Then to bed; poor fitful sleep. Up early Hiram in a hurry now to get back home. We walk across the mountains through wind and snow. As we toil up the mountain I note how troubled and care worn he looks; he stoops as if bearing a great burden; my heart bleeds for him. I know how he is weighed down, but nothing can be done he has lost the battle, the old farm and home he cannot keep. I am powerless to help him more. The roof over my head is threatened. We reach home before noon; after dinnerwe go to the village. Hiram goes reluctantly. He will walk behind me, as if I were leading him with a rope, leading him to the slaughter. I could fly to get away from the painful business. At the lawyers office Hiram deeds the farm to me and turns over all his personal property, signs away everything he has in he world. Poor boy, and he does it so readily, like a child. Then we go back to the old home. I sleep near him in the old chamber, or try to sleep, as he does, but neither of us sleeps much. I spend a week in R. trying to sell or rent the place, and let Hiram stay there. One afternoon I walk 5 miles and back through the mud to see a man who wants to buy a farm.I chop wood and work about the place. No man stands to his offer to buy I shall have to rent it. Much trouble and sorrow. Have about $3000 at stake in it. Must keep a home there for Hiram if possible. Some bright days and many stormy ones. 11 Back to W.P. to day and then to P. 13 Warm and pleasant, burn the grape vine trimmings. 14 Our first snow, about 5 inches. 15 Pretty cold and the sleigh bells jingling. 17 Warm and rainy again. In the morning I am off to Roxbury once more.21 Spend 4 days at the old home do not sell the farm, no buyer but to-day rent it to George Brandow. Will this plunge me deeper into the sea of trouble? May easily be that the worst is not yet. We shall see On Thursday the 19th I walk over the mountains to the head of Red Kill to George's place, about 14 miles both ways, through mud; but I am not much fatigued; far less it seems to me than when I made the same trip as a boy. It is a bright lovely day for Dec. A warm week on the whole, [crossed out: to] with but little frost. Show all goes with south wind and rain. Return to-night much relieved, the burden of the farm seems offMy shoulders for a moment, tho' the thought of Hiram still sends a pang through my heart. 22. Rainy and warm. Julian and I take a walk in the afternoon after the sun comes out. 23. A bright lovely Dec. day like late October. Came up to W.P. to-day and learn that my dog "I-know" is dead, killed Friday night by the gravel train as he tried to pass under it. It sends a deep pang through me; my faithful dog, my sole companion these days and nights on the farm. I sit here in the kitchen of my deserted house to-night without him. Every now and then, halfforgetting, I turn to see where he is, or to wonder why he does not come. I-knows only fault was his excessive good nature, and his cowardice in the presence of other dogs or of any form of supposed danger. Very intelligent and handsome and gentle as a lamb. Even the cats imposed upon hiim and made a rug of him. Fit mate of his weak and sensitive master! I am less grieved than when my other dogs diedor were killed, because I have had experience, and will not be caught that way again -- will not again allow a dog to take such deep hold upon my affection. After a time I suppose I can lose dogs without emotion. But how I shall miss the faithfulcreature from my solitary life, and how long will his memory be fresh in my heart! I brought a basket of bones for him as usual, which now the cats will have to gnaw. Worked this afternoon putting manure on the currant cuttings. 25. Christmas: Spend it in P. with my family; very warm like May. Clear, wind S.W. In forenoon Julian and I walk up to College Hill and sit a long time on the grass talking of wars of History, and of Greek architecture and art. We can see our house and W.P. and the view on all sides is wide and pleasing. Rather [crossed out: of] a grim and unpleasant Xmas dinner; Mrs B. in a state as usual. In afternoon J. goes to a variety entertainment at Opera House, and late I walk down thesouth road and into the woods; sit a long itme on a rock amid the hemlocks and see the sun go down warm as May; no life in Nature save two nuthatches. In the dusk I walk back home with long long thoughts. 26. Rain last night and this morning. Come up home on the little boat. Sun out before noon. Work in afternoon with Van Aken setting posts etc. Bees out of the hive. In afternoon wind begins to rise and the temperature to fall. At 4 P.M. we bury poor "I-know" back of the shed in a grave Julian dug last spring; for what purpose neither he nor I knew at that time. Little did we think our dear dog was to be buried there.27. Clear and colder; froze a little last night, but not enough to stop the plough. Work to-day with Van Aken again setting posts and wiring grape vines. Enjoy it very well. There is peace in the house here, and if the fine weather lasted I should stay here all winter. -- Dr. Johnson did not succeed in embodying his tremendous personality in any form of literature. His power was a personal one, largely physiological, and is developed by personal contact. In this he was like the great mass of able men of any age, politicians, lawyers, orators etc. men of action etc. men often of strong and imposing personalities, who yet can produce no adequate effect with their pens; probably have no soul power; the writing is colorless andcommonplace. Even such a scholar as Gladstone has written nothing that holds or commands us. Carlyle was much more successful in putting himself in literature than was Dr J. or Gladstone. Wendell Phillips and Summer have left nothing that will live as literature. [crossed out: Neither] Nor [crossed out: has] have Clay or Choate or Chapin, and Beecher but very little. Lincoln had the power to impart himself, to stamp himself upon his utterances, and probably he is the only President that had. Nearly all state papers read alike. It may not be the greatest but it is a rare gift, this power or faculty of imparting an individual flavor to the written page. Is not this style? 28 A lovely Indian summer day, warm, clear, still. What deilght to have to go forth to work in the field. The grass is green and the fields dry. Worked this forenoon in vineyard. In afternoon go to P. 30 Lovely day; work in vineyard with Van. 31. Clear and cold. Back to P. in Black 1890 January 1st Overcast with mist and light rain. Aaron Johns comes about noon. Greatly rejoiced to see him again, after near three years. All day we sit and talk. In evening walk the streets and sit for a while in a saloon. Sleep together at night, the first since '84.2 Warm and moist. Aaron leaves for home in the morning, very loth to see him go. No man whose society I enjoy more. Go up to W.P. in afternoon; very warm; bees humming about; how the stones and rocks do sweat. Back at night. 3d. Bright and mild; no frost. 4 At W.P. most of the day. Clean up the kitchen floor and then help Van set posts. Get very warm mopping off the floor. At the beginning of the new year I find myself in very good health, apparently stronger and better than in many years; no more dizziness, rarely any heart fluttering and able to stand long walks without fatigue. The worst symptoms are melancholy, loneliness, and a sense of it being late in theday with me. Part of this may be due to [crossed out: the fact of] domestic infelicities and to the fact that my home at W.P. is broken up. If I could be there and have all inside as it should be, I should be fairly happy. But I am growing old; this incessant retrospection is one sign, if I needed any evidence besides my mirror. 8 pm. A despatch from Eden saying that Hiram is at his house and has a light stroke of apoplexy, and to come at once! How quickly the gloom thickens around me, and how all my feeling against Hiram suddenly changes. This then is what his weak and foolish conduct means -- this thing has been coming upon him a long time; his brain has been slowly giving way. Alas, alas, what shall I do? Can not go to-night.and what could I do anyway. Poor brother, has the giving up of the old farm indeed broken your heart? Alas, alas, it was inevitable; I could do no more. What a burden the whole subject has been to me, and may be the heaviest burden of all is yet to come. Suddenly the thought of Hiram and my love for him overtops everything else. We shall all go that way, probably -- apoplexy. Hiram first, and not yet 63. No doubt his work is done, if his life is yet spared. 5 Sunday. Warm and moist. In afternoon Julian and I walk up to the asylum and sit long on the pine needles under the trees looking out over a fine landscape to the north. We talk of many tings, but my heart cries incessantly Hiram, Hiram! We get back near nightfall. 6 Up to WP today; light sprinkles of rain; warm as May; everyting sweats. I paint the floor in dining room, my thoughts all the time yonder amid the mountains. The grass grows, bees hum, insects dance in the air, caterpillars crawl about, bluebirds call; fear this unseasonable warmth so prolonged will injure the trees and vines. Am quite certin that i never saw the like before. What news from yonder will a day bring forth?January 13. Since my last entry quite a cold snop with a little snow ending in hail and rain. To-day at W.P. again, warm as May again, bees humming, light sprinkles of rain; wind S.W. clearing off in afternoon with signs of cold wave. News from Eden on Thursday that Hiram had gone home better. Apparently in no danger. Feb 26. Since my last entry have spent most of time in P. By no means a good time or a profitable one. Mrs. B. sick most of the time with the gripe and very cross. I managed to write a couple of pieces one week, butbut they have little merit. Read a good deal. Froude's Oceana and his trip to the West Indies; very entertaining books. You get this from Froude which you get from few other travelers; you get a good style, and you get glimpses of all the notable men in the country he visits. Froude hunts them up and has a word with them. He writes with great ease and fullness. Read other books of travel to S.A. and to Java, etc. The winter so far as remarkable as the summer, not another such in this century. No cold no snow; not a pound of ice yet gathered in the Hudson River Valley; no skating but once or twice. Grass green all winter and flowers in bloom. Saw blueperiwinkles in the open air in January, and on Feb 20, a maple tree in P red with bloom. Skunk cabbage in bloom Feb 20. Four inches of snow last week, but none before since Dec. Fog and gloom this morning, but soon the fog lifted, and the sun came out, and the day has been lovely. Warm as May, bees out of the hive, and blue birds calling. Came up from P. yesterday and to-day opened the campaign; sawed wood in forenoon, and set posts in afternoon with my new man DuBois. The little boat resumed her trips to-day. While at supper to-night in the dining room a [crossed out: muskito] mosquito appeared and finally settled on my hand and began to suck my blood. When I could see the blood begin to show in his abdomen I killed him. The first time I ever saw a [crossed out: muskito] mosquito in winter. Strange to say his bite [crossed out: left] caused no itcing. Another was see before we left the table. To "put the true praise and set it on foot in the world" is the function of Criticism. (The phrase from Pepy's Diary.) March 6. A driving snow storm form the north, began last night; looks like a blizzard. By far the most severe touch of winter we have had. Been here since Tuesday the 4th at work in the vineyards. Heard through Abigail of the death of Dr Hull in Olive; an old friend of my boyhood and of my family's. When I first started out in the world in '54 I [crossed out: came] went to his house. How much have I been there since that time! How much harm I have been there since that time! How many letters we have exchanged, how many miles I have ridden with him over that rough country! He visited me in Washington and has been twice here. He was a very friendly, jovial man, but not profound. I once studied medicine with him for 2 months; in his office I wrote my one poem "Waiting" in 1862. How many associations are connected with his name! Peace to his ashes. (Saw him last at Father North's funeral in Sept. last.)6th Storm abates a little, but very windy and cold. A flock of pine grosbeaks in front of my study windows feeding on the buds of the Norway spruces. No red once among them. Some of them a sort of bronze color on head and rump. Have not seen this bird before for 8 or 10 years. I heard of them in this locality ten days ago. 7. Cold after the storm; a rugged bit of winter; mercury down to zero or below; snow 5 or 6 inches 9 Clear and cold; some thin ice has at last been gathered on the ponds in this seciton 12 Very warm, 73 degrees. Snow all gone. Heard robin and piping frogs to-day. 13. Up home to-day and at work in vineyard; cloudy and still, a little cooler. Hear [crossed out: ???] several peepers tonight; a very welcome sound. 14 A slow rain from the north; air still and thick. How the sparrows sing, how the snow birds chirp and chatter 12 M. Rain becomes hail and snow but does not stop the happy sparrows. Now the great sodden flakes come swiftly down; they fall as swiftly as snowballs the air is all streaked with them. Fields of dirty floating ice on river.-- "If children grew up according to early indications" says Goethe "we should have nothing but geniuses; but growth is not merely development; the various organic systems which constitute one man spring one from another, follow each other, and even consume each other, so that after a time scarcely a trace is to be found of many aptitudes and manifestations of ability. 18 Fair cool March day; much sunshine, considerable wind. Worked all day in vineyard bracing the posts, Zeke with me Weather looks promising.19. A driving snow storm set in at 6 1/2 A.M. Now at 1 P.M. the air is thick with snow from the north, with 7 or 8 inches on the ground. Seldom have I seen it snow faster. The biggest storm of the season. Not nearly so cold as the last. Snow pretty damp. 20 Snow fell about 9 inches. Going off rapidly to-day. 26 A week of much rain and storm. Came up home to day from P. Worked in the vineyard putting up wire. Heard phoebe bird to-day, also clucking frogs (rana Sylvaticus) Much water in ground. 27. 11 A.M. am sitting in my vineyard waiting for my part in putting up wire. Zeke is at other end of row putting in staples. When he gets back here I rush in with nippers and tongs, cut the wire and stretch it while Zeke drives home the staples. Day bright and lovely, wind fitful and capricous; sparrows sing all about me. What a variety of songs they have; robins call and sing, phoebe calls; clucking frogs. Find first liverwort a few moments ago, sweet scented; a little red butterfly dances past, river looksvery muddy. Am happy in sitting here and drinking in the beauty of the day. Storm due to-morrow. 28. Rain and snow. Dark and chilly. I sit in my study by the open fire. We are probably near the center of the storm; no wind, and rain in short, sudden spurts, threatening to be heavy, but ceasing after a few minutes. Ice on trees. Send off Country Notes to-day -- not much worth -- a pot-boiler. 1890 April 1st April has come again. Welcome to April. The ground white with snow this morning, a light feathery snow that came silently in the night. Nearly clear and not cold. How the sparrows sang as I went over the P.O. the fox sparrows leading the choir! Work in vineyard. Snow all gone before noon. Colder in afternoon. Poor sleep last night. God to H. in afternoon; find colts foot in bloom, and walk in woods above station.2d The second of the April days, clear as a bell. The eye of the heavens wide open at last. A sparrow day, how they sang! And the robins, too, before I was up in the morning. Now and then I could hear the rat, tat, tat, of the downy at his drum. Work all day in vineyard putting up [???] and wire. How many times I pause to drink in the beauty of the day. Not very warm, but just right for work.April 3 Another birth day, my 53d and a more lovely April day so far never came down out of heaven. Perfectly clear with a slight film in the air as of dissolved pearls. Such a sparrow day! Over near the station heard a remarkable sparrow song; it caught my ear when I was a long way off. Its chief feature was one long clear note, very strong, sweet and plaintive, a loop of sound. To the eye the song was like this a very original song; never heard one like it before. Spent the morning again in my vineyards, but am threatened with a head ache. Mrs. B. and Julian in P. P.M. Head ache over. Mr Rhones comes for the currant cuttings. How delicious the day. Walk up to the old mill in afternoon and back on the R.R. track. Turtle doves here, also high-hole. A lovelier birth-day I never had and all alone too. Only two reminders are from N.Y. from Mrs Fletcher, and the other from P. from Miss T. Burn the brush and rubbish in the garden. 4. Rain to-day -- warm, delicious from S.W. Do not work much, draw a little manure, and graft the pear tree, which I meant to have done yesterday in honor of my birth day. 5. Day of great brightness after the rain, air winnowed by the north wind, the world flooded with light. An April day out of the north. Work in forenoon getting manure from ice house stables. In afternoon burn brush heap and help with manure. Am fairly happy such days as the world goes. 11. Much rain the past week. No warmth yet. Currant bushes beginning to lea[crossed out: ve]f out. To day a bright cold day from the north. Feels as if there was yet snow in the air. The April days are passing. They have much of the old charm. Miss the purple finch this spring, tho' I heard one to day. The little bush sparrow two days ago. How I like to walk out after supper these days. I stroll over the lawn and stand on the brink of the hill. The sun is down; the robins pipe and as the dusk comes on indulge in that loud chidingnote or scream, whether in anger or fun I never can tell Up the road in the distance is that thicket [crossed out: and scream] of the multitudinous voices of the peepers. With long long thoughts and sad sad thoughts I stand or stroll about. An April twilight is unlike any other. 12 Lovely day. Julian comes from P. and spends the day here. We plough the ground under the hill for the Moors Early. In opening the furrows for the plants I guide the team by walking in their front. How I soaked up the sunshine to-day. At night I glowed all over. My whole being had an earth bath. There was a feeling of freshly plowed land in my mind The furrow had struck in; the sunshine had photographed it upon my soul. 13. Sunday. A warm, even hot April day. The air is full of haze, the sunshine golden. In afternoon Julian and I walk out over the country north of P. It is hot. Every body is out. All the paths and by-ways are full of boys and young fellows. Julian talks all the time of high pressure and low presssure engines; thinks he knows all about the difference but I do not. He bores me with his engines. We wit on a wall long time by a meadow and orchard and drink in the scene. It is delicious. April to perfectionSuch a sentiment of spring everywhere. The sky is partly overcast, the air moist, just enough so to bring out the odors, a sweet perfume of bursting growing things. One could almost eat the turf. All about the robins sang. In the trees the crow black birds cackled and jingled athward these sounds came every half minute the clear strong note of the meadow lark; the larks were very numerous and were love making. Then the high hole called, and the brush sparrow talked all together it was very enjoyable. Then we went up on Reservoir hill and gave the eye a wider range and tried to drink deeper draughtsof this April [crossed out: ???] nectar. In the forenoon went to church with Mrs. B. and heard a rather common place Methodist sermon. 14 A repetition of yesterday in the matter of the day, hot, hazy, with intermittent shadow and sunshine. Arbutus days I call them, everybody wants to go to the woods for arbutus; it all most calls one. The soil calls for the plough, too; the garden calls for the spade; the vineyard calls for the hoe. From all about the farm voices call come and do this, or do that. We obey the call to set out the vines and make a good beginning this afternoon. A little rain. How the peepers pile up the sound to-night!A characteristic feature of these rare days I forgot to mention -- namely the broad converging lines (spokes of light) from the sun through the rifts in the clouds; the sun "drawing water" as they say -- a sign of dry weather usually, also the toads trilled their long drawn br-br-br-r-r-r. all day long 15. A sudden change last night, cool and windy to day from the north; The whole feeling, sentiment, aspect of nature has changed. I work with my coat on most of the day. Finish setting out the grapes. Very tired to-night. I find I cannot stand much hard work, but think I can walkas well as ever I could. 17. Still fair and warmer; ground getting dry. Julian comes up to-day. We set out peach trees. In afternoon J. and I go fishing up in the creek, snaring suckers. A pleasant incident. The bright April day, the full, clear pebbly stream, the wavering, flickering vanishing forms of the suckers seen through the deep running water, and our eager peering and reaching. Take two fine ones, lose several others. J. returns to P. at night. 19. Colder from the north, but clear and dry. Froze quite hard last night. The river veryrough this morning. Shad trees quite white, and shad boats breaching the wind and waves. 20. Bright, dry, cool day, Spend the forenoon in the woods with Sherwood. March marigolds ready to bloom. The heath thrush in song. 23 Bright, dry, dreamy, smokey April days. They fill me with the old longing, the longing for the old days and the old home. On the little boat the other day I fell to thinking of father again (what day do I not think of him and mother) of how unlike his life was to mine, how contented he was. The horizon was the boundary of the world tohim. [crossed out: He] It held all that he cared for or thought of, his farm, his wife, his family, his church, his neighbors. He was like a child in many ways, no ambition, no desire to travel. He could not have been hired to go to Europe. He read no books but his Bible and hymn-book and weekly paper. The great world outside troubled him but little. He filled his place, he was thoroughly rooted. My sensibilities and longing and ambitions and misgivings, he knew not. Happy Man. He had a home, which I really have not. My loneliness he never knew. What indeed would father have done alone, without mother and his children! -- No rain for 10 days and but little signs of any. A god send to the farmers. Swallow here this morning, and yellow rumped warbler. 23d Smokey day, partly cloudy. Clouds slow and veiled by the smoke. April fires raging somewhere. Everybody is burning up their rubish. Julian comes up, and spends afternoon. Cherry blossoms opening. First robin and egg shell on the road, dropped by crow [crossed out: of] or jay. I burn bush and rubbish and potter about. Rain much needed.27 Sunday. Slow warm rain, began yesterday afternoon. Julian and I walk to the cemetery on South ave, P. Rain very heavy in the west, but very moderate here. Never remember to have seen the grass of so vivid a green as this April. the excessive rain fall of last year and the mild winter must have much to do with it. Crops of all kinds ought to grow well this year. There must be more ammonia than usual in the soil. 28. A bright lovely day; begin moving back from P. doubtless I shall regret it soon enoughTo-night is soft moon light, a young moon, air motionless I hear the shouts and snaps of the fishermen in the river and see the light of their lanterns feathred up and down, a delicious night. May 1st A bright, warm, delicous May morning. Cherry trees a mass of bloom. Pear trees beginning to bloom. Currant bushes in full leaf. Many trees in Langdons woods touched with tender green. The oriole, king bird wood thrush whippoor will have arrived. Would like to stop the [crossed out: wheel] clock of Time and prolong this day.It is not honey which the bee gathers from the flowers, but sweet water, or cane sugar. The bee takes this, digests it, adds something to it and makes honey. In red clover and in columbine you can taste the sweet, but it is not honey. [crossed out: People] Those who read my books think I get my honey direct from Nature, but I do not; I get the crude material there, but the product I try to give forth is as much mine as Natures. Unless what I see and oberve has passed through my heart and imagination and becomesmy product, it is of little interest or value. --It is said that there is a fish in the deep sea that can and does swallow a fish 8 to 10 times as large as itself. It seizes its victim by the tail and slowly engulfs it, its mouth and stomach distending enormously. May 5. A warm delicous rain last night, an inch of water much needed. Very humid and warm this morning. Some appletrees in bloom. A snatch of bobolink melody this morning from the air overhead. As I writethe song of the wood thrush song sparow, [crossed out: ???] house wren, the call of the meadow lark, oriole come through my open door, I hear the songs of warblers also. How curious it is that man in his enormous egotism has made himself believe that he is some exceptional product; that he has a special and extra or super natural endowment, a soul, and that to bring him forth has been the aim and object of all creation. All other creatures he believes are mortal, but he is immortal. How he glorifies himself. But in the eye of science he is part and parcel of the rest; just as ephemeral as summer flies, and no more the end and aim of the creation, and no more endowed with an independent principle called the soul. -- Fine shower in afternoon May 6. A rainy day from the N.W. Heavy all forenoon, the ground thoroughly soaked. Heard hermit thrush in woods back of Highland station yesterday at 5 P.M. 7. Fair and calm after the heavy rain of yesterday. All the woods and groves full of young leaves. Green shade has come again. Snow from the cherry trees covers the ground. The mellow hornof the bumble bee is upon the air. Again the dendelions star the lawns and road sides. Keeping house here again since April 30, contrary to my wishes and expectations. Expect the same old story. Some seasons the cherry, peach and maple blossoms come at same time. This year a wide difference. This year a wide difference. No hard maple blossoms yet on my trees. Was the mild winter unfavorable to the maple? Its sap is certainly less sweet than usual. Later -- will be no maple bloom this year. 9. The orchard bloom has come again. Its perfumeis on the air. Before I can fully realize it, it will be gone. Warm growing weather with light rain this morning. [crossed out: 10] 11 More rain last night from the north, a cool wave. Dreamed last night of seeing Carlyle when he was a little boy of 9 or 10. He was crying and his nose was fearfully snotty. I was reading yesteday in his letters. [crossed out: 11] A walk to the woods in the afternoon. Saw my white crowned sparrow. Saw many cuckoos and rose breasted grosbeaks; birds very numerous. The first tanager in a plowed field.12 A lovely May morning, clear, still warm. How benificent Nature seems such mornings, how ripe and tender and sweet the earth. 13 "When the south wind in May days With a sort of shining haze Silvers the horizon wall And, with softness touching all", etc, etc. that is this day with its white shining air and brisk south wind, scattering the apple blossom and strewing the river with white caps. The air is tinged with milk. How the branches toss their young leaves. Cuckoos very numerous. Read Emersons "May Day" and dip into other poets. "Only to children children sing Only to youth will [crossed out: youth] spring be spring."14 A brisk rain last night from S.W. Heard my white crown sing this morning. He sat in one of Atkins cherry trees. Fee-u, fee-u, fiddy, fu, with a pathos and tenderness about the long notes that no other sparrow song equals. Not so brilliant and loud as that of the fox sparrow, but oh, so plaintive and far away. A song in keeping with the rare beauty of the bird. 17. Much rain the past two days, not heavy but long continued. Things growing very fast. Saw a partridge on her nest yesterday in woods south of P.17. Fair day, spent part of forenoon and part of the afternoon in woods; a delicious time. The pink ladies slipper in bloom. 20. A brisk rain at noon to-day. 21. Bright cool day. Go to P. with young Dr Gordon, take him to the asylum, a sad case; bright handsome young fellow whose mind has become distempered from some cause, disappointed love he says. 24. Bright lovely May days of late, getting pretty warm to-day. The world very beautiful, and lifewith me well worth living. Take more interest in birds and in my old habits of observation than usual. Arms on grape vines about one foot in length, Season later than last year. 30. Plenty of rain on Monday and Tuesday. Fine cool weather since. To day, decoration day, beautiful as a dream and quite warm. Julain and I go fishing in forenoon up in the mouth of black creek; take a lot of yellow perch. The river a great blue mirror this afternoon. 31. A day like a great jewel, clear-cut; crystaline, transparent. The air as clear as spring waterSummer warmth, except at night. Go to H. and run 3/4 mile to catch boat on my return. Grass early this year; red and white clover in bloom for some days, other things are late. June 1st Bright, clear, warm, dazzling. Put net over cherry tree. Looks like dry weather. 6 Hot, hot; heavy shower last night with extraordinary electric displays, struck and burned a barn near Highland. 8 June day like a [crossed out: draft] draught of clear spring water, clear, bright, cool, a perfect day, after a hot week. Heat Thursday and friday about 90 degrees.Strawberries not yet ripe, cherries nearly so. Daisies whitening the fields. Too wet to plow friday and Sat. Grapes nearly ready to bloom. Tornadoes and cyclones in the West last week. Heat 94 degrees in N.Y. 11 Hot day. A storm of wind and rain at noon that damaged my grapes, breaking off arms at a great rate. Mr. Sickley and friends up from P. 14 Heat and rain. Begin to fear a repetition of last year. Rains all night, and the day like a tunnel under a river Cherries ripe. Corrected proof of Faith and Credulity for N.A.R. rather feeble: wonder that the editor took it. 20. Cool and delightful, no rain for past 6 days. Wednesday pretty hot, 88 degrees. Prospects look brighter, cutting our grass. 21 Slow light rain from S.W. 22. Julian and Zeke and I spend the day at Sherwoods, gathering wild strawberries, a memorable day, a wild rocky mountainside covered with the delicious fruit; gather nearly a bushel. Their flavor brings back my boyhood. Swim in the lake and gather our first pond lilies.28. A hot dry week. Heat very great in the West; cooler here by reason of a storm off Nova Scotia. Warming up again to day. Made first shipment of currants the 24th also shipped 20 cups rasp. currants about half off. Weather suits me at last. 29 Sunday. A clear placid summer day of great beauty. Pretty hot at mid-day. I lounge about and read the magazines and papers and sleep and meditate in my chair. Getting pretty dry.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1912-1913 (March - November)
Text: [XLIV] Diary from Mch 25, 1912 to Nov 9, 1913 Mr. Frissell - 5th Av Bk. Ethel Doolittle - 415 - W. 118th St. Rowlands - 130 W. 57 Ethel Chase - 11 Bdy Way, Tide Water Oil Co. Dr. Fisher A. M. N - [Home at 20 W 10th St Off 5th Ave] Herbet S. Ardill - N.Y. Times Dr. Crump - Madison Ave. Mr. Evans - 411 W. 114th St. Mr. Seaman - 34th St. Miss Bellard - 450 Clinton Ave Brooklyn 1912 Mch 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. In Washington amid the old scenes. Weather fair but chilly. Dine with the Saxtons, the...
Show more[XLIV] Diary from Mch 25, 1912 to Nov 9, 1913 Mr. Frissell - 5th Av Bk. Ethel Doolittle - 415 - W. 118th St. Rowlands - 130 W. 57 Ethel Chase - 11 Bdy Way, Tide Water Oil Co. Dr. Fisher A. M. N - [Home at 20 W 10th St Off 5th Ave] Herbet S. Ardill - N.Y. Times Dr. Crump - Madison Ave. Mr. Evans - 411 W. 114th St. Mr. Seaman - 34th St. Miss Bellard - 450 Clinton Ave Brooklyn 1912 Mch 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. In Washington amid the old scenes. Weather fair but chilly. Dine with the Saxtons, the Johns, the Bakes, the Van Benschotens. Go to the woods with high school teachers on the 29th find arbutus, blood root, claytonia and saxifraga in bloom, an enjoyable week. 30. Cold, clear. Leave W. at 9. Reach Pelham at 3 1/2. C.B. glad to see us. 31. At C.B's, walk in woods. April 1st. At C.B's, all goes well. 2d. At C.B's, all goes well. 3d. My 75th birthday. C.B. asks some people to come in p.m, Muir comes with Johnson of Century, an enjoyable time, 4 or 5 newspaper reporters. 4. Most of N.Y. papers have some account of my birth day, all very flattering 5, 6 and 7th. Still at Pelham. Keeps null, have gained 6 lbs since Jany. 8. Mrs B off for P. today. I go to Brooklyn to Werner's Club. Quite a blow out, stay with Mr. Pratt at night 9. Back to Pelham today to answer letters. 10. To a.m. of natural History, another big birthday blow out, meet many interesting people. Mary Autin and Randolph S. Bourne - the handicapped. Rather enjoy it all. 11. To Horace Masson School a fourth birthday blow out, very pretty and moving. The first time children ever danced before me with roses that they laid at my feet; enough to move the heart of a stone, are the work of Mrs. Franklin. Her poem of 4 lives in Atlantic a gain. 12. Meet more people at C.B.'s. 13. To Century Club with Dellenbaugh to lunch and then to P. in p.m. 14. In P. raining and chilly. 15. Warmer with more rain. To W.P. at 10. Julian and his family well. Grass green, glad to be back again. 16. Warm, thunder shower last night. News of the terrible disaster at sea. Titanic goes down. Probably 1400 lives lost. Her first voyage, the largest ship afloat. Horrible to think of. To S.S. in p.m. very warm. 17. Cooler, rain. 18. Rained all night hard. Elms and soft maples in bloom. Blood root and hepatica also. Mrs. B. comes back today, mist and rain all day. 19. Still mist and rain and murk. Clearing in p.m. 20. Cool, near a frost. J. and I write in study. Go to P. in p.m. 21. Oh, what a lovely morning with bird voices in the air, and I am haunted by the vision of that great ship with her 1600 bodies too much miles deep in the sea! A hundred or more purple finches in song for 2 days in the trees about us and Mr. Allens, sort of a low half suppress refusal of their songs. Never heard them do anything just like it before. Like the Gold finches spring jubilees and match making picnics. Ed. reports Curtis near his end. 22. Cloud and light rain, warmer, write in study. 23. Clearing, windy, colder. The purple finches still having their quiet musical jubilee in the trees above the house. This the 4th day. 25. Light rains. 26. Warm, shall tree in bloom. 27. Fine day. 28. Sunday, Vassar teachers at S.S, clear and cool, no arbutus this year to speak of. 29. Cold rain from N. all day. 30. Rain in morning, clearing in p.m. Go to Poughkeepsie. Curtis very low; must go there this week. C.B. seems to have had a presentiment about me that disturbs her, fears some accident I think. May 1st. Clear and lovely, getting warmer. Currents in bloom and plum trees a mist of yellow green in some sugar maples. Still writing on Life, but cant organize what I have written into a whole. 2d. Lovely warm day, but darkened to me by news from my dear friend C.B. - at the hospital for an operation on her left breast for removal of small cancerous or tumorous growth. I can only hope for the best. The maple tassels or fringe fully out, with marked perfume. The trees are a midst of yellow bloom, except the one in front. of study - buds not yet opened, a laggard in the race. Curtis keeps his bed most of the time but it is his time to die. 3. Clear and fine, start for Roxbury at 6.20. John meets me at train in R. Eden there also; looks and seems unusually well. We reach home at 11, a cool drive, no sign of foliage in the woods yet. Find Curtis in bed and much changed since last fall; thin and haggard; his hands feel cold and his voice is feeble and broken. In the p.m. I walk over to W.C.L. and hang around 2 or 3 hours. 4. Cool cloudless day, spend it at W.C.L. John plows my garden. Chant comes in p.m. Curtis as sad ruin of his former self, very painful to be with him and see him suffer so. Sit up in his chair part of the time, but not dressed. I forgot to say that yesterday p.m. Eden went back home, I walked with him out through the woods and stood and saw him walking vigorously for him down into the next woods, never expected to see him so well. 5. Cloudy, spend part of the day at W.C.L. Good news from C.B; she is doing finely. Plant peas and onions. 6. Rain and warm. Walk to the Hemlocks in p.m; few birds and few flowers, but a harvest of memories. 7. Out to see Jane; find her sitting up in her chair but ill from some sort of neuralgia or neuritis in her side and back; has been ailing all the spring. Clearing in p.m. 8. A great wall is taken from my mind by the good news from my dear friend C.B. Her doctor thinks the growth in her breast will never return. A slow rain all day and night. Spend the day at W.C.L writing and reading. 9. Rain at night, clearing this morning. Start for home on 9.27 train. Curtis seems better than when I came. Will I ever see him again? Yesterday p.m. I read to him from his beloved "Signs of the Times" Poor feeble stuff to me - a kind of echo of what the "Signs" used to be 40 years ago under Elder Beebe - but a comfort to him. Reach home at 12 1/2, apple trees beginning to bloom. Leaves on the maples a third grown, showers in p.m. light but long continued, a very wet spring. 10. Clearing, cooler a lovely day, a deep mist of yellow green over the woods, very dense in places. 11. Fine day, about 50 Vassar girls at S.S. Foliage about half out. 19. Rain (Slight) warm. Walk a little in p.m. Wrote on Muirs Yosemite in morning. 13. Mist and light rain this morning, my cold began with soar throat on the 3rd, soon settled in my head and have been blowing my nose ever since, only a little coughing in the morning, no sneezing, much headache last night. Pulls me down some. 15. To N.Y. to Pelham at 11, find C.B. looking better than I expected; good color but a tired look on her eyes. The operation upon her breast a great success, says her doctor -healed by "first intention", much grieved over the mutilation of her body. In p.m. go to Englewood with Chapman, see many of his neighbors at night. 16. Rained hard all night from N.E. Rained nearly all day, leave E at 9. Go to Woodly again, spend day and night with C.B. Long talks seated on her upper balcony. 17. Fog in morning, clearing before noon. Leave at 12 1/2. C.B. walks with me to station, reach home at 7. 18. Fine day. Walk to S.S. in p.m. school girls there. 19. Fine warm day. Walk to woods in p.m. Showy orchis in bloom and pink lady, slipper; also fringed polygala. 20. Cloudy in morning, clearing at noon. Fine afternoon. Work on garden at S.S. The shovel and wheelbarrow dispel my blues. In morning work on my geological papers for new book. 21. Fine morning, Grape shoot 8 or 9 inches long, May full clothed at last. 22d. Fine weather, at work at S.S, making garden. 23. Fine day and warm. Work at S.S. Bad news from sister Jane. 24. Hot day, at S.S, a short severe thunder shower at 4 1/2. Miss B. and Miss Knapp come at night. 25. Cooler, fine day at S.S, poor sleep. 26. Lovely day, ideal - calm, warm clear, at S.S. Some Vassar girls come. Come home at 4 and find telegram from Hattie that Jane died yesterday morning, the last of my sisters, a tender affectionate and hard working woman; not much intelect, but good sense and good wholesome instincts. She piloted me to school in our childhood. How the shadows around me deepen. I go out there in the morning. 27. To Roxbury today. Warm and fine. Curtis very feeble, has failed much since three weeks ago. Spend the p.m. at W.L making garden e.t.c. How fresh and beautiful the country is. 28. Out to So. Gilbon on morning train. Chester meets us. Jane's children all there - tearful and forlorn. The old old story - the children in the house of the dead parent, Eden there looking well, Jane looked very natural, Oh, the calm of that eternal sleep of death! she had died in peace; she knew the end had come and gave directions for her funeral, she dropped away suddenly. She would have been 77 on the 10th of June, poor child, she had a pretty hard life - a hard man to live with and hard work and self denial all her life. How little she knew of what the world holds, or of what man have thought and done! always had very sore eyes - so that she read little, never read a page of one of my books I fancy. But oh, the old days when we were children together! She was a tender hearted and devoted sister and mother. "Green be the turf above thin. Friend of my better days." Return to R. in p.m. 29. A fine rain nearly all day. I stay at W.L. sad but at peace. 30. Cloud and mist, colder. 31. Cloud and mist, colder. Work a little in garden and write on my early life, sitting by the window at W.L. Go over daily to see poor Curtis. June 1st. Cold night, but clear and warmer this morning. Go over the John's for breakfast. Curtis tells me he is almost gone. Yet he eats a little breakfast. Leave on morning train for home. Very warm in p.m, nearly 80. 2. Clear, calm and hot, go in some places. 3. A little cooler; fine day go to S.S for the week. 4. Fine day, but hot. 5. Fine warm day. 6. Rain from S.W, C.B. and Miss Clark come in p.m. C.B. suffering from felon on fore finger, but looks pretty well. 7. Clearing today. Cool all day at S.S, very pleasant. 8. Very cool - frost in some places. C.B. and her patient leave at 12.24. Mr. and Mrs. Bush of Chicago come in p.m. 9. Cool bright windy day. Work on proof of "Time and Change," Sleep poor these days, lost 4 lbs since March. 10. To West Point today. A cool clear day. Stay with Denton's . 11. At W.P. walk in woods; hear a belated 17 year locust. Home at night. 12. Fine day. Go to P. 13. To Saugerties this p.m, cool. 14. Go on to Gloversville to Talbots, a reception at night. 15. Clouds up, start for the lakes in Hamilton Co. with the T's in auto. Cool, a good run of 50 miles to Speculator on Pleasant Lake, meet uncle David Sting is an old trapper and guide and now hotel keeper, 80 years old, very shy and gentle and sweet - a real product of the Back Woods, knows much about wild life, experienced religion last year and joined Methodist church, like him much. 16. Cloudy, foggy with some rain, cool. We all sit before the open fire and hear much talk, one has to be very artful to draw "uncle David" out, one must approach him in a round about way - stalk him in fact. He interrupts his recital of his wood experiences with frequent laughter or half suppressed laughter more to himself than to his listeners. Tells no big yarns, understates rather than overstates - never heard a panther in the Adirondack but once caught one in a trap baited for marten - thinks there have not been any in these mountains for many years. Ravens used to be plenty, rarely see or hear one now "Why?" Because the wolves and the panthers are gone. The ravens fed on the leavings of the kill of these animals, now they can get little to eat in the woods." a good reason. Uncle David used to have a line of traps 40 inches long in winter and used to go the rounds once a week, one week he made 100 dollars, mink marten fisher were his principal fur animals. We went out on the lake trolling for lake trout in the fog, soon lost sight of land and then uncle Dave lost his reckoning and rowed around and around in a circle; his right arm got the better of his left; he thought the wind was shifting every 5 minutes, when he was constantly changing his direction. Finally, when I saw the situation I told him what wrong. "Go straight with the wind" I said "and we will soon see shore" which we did. My friend Talbot who was in the boat said "uncle Dave" was showing his his age. We got no trout, but we enjoyed the hour on the beautiful lake, even in the fog. We start back home at 2, reach Gloversville before six. Fine roads most of the way. Poor farms - sandy barren soil - disintegrated granite and only the sand left; clay mostly gone over stream. Gray drift boulders everywhere over the the fields. 17. Cold, but clearing. Go to mountain lake in p.m. with Mr. and Mrs. Talbot,and teo ladies from the hospital, and walk around the lake and through the woods - about 4 miles. A pleasant time; heard the hermit and the whitethroat. Some people come in in the evening. The Episcopal minister champions Roosevelt - the judges and lawyers against him. The legal and judicial mind usually travels in a deep rest, no crusaders or reformers or smashers of idols for them, but the theological mind is capable of religious enthusiasm and of new ideals. 18. Off for home at 6; reach home at 12 1/2 warm, dry. 19. All day parking up and planting in garden, warm. 20. To Roxbury on early train. John meets me. Country dry and cool, but still green. Find Curtis a mere skeleton. Talks a little, know me. oh, what pain to see him in this condition. 21. Cool and dry. I go over daily to see Curtis, but the sight of him depresses me greatly. Cloudy and a dry weather, shower in p.m. 22. Clear, warmer. go to the village. The meadows and roadsides painted with the orange and yellow and white of hawkweak butter cups and dairies - a wonderful richness of color everywhere. I stay at W.L and am fairly contented. 23. Clear, dry, trying to return my writing. Sunday. 24. Jusr at dawn this morning as I lay in my lot on the porch, Frank Caswell came along and seeing me she spoke to me "Are you awake?" "Yes" "Well Curtis passed away last night at 10.45." I was prepared for it but I could not parry the blow. I shall never forget the effect the man had on me there in the gray June morning. I had been over to see Curtis yesterday p.m. He was sitting up in bed as usual with his head resting on this bosom apparently sleeping and moaning from time to time. I did not speak to him and soon came away, at 8 1/2 Dessie said he asked the time. He soon grew very weak, breathed intermittently and at 10.45 shrugged his shoulders a few times and ceased breathing. Miss Burham and Mrs. Shepard came on evening train, cool and dry. 25. Cool and dry. Curtis will be buried tomorrow. 26. Warmer, I go over to the house at 10, Ed. is there and some of Jane's children. Elden Clark preaches an old school Baptist sermon - a sermon of words and scripture phrases, but not of ideas. Curtis looks fearfully emaciated. We drive down to the Presbyterian cemetery in the dust and are back at 2. I ride with Frank Caswell. 27. Warm and dry, I write a little each day, we pick a feed S. berries. 28. Sleep precocious, warm. 29. Hot dry. 30. A change to cold came with a big blow out of the east about 2 a.m. Blow the [mourns] off the porch. So cold this morning I build a fire in the Franklin. July 1st. Cold, clear a frost in the fields here this morning. 2. Clear, dry, a little warmer. I go S. berrying and get nearly 2qts of dead ripe berries. 3. Getting warmer, Mrs. Shepard leaves today. Turned the water on the garden some days ago. 50 years ago I was here helping Curtis in haying. 4. Clear, hot, work but little. Light shower in p.m. - Put a bird or an insect in a new and strange position and what as on the inside of a closed window a mere machine for a time at least it becomes; It is a victim of Sulio tropism. It react constantly to the light and keeps up its efforts to get out till exhausted or dead, a butterfly - one of the fritillaries - is now fluttering against the window, window in front of my desk. It is for the time a machine kept going by the attraction of the light, but a big "blow fly" on the window that I try to catch, is wiser and when pressed darts away from the window and eludes me in the free space of the room. When he takes to the window again and I make a dive for him, his wets again save him. This usually happens with big flies, are they wiser than birds and butterflies? They seem to be under such conditions. Its hard to corner one on a window. 5. Warm light shower in p.m. My company leaves today. 6. Hot, Rowland comes in p.m. Laura and Miss B. come to their camp. 7. Hot, hot, work a little, second miss of peas from garden. 8. Hotter, dry, work a little. 3rd miss of peas. 9. Hot, a veil of clouds, still a blow fly makes a big noise in the room. John began haying on the 2d in the old meadow below the barn where we always began, Chant has come to help him. 10. Very warm, light shower in p.m. Write a little but no good sleep. Rowland paints. 11. Hot, light shower with fierce explosions of thunder in p.m. 12. Better sleep last night. Cooler, I write more on rocks. In p.m. R. and I go to the Old Clump, air very clear. We shake a porcupine out of a tree and have quite a circus with him, but do not hurt him. I make the trip as easily as ever but legs are very tired when I get back. 13. Cool, clear, very dry. Slept well last night. 14. A light rain last night. Cloudy and warm today. Poor sleep. Work a little, R. paints. 15. Clear warm. R. leaves this morning. The meadows are full of grass ripe for the hay makers, a big crop for all the dry weather. C.B. comes in p.m. 16. Warm, Laura and Miss B. comes. 17. Hot, a clam restful day, dry. 18. A little rain, Mrs. B. come in p.m. 19. Cooler, dry, dry. 20. Very cool, near a frost. 21. A slow rain in a.m. We have fire in Franklin. Randolf S. Bourn came Saturday. Glad to have him here, a fine mind, a poor body. Has a future I think, already written several essays for Atlantic 22. Clearing and cool. Mr. B. leaves this morning. Sent last of copy of "Time and Change" on Saturday. 23. Very cool, dry, dry. Julian comes in morning train. Write a little each day, sleep precarious 24. Cool, almost a frost. Very glad to have Julian here. C.B. gaining and working each day on her MS. 25. A little warmer, no signs of rain. 26. Cool, fine day, walk over home. C.B. and I gather ferns and look for bill berries. Write some, dry, dry, C.B. Julian and I sleep on porch every night. 27. Cool night, three blankets, an Italian sculptor began to make clay bust of me on Monday, doing well. 28. Fine day, people from the village. Talbot and wife from Gloversville glad to see them pose for the sculptor. 29. A little rain last night. Walk to Charles ledges in p.m. Julian, Laura, C.B. and I very enjoyable. 30. Cool fair day. We go to the Hack's flats in p.m. C.B. does not quite reach the top, my first trip to that mountain. Ride back from the village - pretty leg weary. 31. Light rain, Julian leaves this p.m. I go with him down to the lake. Very sorry to see him go, clearing in p.m. Aug 1st. The last 2 weeks of July like late Sept, on the verge of a frost nearly every night, as cold as Southern Cala. in winter and less sunshine. I wear my sweater under my coat and sleep in it at night under 3 blankets. Remarkable only spots of rain. 2. Cold and windy. I write in the barn with a blanket on my lap and over my shoulders and a hot brick by my feet. Took 1 1/4 gr of Calomel last night and feel much better. 3. Cold, windy, squally like Oct, fear a frost tonight. Write in barn wrapped up as usual with hot brick in my lap. 4. Clearing but still chilly and suggestive of fall. Mrs. Johnson came last night. 25. No important events since my last entry here at W.L all the time; weather unseasonally cold, have slept under 2 blankets and often with hot water bottle at my feet. Write each day in my stable study on Life and biology on Science and literature e.t.c. Health good but sleep uncertain. Rains began 2 weeks ago; at least 3 inches to date; effects the springs very little. Mrs. J stayed 2 weeks, Mrs. B. came in 18 July and left 9th of Aug, all right. Miss Lucy Stanton of Athens Ga - came on the 9th and stayed till 24th a charming young woman. C.B. still here, gaining all the time. - A great help to me, [much] Mr. Shea of Kansas, a Harvard Student came 17th. We all fall in love with him, a fine fellow. Hope Kansas is full of such men, a year at H, taking a post graduate course in Philosophy. Country green again after the rains. Much warmer today, a short brisk thunder shower in p.m. 26. Much warmer, a warm night, Feels like July, wrote in forenoon in barn on Bergson, Science e.t.c. also some natural history reflection, poor sleep last night. 27. Change to cooler, with violent wind in the night, took refuge inside. 28. Cloudy; cold - near a frost last night; Write in morning a walk in "Scotland" in p.m. - huge luscious blackberries - nuthatches, warbler etc. a memorable walk. 29. Warmer, light rain in night. C.B. leaves in a hurry this morning, called back by telegram, her patient ill, I went over to pick some peas, at returning I found her packing and John Aug 29, 1912 waiting for her, shall miss her company and her help greatly. She has gained wonderfully here in the 6 weeks of her stay, a rare woman. Clearing this morning, but cool. 30. Clear, cold, just [eloped] a frost last night. Mr. and Mrs. Beck from Brooklyn came this a.m. he to paint my portrait. Also young Mr. Pulling from Wappingerse, a college student and his girl from P. a nice couple. He a farm boy and with fine qualities of mind and character and will be heard from I think. I pose for Mr. B. on rock up in the orchard. 31. A little frost last night, by hurt nothing. I pose in morning and p.m. for Mr. B. Eden come in the morning, walked up swinging his cane; looks well and is cherry. He returns in p.m, a little warmer in p.m. Sept 1st. Cloudy and dark a thunder shower sets in at 10 a.m. not very heavy. The coldest August I ever knew, abnormally hot in S. and S. and S.W. abnormally cold in Northern states. 2. Rainy, misty cold. 3. Warmer, rain last night but light. De Loach comes in p.m. a good day, work, dark cloudy, all day, still. 4. Clearing, sun over more and much warmer, may be we will get some warm weather at last. 5. Warm and humid, some sunshine. 6. Pretty heavy shower last night 1/2 inch, warm, De Loach leaves this morning. Write in the barn. 7. Bright, warm, the Becks leave this morning. Miss Robert comes - stay over night. 8. Clear warm lovely day, Write in stable. Dive at the Camp. Health good, 9th Ideal day, warm, write in a.m. 10. Fine warm day. Two young women callers, from N.Y. church workers. Walk down to the lake with them. Write in forenoon, people from Yonkers in auto call. 11. Write in morning, cloudy in p.m. and cooler with light showers. Mr. Olcott from H.M. Co. to take photographs, keep him to lunch. Go over home at 6 Chaney Kelly there uncle Johns oldest son, a great talker fine face and head, but not intellectual. Looks like our family. 12. Fine day, warm work in barn. Fine shower in the night. Miss Roberts and her sister take me to Prattsville and to the falls in p.m. in auto, lovely day and ride. 13. Sleep better these nights from malted milk taken in hot water at bed time. Still writing. 14. Fine day and warm. 15. Rain in the night and at day, light this morning 1/2 inch a gray squirrel on the porch wakes me at dawn Warm day and cloudy from S.W. Chant and Emma came last night. Miss Roberts and her sister come in p.m. 16. Rain last night warm, cooler this morning and clearing from N. no frost yet. Birds scarce this Aug. and Sept. People write to me about it. Probably from death of insects owing to abnormally, cool weather. Fewer house flies than I ever remember. Some crows - those in authority - say haw-ah, haw, haw ah, I hear them in early morning, in p.m. I hear haw-ah, haw-ah and haw haw. 17. Cold last night, near a frost hear. Bright and lovely today at work in front room writing on mechanistic view of the origin of life. These peaceful broad open valleys and the long mountain walls seem greatly to enhance the splendor of such a day. In a country of lower horizons the day would be less striking. These valleys hold it and set it off. I think of Emerson's hill Tenderly the haughty day feels his bled urn with fire. These valleys are vast blue urns and they hold such generous portion of the sun light. In p.m. I walk to Scotland over our old trail and get a few blackberries. Find a morn's nest in a niche under an overhanging ledge, where one looks for a Phoebes nest - thought it was one at first - covered with moss just like a phoebes. The body of the nest was thistle down, thick and compact with a small hole to a cavity in the Centre, a prettier nest I never saw; three feet from the ground and no means of access I could see except by leaping. The nest was new but not occupied. The moss was from rocks where water trickles in wet seasons - long, yellowish green. The bottom of the nest was covered with moss also so it could hardly have been for protection a unique find. While John was hunting gray squirrels above the sap bush he saw one come out of the woods and go out into the field and bury something, on examining the spot he found acorn carefully burried in the soil, point upward, no double at all that squirrels are also great tree planters. Saw are red squirrels yesterday carry a butternut up in an apple tree and place it carefully in the in the fork of a limb. He pressed it down and made motions of covering it with his paws. Sept 17, 1912 The craws have several kinds of caws, one is haw-ah, haw, haw-ah or cow-ah caw-caw-ah then simply caw-ah, then caw a hah, then hah-h-h-h lusty abd masculine. 18. Warn with light showers. 19. Go to Edens in p.m. Find him and Mag, fairly well; both with colds, mild and warm and showery. 20. Clearing a little cooler. Return to R. this morning. Some sunflowers at Hobert arrested my attention - such an almost human attitude of depiction. Their broad leaves pressed down wrapped them in a kind of cloak drawn close about them, their heads were bowed till they wholly faced the ground. I could but pause and look at them, why are you so bowed and weighed down - you lovers of the sun - shutting all the world from your page but the little circle of ground at your feet? Your attitude oppresses me. There is the sun and sky over head - do look up and at the wind mield your cloak." If the sun flower could have answered what would have it have said? Probably this; I have had my day I have followed the sun in his corner across Sept 20, 1912 the sky all summer, I have had my fill of him, now my seeds are ripened and they are my only care. I must turn them down away from the rains and the bowls of the air, the back of my head makes a good roof over them. I have done my work. I have had my day, and here I wait for the knife of the harvester. 21. Mild fine day. Return to W.P. after all absence of 3 months. Reach home at noon all well, looks good. 22. Fine day. Go over to S.S, sleep well these night. 23. Cloudy, rains a little, chilly. Go to P. in p.m. 24. Cloudy, a little rain. Write on a.m. 25. Rain in morning, clearing in p.m. Go to Vassar meet Clara Reed and others, lovely afternoon. 26. Clear and lovely. Start for Pelham at night. Go to Hudson at noon. 27. In Pelham with Mr. Browne, chilly weather. 28. In P. write a little. C.B. looks much better. 29, 30. In P. Mr. Browne leaves for Wyoming this morning. In p.m. I go to N.Y. Sept 30, 1912 and meet Emily and the children, clear fine day. Oct 1. Warm and fine, write in a.m. In p.m. C.B. and I take a walk along country roads. 2. Lovely day. 3. Lovely day. Go to White Plains in p.m. with C.B. 4. Leave for East Hampton in morning, fine day and warm. 5. In E.H. lovely warm day, very glad to be with Julian and the children by the sea. Work in a.m. 6. Lovely warm day. 7. Lovely warm day. In p.m. Julian and I go to Fort Pond and occupy a little cabin of Mr. Fylers in a remote secluded place on the pond. Julian fishes and tramps about only the moor like treeless, highly colored landscape - looks like Oregon or Washington. 8. Clear, cooler, windy, poor sleep, from the wind blowing all night from the N. Oct 8, 1912 Back to E.H. in p.m. 9. Back to Pelham in morning train. In p.m. C.B. and I go to Mt. Vernon. Write or dictate letters at night - 11 of them. 10. Off for Wyoming N.Y. on the Empire State Express, a swift smooth journey to Rochester through highly colored landscape. Reach W. at 5, Mr. Browne meets me at station. Mrs. Ward's house large and homelike, a beautiful spot great farm e.t.c. 11. Rained in night, Clearing and mild this morning. 12. Fine day, motor to LeRoy and Genesee with Mr. Browne and Mr. Brooks a fine day. 13. Warmer, walk and dawdle around, see an orchard of 18 acres with 3000 bbls of apple. 14. Fine warm day, motor to Portage Falls, a striking and beautiful spectacle. Return home by Silver Lake at 5 p.m. 15. Cold, windy. 16. Leave for N.Y. at 10.50. Motor Oct 16, 1912 to Batavia to see Mrs. Fish, with whom and her husband we kept house in Newark in '59 and 60, young and rosy then, now a typical old woman sitting in the chimney corner, blind, with a cane in her hand - 81 years old. Reach Pelham at 8.48. 17. In P. working on MS, fine warm day. 18. In P. at work. Send off 2 papers to N.A.R. and Atlantic. 19. Fine day. Return home at 2 p.m. C.B. much improved in look and in spirits. 20. At home, all well, warm. 21. Warm, leaves nearly all off. 22. Cloudy, warm at work again. 23. Rain from S, warm. Katy-dids last night. All day rain 2 or 3 inches but not enough. 24. Cloudy, light rains. 25. Cloudy, light rains.. 26. Clearing, mild. 27. Fine day, warm, write in a.m. Oct 27, 1912. In p.m. we all cruise for an hour on river in Wawee. 28. Fine day, mild calm. 29. Fine day, mild, calm. Work on "a Barn Door Outlook." 30. Lovely day, Dr. Charly Gill calls, grown gray since I last saw him. 31. A little cooler, feel well, weigh 140. Walked over to S.S. yesterday p.m. Leaves about all off the trees, Lima beans still green. Nov 1. Warm, rain half the day, much needed. 2. Cooler, clear, fine. Writing in my study on autobiography for Julian. 3. Froze last night; writing the Limas and other green things. Down to 28. 4. Hard freeze again last night. Made the leaves on apple trees look sick, clear and calm. New book came this morning "Time and Change" I see another volume ahead. What will be its title? Nov 5, 1912 5. Election day, fine day, walk up vote and back, signs of my old trouble in p.m. Take 1/2gr of calomel, signs of a cold also. 6. Election goes for the Democrats, might have been worse and might have gone Republican, I wanted to vote for Wilson but voted for T.R. on the scare of friendship - a thing he would not have done - a thing no man should do. Take a sweat in p.m. 7. Cloudy and rain in p.m. Hoarse with cold in my throat, go to N.Y. and to Pelham. 8. Some fever, a memorable night. 9. Fine day, not yet free from fever. Hoarseness better. 10. Mr. Shea and Mr. Davis at P. Fine day. 11. In P. Fever gone. 12. Fine day, but chilly. 13. Fine day, but chilly. 14. To Hartford to the Shipmans. 15. Go with Neder to his woods. 16. To Springfield in p.m. and then Nov 1912 to Hockmann to Johnsons. 17. Cloudy, chilly, go to church at Hadley with J. Drive to mountain in p.m. 18. Cloudy, cold, leave for Boston at 12.40. Reach B. at 3.30. To Yeomans at Belmont. 19. At B. with Olive Gilbert, walk to Kennedys and Mrs. MacKays. To H.M. Co. in p.m. see Mr. M, Garrison, Sedgewick, Allen, Greenslet e.t.c. 20. To Harvard in a.m. Start for N.Y. at 12.40, a pleasant day dry and sharp. 21. At P. pleasant day. 22. At P. pleasant day. 23. Fine day, go to New Haven to Yale - Harvard football game with Mr. Shea, a great day. 24. Return to P. Rain with thunder. 25. At P. 26. Fine day, go home in 11.50 train. 27. At home, start for Hobart. Nov 27, 1912. in p.m. Find Mag and Eden well, 5 or 6 inches of snow on the ground and cold. 28. At Edens, a mid winter landscape, a thanksgiving dinner, Olly and Ort, John and Dessy, Willie and Jenny, a fine dinner and a pleasant sad day. 29. Down to 13 this morning. Cloudy, go over to Roxbury and spend day and night at Woodchuck Lodge. 30. Sun and cloud and wind. Return home at noon. Clear and mild here. Dec 1st. Clear and sharp in morning down to 25, no snow here yet. 2d. Warmer, rain from S. 3. Clear and cooler - fine October weather an ideal day. 4. Mild, fair, still writing in my study on "Salt the sheep" 5. Cloudy, rain coming, mild still. Mrs. B. closes house today and goes to P. Dec 6, 1912 6. Home to W.P 7. Fine day, go to P. 8. Fine day Write in study. 9. Colder, down to 18. 10. Fine day and warmer. Go to P. in p.m. 11. Overcast, mild, start for N.Y. today for a weeks absence. 12. At Pelham, C.B. well. 13. Go to Academy meeting s and to dinner at Century Club at night. 14. At P. 15. At P. 16. At P. 17. To Mrs. Sanity to dinner, meet Binder then to the Lumalan dinner at Hotel Endicott, stay to Mrs. S's all night, weather fine and cool all these days. 18. To Mr. Childs at F.P. Rain. 19. To Rowlands for the night. 20. To Pelham. Cold, clear. 21. At Pelham cold clear. 22. Clear, cold return to Poughkeepsie, Mrs. B. well. 23. To Wet Park, cold, clear. 24. Our first snow storm from the N.E. Dec 24, 1912 - These quarty pebbles are evidently passed down from one geological age to another. They seem the most enduring of all rock substance. - The sweep of the pendulum of variation in the race of man is enormous, the doctrine of Eugenics will not apply to mankind with the same force that it applies to the lower orders. Go back a long our line of decend - till you come to the low browed long jawed hairy man like ape or ape like man - what has Eugenics got to say to him? Only this, "you must not breed, you are a low down fellow, and the world is better off without you." 25. Xmas, a still brilliant day after the storm of yesterday, about 4 inches of snow fell here. Ten or eleven inches in N.Y. Some still ice and frozen snow in the river. Down to 18 this morning. Feel well today. Dinner with Julian. 26. Rain sucking in snow. In study at W.P. 1912 27. Mild. 28. Go to P. with Mrs. B. on Canon St. 29. Warmer, thawing, write some. 30. Warmer, rain nearly all day. To W.P. in p.m. Julian on the river, worry about him when 8 p.m. comes and no Julian. Go down and spend an hour on the dock, then back to study and go to bed, no sleep, wider and wider awake as imagination plays tricks with me; got up at 10, dress go over to the house and find J, there eating his supper! How many such foolish scare he has given me. 31. Clear, mild, like April, wind S.W. 1913 Jany 1. Mild, fair, work in study in a.m. Walk to S.S. in p.m. Sit on the porch in the sun a "wider" aster in the bushes, insects in the air, no snow or ice. 2. Go to P. and stay at 51 Cannon with Mrs. B. Colder. 3. The Ford auto comes with Mr. Buck a fine appropriate gift. Drive up to W.P. in p.m. cold. Mr. Buck Jan 3, 1913 [Mr. Buck] an interesting and engaging man; like him and her much. Hope to see them again. 4. In P. since last entry - writing each morning on autobiography and other matters. Keep well - gained 4 lbs since I came. Is it the warm feet on the light dinner at 6 p.m? Am unexpectedly contented here, Julian comes down about three times a week for a ride in the auto, much rain, no snow. Every cold wave ends in a warm wave and rain. Very cold in California river Orange Crop. On the 11th we went to Rhinecliff and I saw my old pupil of 57 years ago. Rosewell Buch, on his death bed, a sad experience; had not seen him in all these years. Today clear, sharp, hazy. We take a run up beyond Statsburg, Ursa with us, silent as a sphynx. 15. Clear, warmer, run down to Fishkell. Farmers at work in the fields, handling stone, women digging drains e.t.c. 16. Warm, rain again. My dear friend Ludella Peck of Smith College died last Friday. - A remarkable writer. 17. To N.Y. and to P. mild. 18. Warm, fine. To Rowlands in p.m. rain in p.m. 19. Clear, mild to Rowlands again in p.m. meet many people. 20. Still mild, C.B. better. Home in p.m. 21. Clear, colder. To Newburgh in p.m. in our Ford Car, a fine ride. 22. Fine day, up to W.P. in p.m. Blue birds. 23. Rain, sign 45o letters to M.C's. 24. Warm, cloudy. 25. Like Oct or April, Julian comes down. Drive out to Pleasant Valley. 26. Still mild, a little frost at night. Rain coming. Well winch 145. 27. Warm, rain. Jan 1913. modern surgery does indeed show man to be a kind of machine. It mends him and tinkers him up putting in new parts splicing his nerves, patching his skin, plumming his arteries, fixing his bones etc, etc, very much as a watch tinker repairs a watch or a gun smith a gun - all mechanical procedures but all seconded and approved by something super mechanical. The body being a physical object must be subject to physical laws, it is a machine plus something else. 28. A little colder, go up to W.P. Julian working on his wash house, like April. 29. A light flurry of snow and several degrees colder, not an inch of snow. 30. Warmer, cloudy, thawing. 31. Go up to W.P. warm, muddy. Feb 1. Mild to N.Y. and Pelham in p.m. find C.B. looking much better. Feb 2. Clear colder, Mr. Buck comes to take me to Washington. 3. Wake up in W. this morning raining and sleeting. Rains all day. Dismal and chilly. Go to Capital Underwood who says he will support our (McLane) bird bill, see Frank Baker and wife in p.m. 4. Clear, cold, leave W. on 9 a.m. train, a skin of snow on the ground. Reach N.Y. at 2. Go to Bergson lecture at Columbia at 4, not one word of his French can I understand but done. But I do not tire of looking at him. Small thin man of the Emersonian type and idealist, "a prophet of the soul," superb head. The rather austere Emersonian smile manner animated, heavy 1 eye brows, small a deep set but expressive eyes; thin hands look cold, strong chin and nose, - a wonderful mind. Feb 5. Cold, clear at P, sit all day. 6. Cold, clear. Go to N.Y. to lunch with Mr. Prate. 7. Clear, cold. Go to N.Y. with C.B. to see the Raney African moving pictures, am a little disappointed. 8. Clear, cold at P. till in p.m, a little fever. 9. Clear and colder, leave for P. on 9 a.m. train. 10. Colder, zero, go to W.P. all well. 11. Cloudy, milder, snowing, 4 or 5 inches. 12. Colder, not very well, bowels loose. 13. Cold, near zero; feel better. 14. Cold, mind very active; drive car out beyond Pleasant Valley alone. Get stuck, think car broken in turning round, send for help, car all right. 15. Poor sleep last night, milder today. Take care to West Park. 16. Feel fine, mind very active. Warm, thawing, mercury near 50. Rain coming. Feb 17. Colder, clear off for N.Y. this p.m. 18. Clear cold day. To hear Bergon again, in French. Back to P. 19. In P. clear cold. To Columbia at the tea given in his honors, meet Bergson face to face. He knows about me, I take home my great pleasure in meeting him, that Emerson was the inspiration of my youth and be the inspiration of my old age. With a depracating gesture he seemed to disclaim such doubtful honors and then began to talk of the unexpected idealism he found here in Emerson, James and others - then he was whirled away to face some other admirers. One of the most symmetrical and beautiful heads I ever saw, a small man, not an imposing figure, not an aggressive and dominating personality, but a wonderful mind and a gentle heart. Met Eucken also, a white bushy top like myself - not a striking head or figure. He too Feb knows my work and is very cordial in his German-English. His work has not yet made an impression upon me. 20. To hear Bergson in English. 21. To hear Bergson in English metaphorical and hard to follow him an hour and a half. Fine and suggestive. He reads fro MS, speaks English almost like a native getting spring like. 22d. Warm, go home to P. in p.m. 23. Fine day, writing again on Bergson. 24. Cold, go up to W.P. all well there. Bring back bag of old letters for C.B. 25. Cold, clear, writing on B. 26. Cold, clouding up, writing on B. 27. Snow last night 2 inches. Rain today. Writing on B. 28. Warm like April, snow all gone. Go up to W.P. and over to S.S. Saw a dog do a trick on Main St. the other morning that I mere saw a dog do before - he got himself up over a garbage pail and dropped his excrement into it. It was a defficult feat but he did it all right - a white bull dog, I wonder if had been trained to do it? Mch 1st. mild, cloudy - storm coming. 2. No storm yet, partly clear this morning and colder - only about freezing this morning. To N.Y. in p.m. 3. Mild, at Pelham, C.B. well. Go to N.Y. to Pritchards pictures. 4. Mild, go to MacDowell Club at night with C.B. to reception to Alfred Noyes, large, strong, healthy young Brelisher, looks like a university man - not like a poet. He lectures on the future of poetry, but does not convince us that poetry has any future, then recites some of his own poems, does it well. But he is not a great poet - nothing in his poems that goes to the heart or to the soul - one page of wordsworth or Arnold is worth it all. 5. Mild, all day at P. 6. Raining, start for home at 8.06. Snow at P. - 2 or 3 inches up to W.P in p.m. Cold and windy at night. 7. Cold - down to 10. 8. Cold down to 10. Go to P. in p.m. 9. Warm, fine sap day. Go to Milton in our car. Many blue birds and 2 robins. Buckets full of sap at night. Wife ill in P. 10. Mild, a little frost, promises a good sap day. - To P in p.m, greatly alarmed over the condition or Ursula. - Double pneumonia; Fear the worst - just begin to realize all she has been to me and all she has done for me. 11. Raining - chilly, rained all night. But better sleep last night. Julian goes down this morning. 12. Lovely day, perfect overhead but horrible under foot, sap runs rapidly. Blue birds with the old impatient ameron warbling's and wing gestures. Wakes and partches of ice on the river calmly floating like clouds in the sky. Go to P. in p.m. Mrs. B. better, no fever, but labored breathing; had a very bad night, from difficulty of breathing. Only one lung, the left involved, her doctor says. 13. Hope Mrs. B. had a better night last night, cloudy this morning, rain coming a little frost, still at work on the Bergson essay. 14. Warm, rained all night. Mrs. B. gaining. - We seem to think of truth as something outside ourselves, or as if it were a stream flowing by into which we dip our buckets or cups or spoons as the case may be and get what we want for our own use. We do not see that truth is our own creation - that it is one expression of life March there is no truth outside the mind of man, any more than there is any light outside the eye, or sound outside the ear. We experience these things and we experience truth - with us agreement or harmony between things and things or thoughts and thoughts. 15. Warm, warm and fog and murk. Mrs. B. doing well yesterday. Cold wave coming. 16. Clearing, write in study on B. 17. Clear cold down to 20. 18. Clear, lovely day, Mrs. B. doing well, C.B. come at 10 1/2; stay s till 4. 19. Lovely morning, many bird voices in the air; only a little frost last night, a typical March morning. "Do you hear the nuthatch calling in the old sugar bush?" P.m. warm, near 60 my first butterfly. 20. Rain this morning and fog phoebe bird here in the maple in frost March Peepers in full chorus on the 19th. 20. Warm foggy; more rain coming, a robing in song all the morning on the near study. How soon the birds fly out of the nest, and soon go East and soon go West. How soon they build themselves a nest and fellow out the old cohort. As warm as mid May - muggy, near 70 with spots of rain from S.W. 21. Clear, much cooler, a big flock of crow black birds this morning, birds in the elm trees wild as big brown bear. Mrs. B. was much improved yesterday. The song of the toad began on the 19th down by the ice house. 22. Clear, colder, froze last night. 23. Milder, So. wind, Easter Sunday, a little below par the past 2 days. 24. Rain last night, So. wind today. No work in me, send Bergson essay to Atlantic. 25. Warm, 75, little rain, thunder shower at night. Go to Vassar to Wake Robin tea - a good time. Too warm for winter clothes. 26. Colder, fog and light rain. Terrible floods and tornados in the west attended with great lose of life. Ohio flood swept. Elm trees just beginning to bloom. I feel better, Sal H. did it. 27. A hell of rain - heavy yesterday - all night and at it furiously this morning. Warmer, we will suffer for want of it probably all summer. This overdraft must be made good. 28. Cool, clear, John Shea and I go to S.S. 29. Cool, clear, at S.S. with Shea. 30. Fine day at S.S. Shea and I. 31. Mild, leave S.S. go to P. Mrs. B. improving. April 1. Fine warm day. Stay at S.S. last night, soft maples and elms in bloom. Go to P. in p.m. and then to N.Y. at 4. Stop at Pelham. Mr. Shea [there] C.B. looks tired. 2d. With C.B. fine warm day. Look over Mr. MS on JB. 3. Sun and cloud, clearly Keeler and Mr. Seaman in p.m. my 76th birthday. Feel as well as ever I did on a birth day. Weigh 146 - more than last year, and 4 lbs more than 2 years ago. Enjoy life as much as ever. The spring tokens move me as of old. 4. A little rain in night. Leave P. at 8. Reach Poughkeepsie at 11. Mrs. B. still gaining. Warm and fine, come up to W.P. at 2, then to S.S. 5. Rain nearly all night, clearing and cooler this morning. 6. Cool, windy some squalls all day in the Catskills. We go up to Port Ewen in motor car. 7. Like yesterday snow in the air. Go to P. to see Mrs. B. 8. Cold last night like Nov. Froze quite hard. At S.S. writing. 8. Still fair and cold; freezes every night; At S.S. writing on vitalism. Ran the car yesterday p.m. to Port Ewen and then came home and ran it into the locust tree just inside our gates, never look back while driving your car; I looked back as I came through the gate to see if I was going to hit and the little beast sprang for that tree like a squirrel. Broke or bent her forward spring so we cant crank her. 9. Cold, frosty. Leave S.S. Go to P. in p.m. Mrs. B. mending. 10. Still cold, car gone to P. to be mended. 11. Rain and milder, not very well my old [many] biliousness. Stay in house in p.m. and clean myself out, write to C.B. A 24 hours rain. 12. Rain all forenoon. Go to P. in p.m. Mrs. B. comes home in our car, stands the journey well, warm cloudy. 13. Cloudy, a little rain. Took 1 1/2 gram of calomel last night, not much change except better sleep. 14. Still dark and cloudy and mild, Mrs. B. doing well, a little better myself. Coverts folks moved in on Saturday. 15. Not well yet dry and cool. 16. Not well yet, dry and cool. 17. A little better. Go to Pelham in p.m. Dr. and the children out Addie there. Feel much better. 18. At P. no fever, sleep well and appetite returning. C.B. not well. 19. Cool, go to Mt. Vernon with C.B. Mr. Pratt comes in p.m.. 20. Cold, froze last night, Mrs. Harris comes in p.m. C.B. better and begins copying for me. 21. Milder, I am well and hungry. C.B. and I go to new Rochelle in p.m. a quiet hour by the sound, still and lovely. 22. Mild and dry. Start for home at 11 a.m. C.B. walks to station with me. Reach home at 2 p.m. Mrs. B. slowly gaining. 23. Still warm, dry days. 24. April at her best. In the morning the river like a great opening or window, down through the earth into the sky below. Cherry trees a mess of white bloom. Pear trees just opening, peach trees, masses of pink maple trees with a thin cloud of pale yellow bloom. High holes calling, fisherman drifting on the still shining river, Hud plowing vineyard. Getting dry. Drove car to Highland yesterday, Julian in N.Y. currants blooming. 25. Still lucid warm, dry. The normal Indian summer. Ruby Crown piping in the evergreens. Purple finches and gold finches holding their musical festivals in the trees. Joy and song all day long. On such ideal April days as this how visions of the old farm and my youth there float before me; the greening meadows and fields basking in the warm sunshine, the brown leafless mountains with an inner lining of snow fairly showing through the trees the nearby woods taking on warmer lusts, the plow turning its first farrows, or the teams hauling out the accumulation of winter manure, - ice and snow still mixed with the stable droppings, the high holes calling loud and long from the meadow or pasture, the stir of life all about and the faint odors of soil and springing grass, yes and father and mother and brothers and sisters all well and busy in doors and out - myself perhaps spreading manure, or knocking the fall droppings of the cores in the meadows or gathering the things in the sugar bush - the first swallows the first dandelions - my heart swells when I think of it all and that it can never be mine again. 26. Still clear and lovely, but a little cooler. Pear trees in bloom. Queen bumble bees and queen hermits out house hunting. Big "blow flees" inviade the house. Whippoorwill last night. The river rumpled a little this morning from the S.W. A big lot of Vassar girls - 26 and 16 High school girls - a pleasant day. 27. Fine warm day, partly cloudy. Miss Owney from P. at S.S. 28. Heavy rain all night, signs of clearing this morning. The different kinds of trees all outlined on the background of the woods. Apple bloom just here, one blossom the central one, in the berg of 5 full open. Wife better. 30. Fair, windy, cold, near a frost last night still still writing on life. May 1st. No more perfect May day ever came down out of heaven. Warm, still clear, orchards piled with apple bloom. The wood thrush this morning. A thin veil of foliage over the trees. Drive wife in the car to Clintondale, a beautiful drive. 2. Another perfect May day, The cool leisurly, liquid notes of the wood thrush come up from the edge of Gordons field through the apple bloom and melt into the soft white vapor of the early morning. The gold finches musical festival in the tree tops, still continues, - a sweet happy sibilant chorus of a multitude of little voices, the singers, the while, feeding on something around the green immature elm seeds and leaves. 3. Another wonderful May day, hot probably 80, looks dry, no warblers yet, where are they? Have just taken a run of a few miles in the car, the fluid desperate thing still scares me, how ready it is to take the ditch or a tree or the fence! I fear I have not the mechanical type of mind, to ever feel at my ease with it or to feel perfect master of it. P.m. a run to H. in the car through the fresh fragrant May air in a mid summer heat. - A golden border of dandelions to the road sides, the apple orchards, masses of pink and white bloom, the fragrance of lilacs streaking the air, the grass lush in the meadows, a thick mist of foliage in the woods and way side trees, the delicate maple fringe hanging beneath its canopy of leaves, plowing and hoeing going on in the vineyards, swallows. dating in and out of the reply barns of the entrancing beauty and suggestiveness of May over all - the calm waiting unfolding May. 4. Above 80 yesterday, still warm and calm and nearly clear this morning. Promises a hot day, I hear the "high hole" calling down towards the river - hear it with the ears of youth - it is calling down in the pasture on the home farm 65 or 70 years ago. - Some people have force of intellect but not force of character and vice versa. I have more force of intellect than of character. My wife has force of character but vey little intellect. It looks as if President Wilson had both in large measure. Roosevelt has both, but his intellect is of a lower order than that of Wilson. 5. Lovely days continue, very warm. 6. Very warm. Go to S.S. in p.m. school meeting at night. Leaves nearly all out, not writing the past few days, need a long play spell. Dry thunder. Showers in p.m. only a sprinkle of rain. 7. Cooler, lovely dry day. Go to S.S. again. Tent caterpillars very numerous. Gold finches, during their spring Saugus fast, feed on the unripe seeds of the elms. The ground beneath the trees is strewn with the round keys with the centre ripped open - a tiny morsel, but food for seed eating birds is very scarce is April and May. 8. Clear, much cooler. Feel much better. 9. Cloudy, we drive in the car to Napanoch to Mr. Seaman a pleasant cool drive 10. At Yanie - no [wehi]. Cool, windy. 11. A cold wave last night 2 or 3 degrees of frost. Killed all Mr. Seaman's grape vines, killed Azalia and other shrubs in the woods, made ice; hurt S. berriy, a bright sharp day. 12. Frost again last night in many places. Scorched in the ferns at W.P. Go home today. 13. Warmer - threatens rain by tonight start for Mt. Holyoke College today. Feel pretty well but grieved over the death of Mr. Browne which occurred on Sunday at Santa Barbara - one of my best friends, I have many tender memories of him, I think he killed himself with coffee. Dear friend! your name will always be associated with some of my happiest days. 14, 15, 16, 17. At Mt. Holyoke College. Walk and talk with the girls one girl who attended all my talks said she heard me talk 9 hours - a hit and miss harum scarum talk about everything, under the sun. Cool and rain on day. A pageant on the 17th, Holyoke [a] the most beautiful and home like of the women colleges, that I have seen. In p.m. of Saturday the 17 go to Littleton to see the Sanderson girls, a pleasant restful time. Heard the bittern in the marsh near the house; began at 3 1/2 in the morning, the most watery sound I ever heard from any animal - as if his crop and neck were full of water up through while he forces great bubble of air. You see his breast begin to swell and heave, then up comes this curious liquid sound, as if he vomited it up. Heard him in p.m. a wood duck had her nest in a hole in an elm tree ten feet from the house and 50 ft from R.R. Her young came out the day before my arrival - 12 of them. They all tumbled into the are of the collar window and then climbed out. The old duck finally led them off to the swamp. The barber across the way said he saw two of them tumble out the tree. 20. Off to Boston this morning, clear and fine, meet C. at hotel. Go to her college in morning. 21, 22, 23. See B. see Trowbridge. On 22d looks well and hearty. Go down to Hingham with Sharp and spend a couple of hours. 23. Start for N.Y. at 8 and reach home at 6 a/2 p.m. Four very happy days. 24, 25 and 26. At home, Mrs. B. slowly gaining. 27. Off for De Bruce, a cloudy day, join C. at Cornwall 28, 29, 30. At De Bruce, cold, poor fishing, water too high, C, looks well and is happy. So am I, spend the 30th with the Goring's at their camp, an ideal day. 31. The Bennett's take in their motor car to Mr. Seaman's a tiresome drive, leave C. there and they bring me to my gate at 5 p.m. an ideal day. June 1st. Warm, clear, drive car to Port Ewen and back. Gained 2 lbs at De Bruce. Weigh 145 now. A cold May and wet. 2. Clear, warm. Orlando McLane died this morning. I shall miss him more than I should any other man in town, an ideal mechanic - large, powerful, silent and true as steel - a superior man, every way. He helped build my house, saw him about a week ago, on his way to work, near my age I think I felt a kin to him. He will be greatly missed. He was old reliable - an American mechanic of the highest type. No other laboring man his equal in this town, or probably in this country. Some growth in his chest obstructed his breathing. He was a Whitmanesque man, as big as Whitman and with many of his qualities. Peace to his soul. 3d. Lovely June day, clear, breezy, warm clover blooming, locust bloom dropping, young robins and phoebes and sparrow out of the nest. Off for Detroit this p.m. feel well 4. Reach Detroit at 8 a.m. The Bucks meet me. 5, 6, 7, 8 In D. with Mr. Ford and Mr. Bucke. Clear and cold for June. Have a fine time. Mr. Ford pleased with me and I with him. His interest in birds is keen and his knowledge considerable. a lovable man. So is Glen Buck. Mr. Fords plant a wilderness of men and machinery covering over 40 acres. The ford cars grow before your eyes and every day 1000 of them is seen from the rear. 9. To Toronto today; reach there at 8 p.m. McDonald and Mr. Warburton meet me, I stay at W's. 10, 11, 12. At T. having a fine time. On the 11th we motor to Mr. Firstbrooks, trout ponds at Acton, pass night there in big tent; take plenty trout on fly. Hear the northern water thrush there. 12. Off for home at 5 p.m. 13. Home this morning at 6.20, warm. Weigh 148. 14. Hot day, go to P. for car. John Shea and his girl and her mother come at 2 p.m. 15. Bright, clear, warm. 18. Fine day, C.B. comes at 2 p.m. 19. Cloudy, wedding at S.S. at 5. John Shea and Adella Pepper both of K's, a fine young couple. June 20. Rain all a.m. 21. Clearing. C.B. returns to Pelham I go with her. 22d. At P. fine day. 23. Off for Phila! Reach Chestnut Hill at 5, Mrs. Woodworth meet me at the door; not much changed in the 12 years since we met, a beautiful suburb of Phila. The quiet and repose of the Quaker is over all Phila nature here seems of the quaker persuasion. 24. At Chestnut Hill, walk and motor about. Warm, walk in woods along the Wissebecker. The Kentucky warbler - an old friend of my Washington days. Return to N.Y. in p.m. and to Pelham. 25. Return to West Park in p.m. 26, 27. Picking cherries. Warm, dry. 28. Julian and I start for Roxbury in car. Reach Roxmore at 11.20. Reach Roxbury at 4 1/2. W.L. at 5. Fine warm day, my native hills look good. Ruth Drake and Mary - come at 6. 29. Sunday. Warm fine. In p.m. drive Julian and the girls down to station. J. leaves for home Return in good shape with the girls, but in driving the car in the old barn get rattled and let it run wild. It bursts through the side of the barn like an explosion; there is a great splintering and rattling of boards and timbres and the car stops with its forward axel hanging out over a drop of 15 feet, as the wheels went out the car dropped on its fly wheel and that saved me, the wheel caught on less than a foot from the edge; had it not it would have landed at the foot of the steep hill and I should have landed on the other side of Jordan, a lucky escape. The top of the radiator is badly crumpled, otherwise the car is unhurt. I am terribly humiliated and later geared at my narrow escape. The thing I had feared for weeks happened. Thus does fear deliver us into the hands of the thing we fear. 30. Fine day, Frank Caswell comes up and with John and Chant we get the car back in the barn. Mr. Geron from the village runs it down and sends for a new radiator. John Shea and wife come at 6 p.m. July 1, 2, 3, 4. Hot dry days, 92 at times. Car comes back on Thursday. Emily and the children comes on 3d very glad to see them. Hot. 5. Drive over to Eden's today. Mr. Felton drives us, Eden and Mag well as usual. Very hot. Return at 4 p.m. 6. Cooler, showers go south of us. 7. Very cool and windy. Write in the old barn with Jap, stove in my hand. 8. Warm, brisk showers at 12. Water runs in road. Write in a.m. John began hazing Monday. 10. Cool day, Emily and the children leave me for home. How I shall miss them. 11. Cool, fair. 12. Showers at 6, rains 1/2 hour. C.B. comes at 7. We are there with the car. 13. Fine day but fearfully windy, a gale from W. nearly all day. Go to Prattsville and Devolego falls in p.m. a light shower at 4. 14. Still windy and very cool. Write in barn. 15. Cool and windy, with flying clouds. Work in barn. 16. Clear and warmer. 17. Cool, mock showers, rain much needed. Writing in barn each day. 18,19. Cool, mere mock showers. 20. Walk to the phoebes, met with C.B. Warm. 21. Mock showers, working each day in barn, send off copy of new vol. 22. Clear, dry, cool, lovely day. Walk to Scotland alone; get pint of rasp berries, a weasel, a queen bumble bee at barn today, a hawk, a brood of grouse, a side blue bird and two empty phoebes nests in Scotland. 23. Warmer, some indications of rain. 24. Dry showers, warm. 25. Walk to "Scotland" in p.m. with C.B. 26. Warm dry. Mrs. B. comes at 5.30. 27. Warm, dry. Drive to Lexington in p.m. used to go there as a boy. 28. Warm, light showers nearly 1/2 inch come topping out. (Once) July 29. Warm, foggy in the morning. Brain not active sine I finished "The Summit of the years" C.B. looking much better. Water getting very low. 30. Warm, drive to Conesville to see Ursula Brownell, Jane's girl, a pleasant time. 31. Warm day. Aug 1st. Warm, light rain. 2d. Warm, build bush camp. Mrs. Pratt comes at night. 3. Fine day, air hazy, go up to old clump in p.m. 5 of us; have our supper there. Warm at night. 4. Showers in the night; nearly 1/2 inch. Helps a little, cool and clear in p.m. Find Gold finches nest in Orchard. 7. Drive to Trempers, a warm dusty drive. Olly and Ort well, a pleasant visit, coming home a brisk shower strikes us near Jacob C. Keaton's old place. A fine rain 1 1/2 hours at W.L raised the spring a little and relieved the drought. 8 and 9. Fine days, Addie J. comes on the 9th. 10. A light shower, a camp fire last night at Bush Camp Mr. Kohn here. Aug 1913 11. Cool fine day, write in camp. 12. Lovely day, write in camp. 13. Warm, threatens showers, but they do not come. 14. Drive to John McGregors a lovely day, stop at Edens. He and Mag well as usual, a pleasant day at McGregors. Eva gets us up a fine dinner - an old hen dinner but a good one, cloudy part of the days. 15. Cloudy and vapory, but too soft for rain. 16. Warm, write each morning. 17. Hot, in the 90s I think never saw it hotter here. 18. Clear, fearful heat, Write in the barn. Go blackberrying in p.m. Health good, sleep well, very dry. 19. A little cooler, no rain. Go out to S. Gowda to Hatties - go by train. Then to the cemetery at S. to Jane's and Homer's graves, my first visit there. How their forms rose before me Aug 1913 A dry, hard bright August day, 20. Warmer, dry. 21. Mrs. B. returns home today. I drive down to train with her, a bright warm day. At Bush Camp in p.m. 22. Cloudy, windy from S.W. Cool, May rain. 27. Cloudy, The Fords and Bucks come today, very glad to seem them. 28. Fine day at W.L motor car humming. 29. Rain last night, thunder start at 11 for Boston, reach Catskill at 2 1/2. Leave at 4 1/2 reach Pittsfield at 6 1/2, a fine drive. Stay at P. 30. Start at 9. Drive by way of Northampton, pass the burning ruins of a house and barn, struck by lightening in the night, an old man and his wife set in chairs under a tree near by, looking very forlorn, Mr. Ford hears their story and hands them a $100 bill. They are much moved, when he hears the story of their grand- (Aug 1913) daughter who was to enter the high school Monday morning and that her clothes were all burned, he hand them another hundred and their tears flow and they choke up in trying to thank him "A good investment" I tell him "Pays the right kind of interest" We stop at Clifton Johnson, a little while, a bright warm day. Reach Worcester at 7. 31. Off for Concord this morning, a fine drive. Spend the day at C. call on Sauborn, a stream of motor cars all day to the historic places about C. very warm, stop at Colonial Hotel. Drive on to Boston at night, stop at the Toraine. Sept 1st. Hot, drive out to Concord at 11, pick up Sauborn and we lunch at hotel, S. of the Emersonian type, tall gaunt, deliberate sharp featured, stooping with Emerson's manners and ways, a rather dry, lean nature but an interesting man. Hates Roosevelt. We drive about town to Walden Pond, to the Emerson house etc. spend some time in E's house, - just as he left it very impressive to me. His dining room, his study and library, his bedroom etc all look like Emerson - the home of a scholar and thinker, spend an hour in sleepy Hollow cemetery. - the most beautiful cemetery I ever saw, - a fit place for the last resting place of Emerson, Howthorn Woodan Alcott. 2. In Boston today, In p.m. to country club to lunch, then to Arlington to see Trowbridge and Nixon Waterman - two charming lovable men. Trowbridge well and rudly and spry. Waterman very humorous and bright. Warm. To theatre at night to see May Irvine. - Laugh a good deal a good actress. 3. Meet the Edisons today. Then at 2 take train for Albany, Mr. Ford and I stay in Albany. Hot. Get up and take train at 4.25 for W.P. all well at home. Find Julian in the woods by stone crusher, so glad to see him cooler, stay home till Friday p.m. [Sept] 4. At home today, all well, grapes 2/3dr off. 5. Start for R. in p.m. 6. At W.L again, all is well Mr. Hoot from Rochester comes. 7. Fine day, Mr. H off in p.m. and John and Della go to Poughkeepsie. 8 Lovely day, a day in Bush Camp. - Have lunch there, roast corn e.t.c. - An ideal time. 9. The Sheas home in p.m. 10. Cold, a frost in the valleys. 11. Cold, a joy ride to Margarettsville. Cloudy. 12. A quiet day. 51 years ago today was very hot. I worked in oats here on this famr and wrote a little to Myra Benton. Very dry, spring here failed while I was in Boston. Reed CK $150 from Good Housekeeping. 13. Cool, clear, dry day. 15. Rain last night, nearly 2 inch. Does not affect the spring. 27. Eden and Mag today. The first time they were visited me. Both well. Sept 27. Julian and his family come in the car in p.m. Delighted to have them, a cool brilliant day. Glen Buck also comes in his car and stays till the 30th. Since the 15th my life here has gone on as usual - writing, driving, walking, friends and admirers calling. Fine weather, some frost but many warm days. No rain to speak of. 30. Buck and John Shea leave for N.Y. in Buck's car, Julian and his family returned 28th. The woods and trees all gold and bronze now. Oct 1. Rained a little last night. Threatens more this morning. Cool. 2. Slow rain all night and all day. Cool. Write indoors. Send off "under the apple trees" to Harper. 3. Cool, cloudy. Water began running a small stream this morning - dry 4 weeks. [1913] Oct 4. Caufields came last night. Glad to see them. 6. Kicked by Caswell horse in the field, not serious. 12. Fine warm days, some rain but spring still dry. On the 8th I heard the strange cry near midnight. Homaday says it was a puma. On the 9th the Sheas heard the same cry. In Bush Camp with the Chipmunk. 15. Leave for W.P. today C.B. goes to Kingston. 18. Home these days and enjoying the change. Julian and his family in their new quarters at Col. Paynes, mild weather. 20. A fine rain all night and part of the day. - It is just as impossible to prove or disprove the freedom of the will, as to lift yourself over the fence by your boot straps. If I feel or think my will is free that is enough for all purposes of my life. If I do not feel or see the necessity that rules me. It is as if it did not exist. [Oct 1913] 22. Leave for N.Y. to join the Fords. Find them at Hotel Belmont. 24. Stay three days with the Fords, in and about N.Y. Back to W.P. today. 25. Back to Roxbury today. Rain, Mr. P. drives me up, stay at W.L. and work and play the rest of the month. 31. Ground white with snow this morning, cold. Nov 1. Cold, much cloud. C.B. and the children here since my return. 3. The Sheas leave today. 4. Draw writings with John and receive the dead that makes the old place mine, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Ford.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: May 10, 1895 - May 27, 1896
Text: May 10. Hiram has been with me the past four days; the longer he stays the more pleasure I have in his visit. This is the 8th or 9th time he has visited me in his life; once at Marlboro in 1861, once at Orange or Newark N.J. in 1859; twice in Washington in 1965 and 67, and four or five times here, the last being in '83. He seems well, but can not walk as he used to. He goes with me over to the swamp twice and over to P. He is content to sit about or to snooze in the summer house. Weather...
Show moreMay 10. Hiram has been with me the past four days; the longer he stays the more pleasure I have in his visit. This is the 8th or 9th time he has visited me in his life; once at Marlboro in 1861, once at Orange or Newark N.J. in 1859; twice in Washington in 1965 and 67, and four or five times here, the last being in '83. He seems well, but can not walk as he used to. He goes with me over to the swamp twice and over to P. He is content to sit about or to snooze in the summer house. Weather very hot all the time -- from 85, to 88. This morning I start for N.Y. and Hiram goes home Spend the night at Mrs Haggins -- a fine dinner and people in the evening.11th Go out to Plainfield to-day to visit Mrs McCarthy -- the widow of my old school mate who died last winter. Very hot. a long drive about the country with talk of the departed. After dinner Mrs McC. shows me many photos of my boyhood friend; but I cannot see him in them; then she shows me an old daguerreotype, taken shortly after I knew him. This brings him to me vividly; it seems as much myself as it does him -- it is my past, my boyhood. I cannot cease to look at it, and I bring it home with me. Pass the night with the Chubbs in Brooklyn. 12 Cold and rainy, a great change13. Reach home this morning; very cold and ice and frost in places. Quite a fine rain yesterday all the forenoon, was much needed. Apple bloom nearly all off. It has passed too quick Grape arms from 6 to 10 inches. Foliage nearly all out. 18 A cold and frosty week; fruit much damaged in some local-ities. No injury here. On the 16th a cold rain all the after-noon, about 3/4 inch of water. To day bright and lovely; a lot of Vassar girls to go to the woods. Millions of blue-birds must have perished last winter in the South. No other species of birds seems to have suffered so. [crossed out: A] In N. C. a martin box blew down and 20 dead blue-birds were found in it. In a hollow stump 6 were found. From Wis. to Me. a greatscarcity of blue-birds is reported. More here yet. Every day I go to the muck swamp; it is a great boon. I suffer it is the wildness and seclusion of it that attracts me so. It is an escape from the tame and humdrum. 19. Cloudy and cool this morning, threatens rain. 23. Bright and warm after three cold cloudy days. Make a boat voyage down Black Creek from bridge at Centrevill with Booth and Lowne. An enjoyable day. Two starlings nests, one redstarts nest; Start up a pair of mallard ducks, and one bittern. Hear birth water-thrushes, the mourning warble and veery. 27. Rain this A.M. but not enough. Pretty warm since my last entry.Later -- Rain turned out a fine one -- nearly an inch of water. 30 Very hot -- 92 in shade. 31. " " 93 " " Part of the day in the woods. June 1 Heat continues -- Mrs and Mr Frank Baker come at night. 2. Very hot, 94 degrees in shade; but lovely weather. Frank leaves to-night 3d Still hot. 94 degrees -- the 6th day of great heat all over the country -- breaks the record. Cooler at night. 4 Cloudy and cooler; threatens rain from S.W. 5. Still cloudy and cooler. 6 Quite a fine rain last night, grapes blooming7. Very windy from North. Wordens breaking badly. very cool last night. 8 Clear, and warmer; ideal June weather, tho' pretty dry. All kinds of grapes blooming; grass all cut and part of it in. 11 Clear and warm. Getting very dry. -- Montaigne says "The most beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things; if not instructed, at least capable of being so." This is indeed the main matter -- capability of instruction. People capable of instruction are sure to become more or less instructed in the course of life -- no matter what their circumstances are.13. It has been trying to rain for 2 or 3 days from S.W. A depression coming up from Va. This P.M. 5 o'clock came a sharp dash, then another heavier, and spliced on to this a third very heavy -- rained over one hour, about 1 1/2 inches of water; washed the vineyard on side-hill above ice house. Rain seems to have been general from Washington to Albany and west to Rochester. Much needed, but fell too fast. All the moisture in the atmosphre seemed to give way at times. Grapes about done blooming; finished spraying for first time in forenoon. 14 Clear and warm; probably more rain before night.I do not seem to be getting much out of these June days now half gone. Every day I go to the muck swamp, every day I listen to the birds, every day I sit in the summer house and look ong and wistfully upon the river and the landscape beyond; every day I think of father and mother and the old home, every day I wish and wish for I know not what. Every day I try to read in [crossed out: the] books but feel only a languid interest. I think in living here I always have the feeling of the exile I am away from my own, tho' I hardly know what my own is. As nearly as I can define it it is my family and the old home. The past, oh, the past.16. Warm, quiet, delightful June days, perfect. 22. The summer solstice; A damp cloudy, muggy day; a fine shower in the small hours of the morning -- 2 hours rain, much needed. The week has been dry and warm. First shipment of currants yesterday -- about 1 ton. Later -- rain does not seem to have reached P. or Rondout. 24. Warm -- boat race at P. Shower at 5 P.M. Rather heavy [crossed out: at] here, ground well wetted now. 26 Finished currants to-day. Picnic at the island. Overcast and humid. 4500 lbs of currants. 28 Light rain yesterday. Heavy shower this P.M. no thunder. Not needed here. Sultry. 29. Warm. Start for Snyder Hollow Julian and I. Walk up from Phoenicia. Reach our old camp at noon with a string of trout. Cabin burned up. Extemporize a tent with our canvass. Heavy shower on Sunday, our roof is perfect. Monday eve Mr Binder comes. Tuesday a cool lovely day, have a head ache which continues on Wednesday, on this day Julian and Mr B. go up the W[crossed out: h]ittenberg and are back at 1 1/2 P.M. Mr B. returns to W.P. Thursday the 4th J and I fish the Esopus for cod, trout, but find none. Rain at night and all day on Friday the 5th and very heavy at night. We have trout once each day and strawberries or raspberries at every meal. Return home on the 6th Saturday. Showery; threatened with a hell of rain as 6 yearsago. The rain of Friday came from off the Atlantic and drifted westeward, contrary to all laws of storms. It did the same in 1889. The air here seems heavy and thick and foul compared with the air of Snyder Hollow. This one breathes reluctantly; that he takes in eagerly. 9 Muggy, sticky, very damp weather the past few days, threatens rain from S.W. to-day. No rot or mildew among the grapes as yet. Terrible storms in the west with loss of life. 10 A change, air clear, cool and sparkling, wind north. Change began at 5 P.M. yesterday, air and sky seem as if washed. 14 At Roxbury. Came up here yesterday -- light rain in the morning along the river; only a sprinkle here. Never saw it so dry here in my life; pastures brown, hay hardly 1/3 of a crop. Grasshoppers large and very abundant. No rain here to wet the ground since spring. The old home looks as good as ever, tho' the terrible drought almost makes me sick. 16 Cloudy, south wind, a slow light rain that barely makes the eaves drip. Some curse seems upon the land. Very cool. The rain so far (9 A.M) only a mockery. I doubt if I can stay here long, unless I can get to writing.Drought thoughts: To believe that there is any Power that interferes with the natural order of events, and changes or modifies them in any way with reference to man, is to believe upon faith and against reason and experience. If there is such a power we are forced to the conclusion either that it is not omnipotent, or else that it is cruel, capricious, and inconstant beyond anything the history of mankind can show -- feeding the raven but allowing peoples and races to perish of starvation mindful of the sparrow that falls to the ground, but not your child that falls under the electric car. Out upon it! There is no such monster in the universe. What then is the truth about these things? The truth is that the order of the universe ii invariablethat is, that under the same conditions the same results always follow; that the order of the universe is not directed to man anymore than it is to mice, that he take his chances with everything else, that no exception is ever made in his favor, that he is shaped to Nature, and not the reverse, that drought comes to one part of the country and flood to another as the result of abscure natural law, etc. Just now the grasshoppers are having their innings and are literally devouring the land, everything has favored them and they doubtless [crossed out: call] see only smiles in the face of Providence. Next season perhaps other and less friendly conditions will prevail and their race will not prosper. July 20. Very hot day. Light shower in P.M. Curtis and I return from Edens whither we wentyesterday. E. getthing better. Hiram well. I was him in the meadow loading hay as I have seen him so many times in my youth. He always loaded all the hay, and built all the stacks. -- The swallows skim in and out the great barn door of the half filled barn, uttering their child like twitter. Now they drive at the white cat, falling toward her from 20 or 30 feet in the air, uttering their chiding sleet, sleet. The cat regards them not. She goes her way like W.W. amid the sleet sleet of hostile critics. The grasshoppers crawl up the side of the barn till it is speckled nearly to the peak. -- Religious belief, as an element in social development undoubtedly has this advantage over science and philosophy, that it involves the human will and leads more to action. Reflection, speculation, rationcination are [crossed out: ???] not favorable to action, they leave us with our hands folded. To will and to do counts for more in human progress than to think and to know. Wrong action is undoubtedly better on the whole, than no action. It sets the currents going. But science is akin to religion in this respect that it favors action (?) 24. Still dry, dry, dry, and cool. 27 A little rain to-day from the S.W. Binder and I lay in File Corbins old barn on the hay and looked out into the broad fields and the drifting clouds; at that momentmy vineyards were being devestated by a terrible storm of hail and rain. While at supper a few hours later a telegram was handed me which said "All your grapes destroyed. Come home at once." It fairly took my breath away. What a cruel, brutal blow! I had all I could do to stand up under it. Little sleep that night. Cannot put the thought from me. One prolonged agony till I reach home at 7 P.M. on Sunday and find it not so bad as reported. -- May save half of them or more, tho' probably half their market value gone. Vineyard terribly washed also. Probably 3 inches of water fell in less than 1/2 hour. Two clouds or storms met and fought it out just over my vineyardEach cloud apparently gutted the other and one came down as hail, the other as rain all in a heap. No damage done over the river, or north or south or west of us. The larger grapes suffered the most. Delawares the least. 29. Forlorn and cast down, tho' I shall survive it. 31. Mrs. B. and Julian return to-day. Very cool; report a fine rain at Roxbury at last. Aug 3d Warmer, but still cool. The bruised grapes are dropping off. My own wounds are healing slowly. A few Moores Early beginning to ripen, but oh, such a sorry lot! The grapes were the finest I ever had, all kinds.10 Very warm past three days, with light showers. Van B. shipping Champions since 5th 11 Very moist and hot. New leaves coming out on the hail cut grape vines. Delawares color-ing here and there. 12 Heavy shower yesterday P.M. and again in the night, about an inch of water; very muggy. First Moors Early to-day. -- Nearly every day I walk over to my muck swamp for a taste of the wild unfamil[crossed out: l]iar. The walk through the woods, the glimpses, the vistas the sudden revelation of the bit of prairie surrounded by gray rocky arms, Amasa swinging his bogging hoe in the solitude, the fat marrowy soil, the sittingon a fern hassock and the talk and gossip, then the spring and the long delicious draught, repeated again and again, then the Scotch caps and black berries; then the slow loitering and browsing about -- how sweet it all is! I look away to the west and north and there are the walls and faces of gray lichen covered rocks; I look at my feet and there is the [???] black humus, meadow as an ash heap; I look away to the west and north and there is the distant landscape with farms and woodland, and beyond all the blue curves of the Catskills. Then I come back refreshed. 14 Pretty warm. First Wordens to-day. 18. Fine shower last night. Hot to-day. 20. Cool wave yesterday and to-day. -- In your born Catholic the dogmas of his Church are a grown part of him, his mind has shaped itself to them, they are like the thongs and skeweres in the lips and ears of certain savages the vital parts have made a place for these foreign substances. George Mivart is such a Catholic. This is the way he begins a sentence in a recent article, "About God and about the most mysterious dogmas which he has designed to reveal to us in Chris-tianity etc" Doesnt that have a Catholic sound? He says these truths can only be partially known by us -- and yet he acceptsthem as truths. How do we know they are truths? An authority of course. These "mysterious dogmas" must be swallowed like pills with out mastication. Is he never tempted to bite into one and see for a truth if it be not a mere shell? a lie? 24 Pretty hot. To Twilight Park this morning. Speak there at night in parlour of Lodge End Hotel. Do very well. A lovely spot. 25 A bright lovely day. What superb views on every hand. [crossed out: Ba] 26 Home again and at the grapes. A losing battle.Sept. 1 Bright and cool as one week ago. A light rain yesterday; getting very dry all over the country. Onlly one ton of Delawares off so far. A hot wave n middle of week. -- The difference between the vital and the mechanical is the difference between good literature and bad, or no literature at all. 4 Olly and Johnny came to day from the old home; hurrying off the grapes with all our might. One and 1/2 tons is about all we can do with 6 women and 5 men, besides Julian and myself. 7 Go to West Point with Olly and John and back on PowellDry and warm. The grape racket very trying. A dull market and bruised and disfigured grapes, four times as much work to market them as usual. 9th Olly and John go home to-day A fine shower at night, the first for weeks; remarkable electric display: Shower very heavy out home. 11 Very hot -- 90 in the coolest spot out of doors. Send off 3300 lbs of grapes. 12 Very hot still. 13. A change to cool. No grape cutting to-day. Markets too flat. Day bright and lovely. A pair of blue-birds on the 11th and one bird about Aug 20thSept 30 -- A dry Sept and very warm. The 20th, 21st, 22d, 23 very hot, 93 on the north end of the house. Hiram came on the 21st and stayed till Friday, the 27th. Picked up wonderfully while here; his eyes got well and he improved every way, great pleasure to have him with me again. We went to the swamp almost daily. He wants to come down and live with me and I want to have him; do not yet see how we will manage it. A fine shower last night. Cool and bright to-day with falling temperture. Plenty of Niagaras still hanging. Have heard blue-birds in the air many times lately. Oct. 1 Very cool, a frost but for the wind. Sunday Oct 6. The end of a cool bright week, dry, dry. Frost (light) several nights. Hard blue skies, north wind. Lovely days for the open air; working at the swamp every day. -- The final test of any [crossed out: book] author is do we return to him? do we come back after a time or after years and re-read him with fresh pleasure? If not, he is not destined to live. About the only N. E. authors I ever return to are Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau. I cannot go back to Lowells poetry, or to Whittiers or Longfellows, except to a few single poems. I return to Wordsworth, to Tennyson, to Burns, to Milton. I re-read Boswell every 8 or 10 years. I cannot re-read much of Carlyle; the road he drivesme over is needlessly rough, I can always re-read Danas Two Years before the mast with fresh pleasure. I have read no novel that I can return to. Books that fuse with our life, that color or flavor our days -- to these we return. To do this a book must have heart as well as intellect. I forgot Holmes. One can go back to him a little. I have lately re-read parts of the Autocrat, with a curious pathetic interest -- read it in the old Atlantic where I first saw it 35 years ago. Some of it is good, some of it very cheap. 13. Something like a "line storm" nearly 2 inches of water, first from S.W. then from N.E; rather warm; still raining and blowing. Cold wave a few days ago; hurt the celery on the swamp and on low lands. Coldest on the morning of the 10th. Evidently the white plume celery will not stand more than 5 or 6 degrees of frost. Began raining yesterday near 11 Myron Benton came Monday night, and returned again Tuesday night, from P. where he was summoned on the jury. "What do you think of my coming back" he said to Mrs B. half apologetically as he met her in the dining room [crossed out: Th] Tuesday night. "I expected you would" she replied rather severly, "I know that jury would not keep you in P." I was very glad to see Myron again. An old friend recovers for one for the time, so much of the past; the dead days come to live again in him.Oct 18. Lovely day, not a cloud; sharp frost last night; go to Julian's rock and to celery swamp with Binder and the Gordon girls A cool week with light rain part of one day. Hear and see bluebirds daily. 19 Lovely day and quite warm; go to Albany and then to Indian Ladder with Miss Warner and Miss Barstow. Stupendous scenery -- am greatly astonished by it. We walk under and over the cliffs and along the dizzy brink; have never seen anything just like it; feel well repaid. 20. Home to Roxbury to-day, bright and sharp. Find them all well. 21. Snow squalls to-day -- a white wash of snow over the landscape. Cold at night. 22 Bright and warmer. Johnson comes to-day. We go over to the shcool house. J. makes pictures etc. I sit in my old seat once more. It seems incredible thatthese children are having just such times as I had, and that life and the worlds looks to them as it did to me at that age, but I suppose it is so. At night J. interviews me on my youth etc. 23. Fine day and cool. J. leaves in P.M. and Curtis and I go over to Edens Find him much worse. Very pale he sits there in his chair by the table. Not thin in flesh but pale and weak. I fear more than ever that it is death. Hiram looks well and seems cheerful. 24 Go with Hiram to see Edens new house; very sad in walking about its unfinished rooms. He said he guessed he was building it for some one else. We walk back through the fields in the golden sunlight. In afternoon drive to Homers. We pass the place where mygreat grandfather lived and died nearly 80 years ago. Jane is alone when we arrive. She looks well, but she has a terrible hard barren life; she said she often wished it was all over with, Homer is so helpless and I fear so ugly and ungrateful. He comes in at dusk, and seems about as one year ago. 25. Drive back home in fore noon. Bright and sharp. When we left Edens yesterday, he came out and stood in the sun light [crossed out: and sees] to see us off: how deadly pale he looked. Shall I ever see him again in life? He said the doctor told him in the spring that he had better get his business matters in shape. He said he told him he could not scare him. 26 Back home this A.M. Sour looks and angry words in the kitchen.A cold week for October; froze at night. 27 Bright mild day, with some rain and thunder at night. 28 Warm and lovely, getting cooler in P.M. Nov 3d Bright, clear, still perfect Nov. day, air sharp and exhilarating. A visit from Prof. Triggs of Chicago Univer-sity. The wrath of Mrs B. rises high because I have company; give her a piece of my mind. Much long and delightful talk on Whitman with T. 4 Another bright, quiet, lovely day; frost last night. 7 Still the mild fair weather continues; wind southerly no frost for some nights. Bees lively every day. Two days agofound a wood frog in his hiber-naculum. Blue birds every day. 9. End of warm week -- 70 and over. In walking or working one sweats as in summer. Cloudy with mist and light rain to-day. Cool wave coming. -- I do not think of any writer or poet of to-day in America or in England in whose page there is any cry -- either of joy or of pain. There is no burden in the song, and no anguish in the prose. Mr Howells is perhaps the most in earnest of American writers at present -- he does feel the wrong and injustice of our social organization Yes, and so does Hamlin Garland. But the mass of our current poetry is mere froth -- there is no deep feeling or seriousnessback of it. There was a cry in Arnold, in both his prose and verse, largely a cry of pain and regret. There is now and then a revolutionary cry in Swinburne, but mostly does he cry to hear the echo. There is no cry in Morris and Dobson and Watson that I know of. The religioius cry is in In Memoriam and others of Tennysons works. There is the cry of Joy in Keats and of wrath and scorn in Byron. There is the patriotic and humanitarian cry in Whittier and the cry of strong exultant self-hood in Whitman. Is there the cry of a lost night bird in Poe? No cry in Stoddard or Baynard Taylor or our women poets, tho, there is an intense and piercing note at times in Miss Thomas, and in Mrs Piatt. A real cry always reaches and moves us, even a cry ofdespair. What we cant endure in this perpetual feigning -- these make-believe joys, these make believe sorrows. Ah, well, I am only after all indicating the difference between deep men and shallow, between men of words and men of power. When a poets earnestness reaches to a cry, we are sure to heed him. 15. Fine rain all fore noon from South, over an inch of water. So far Nov. has been mild like Oct. 16 Bright, still, mild. Health good these days; sleep well 7 hours a stretch. Mrs B. very belligerent as usual. -- When I was visiting Jane in Oct. she told me this about grandfather Kelly's death. She was there at Uncle Martins at the time. It was in the summer I think. Grandfather and grand motherhad the little back room. Jane went in to see [crossed out: Grand] them. Grandfather sat with his bible open on his knees before him, and Jane says seemed rather dull and abstracted. He called her Janett as usual and talked a little. She went out, and in a few moments a noise and commotion was heard in grandfathers room. He had got up and gone into the little bed room and had fallen upon the floor, probably from a stroke. They lifted him upon the bed and he was dead in a few moments. In the great economy of Nature, no more than a leaf falling from a tree in autumn. He was 88 I think and had been a boy soldier under Washington. I taught my first school that summer -- in Tongore, Olive, Ulster, Co. I do notremember the last time I ever saw him -- probably that spring in March, as I went by way of Uncle Martins when I set out to look up a school. I stayed there over night and he took me down to the stage at Griffins Corners in the morning. 20. Rainy. This day I go to Brooklyn to speak in the after-noon to the girls at Packer Inst. Do not talk very well. Not well pleased with myself. In the evening speak at the Brooklyn institute -- a large hall, a large audience. I speak on the art of seeing things, with marked success. My first real success on the platform. I am tickled with myself. I find the large audience, the large hall etc. like swimmingin deep water, tis very easy. Had I been told before hand what was before me, I should never have dared to [crossed out: have] undertake[crossed out: n] it. Mr Proctor was enthusiastic; said no speaker since Curtis has so pleased a Brooklyn audience We were just the opposite, he said; Curtis'es was art, mine was nature. I told him I was a green horn, "then remain a green horn all your life" said he. I talked 1 hour and 20 minutes. "Stopped just in time" said Chubb. No doubt a genuine success. In the morning I go with Chubb to the High School and speak to the boys 10 or 15 minutes. In the evening to a Whitman dinner where I speak againbut not with much fullness and go -- am not well prepared. Much colder this day. 23d Saturday. Stayed with Proctor last night and heard the nightingale it sang well he said, but did not fully let itself out, like the wild bird. Its song was a brilliant medley -- no theme that I could detect, like the larks song in this respect; all the notes of the field and forest the gift of this bird. But I cannot judge its song till I hear it in nature where it belongs. How can one tell in a room in a city house? 24 Rain to-day -- go to Plymouth Church and hear Abbott. Eloquence a little perfunctory a little of the sin of whichmost preachers have so much and whereof "a little more than a little is by much too much" Why not speak naturally and just as you feel? Why be moved untill your theme moves you. Let a man be eloquent when he cant help it. Yet Abbott is a fine preacher and a liberal growing man. He has shown himself capable of development. 25. Home to-day at 10.16 a.m. 26, 27, 28, 29, at home at work on the house in the woods. Frosty nights. 29 Go to N.Y. to-day. Am the guest of Mrs Talmadge on Park Ave. A pleasant family. 30 Cold and clear. Go to the Plymptons and in P.M. am the guest of the womens university Club; meet and talk to a great manypleasant women. A spread dinner at P's at night. Dec 1st Mild. Go to hear Dr Parkhurst. Not a great preacher, not a deeply religious soul. at the Plymptons meet Miss Pollock from St Paul who was on the train that escaped from the great fire in Wisconsin in the fall of 94. I shall never forget her recital. It was Dantesque. A fine person, with a soul too big for her frail body. 2d Rain, rain; home this morning. 3d At work on the chimney of the new house. 12 Dec has been getting colder and colder till thismorning mercury is at 10 much floating ice in river; No snow yet and no rain since the 1st. Slow work on the chimney too cold, wind N.E. The ground aches with cold; needs a coverlid of snow. 13. A severe cold wave this morning or last night -- down to zero, and windy and piercing all day. 14 Down to 10 above. River full of floating ice. 16 To N.Y. this morning to meet Hamlin Garland; a fine fellow with the western heartiness and good fellow ship A real democrat; the real Whitman blood in his veins. I believe he will do great things if he lives.17. Home to-night from N.Y. milder 18 Begin work on the chimney again. Weather mild and lovely; roads very dusty. 19 Another Indian summer day from S.W. 20 Still warmer. 60 in the coolest spot. I sweat at my work. How I enjoy it. Chimney nearly to the roof. Will and I are pusing it up; happy all day long. Nothing like work And then that spot (Foot cliffs?) has such a charm to me. 92 years ago to-day, my father was born. I do not forget that in my work; nor the death of mother 15 years ago. How cold and wintry it was then!22 Sunday. Our week of Indian summer apparently ended last night in a sharp shower in the middle of the night, with a change of wind. Bright this morning and growing cooler. Worked at the chimney 4 days. May finish it in one more day. I predict an open winter. 25 Xmas. Warm, overcast, still no frost for several nights Finished chimney yesterday. Monday the 23rd the boys came up from P. and we had a pic-nic in the open air. 27. Rain and violent wind last night; clear and colder this morning. 28 Frost last night; bright and pleasant to-day; a season like that of 89 only less rain; no snow yet. 29 Froze a little last night; nearly clear and mild to-day. Remarkable weather, ice nearly all gone from ponds and river. At night I sit by my fire and read Arnolds letters. It is an Education in simplicity and common sense to read them There was probably the least confusion in that mans head [crossed out: of] than in any other head of his times. The lines are all so clear, and straight, and so strong. He says in 63, he read 100 lines of Homer daily to keep from putrefaction. What did Homer read to keep from putrefaction? But H. was not school inspector and did not have to correct 60 examinations papers daily. He had Greek life and nature, and real events. Dec 31. Rain and wind last night from S.W. Madam [crossed out: made] heard her washing snapping in the wind and made me get up at 3 o'clock and bring the things in. The rain was warm and driving from S.W. Clearing this morning and growing cold -- a cold wave. Not a flake of snow yet. Ice all gone. -- Lowell had a good deal of power but it did not work along special lines as did Arnolds. He did not stand for any one thing as A. stands for clear intelligence and fitness. L. had no cause, no message, and he occasionally slumped dreadfully on grounds of good taste, (as I do.) A's power of clear seeing and right feeling never fail him for a moment. News of the death of Angie Carroll this morning casts a sudden gloom upon me. Typhoid fever four times in succession since middle of October, and is at last taken by pneumonia. Seems as if some malignant power was bent on her destruction, and at last was compelled to play a new card to accomplish it. Her sweet face and gentle ways -- how sad, how sad! Still in the morning of her days. -- The true writer or poet always makes you feel that he is walking upon real ground. -- Why do imitations displease us? One likes the taste of fish, but not in a duck. We want things at first hand. -- I suppose it is the taste of raw fish that we dislike. Cooking the duck does not cook the fish. 1896 January 5. A cold wave yesterday and last night, down to 8 degrees this morning. The river again covered with great floating island of new smooth ice, not a flake of snow on the ground; only a few flakes in the air yet this winter. 6. Colder and colder -- 12 below zero this morning. 7 below at noon, clear as crystal; the sun seems of ice, his beams like icicles, a penetrating wind; the naked earth cracking open, ice [crossed out: sl] on river stationary the patches of open water steam as if the water was hot. The unclad hills, how they mustache. News this morning that my old friend Hazen is dead, gone before me into the silent land; died yesterday, a frank ingenuous man, like a child, quite unconscious of self, a terrible talker, prodigious memory, learned in the scriptures, but chiefly to point out their absurdities, or the absurdities of theologians with regard to them, a terrible asker of questions, insatiable curiosity, fine botanist, fine geologist, tender hearted as a girl, not much worldly success, always friendly to all, never moped or sullied I think, quite a bore at times by reason of his hobbies, but a good soul whom I shall much miss from the world, tho' I saw him only afterintervals of years. Always intended to visit him at Saratoga, but the auspicious moment never came. He visited us last fall on his return home from Mr Donalds funeral. Skeptical about all the teachings of the Church, and yet of such as he is the kingdom of heaven. Farewell, farewell, we have passed many summer and winter days to-gether, but now the end has come. A long farewell. 8 Cold continues -- 4 below this morning, 6 or 7 degrees below yesterday -- a couple of inches of light snow -- the first of the season. Clear and frigid to-day. 9. Overcast, a slow cold gentle snow nearly all day, mercury 10 this morning. Walk over tomartins and back -- 3 inches of snow, very dry and light. Long, long thoughts of father who died 12 years ago to-day, a space of time that in memory is reduced to a mere span. 17. Clear, strong, quiet winter weather the past week; mercury near zero several mornings. Only a little snow which mixes up with the dirt beneath it on the roads. Heard a robin in the woods two days ago. At work every afternoon with Van on the slab house -- slab rest -- [crossed out: eve] Reading Arnolds letter at night, not a brilliant or witty thing in them, and yet they are very good and valuable, so unlike Lowellsand yet far better I think. January 23. Fair day, roads bare and smooth, mercury 19 this morning. Since the cold snap of two weeks ago, weather has been mild and agreeable, no wind, no storms, no cold. Flocks of pine grossbeaks every day, outlook for ice poor. 26. Three days of soft cloudy weather with light rain and fog, and litle hail and snow. No wind; sky stagnant. Work in "Slab-sides" every afternoon. 31. Bright and sharp, mercury at 18 this morning; ice boats on the river; roads bare and nearly dry, a skim of snow here and there in the fields. January, with the exception of one cold spellhas been like a quiet well behaved March. Feb 2d Very bright; off for Boston to-day at 10 a.m. train. Reach B. at 9 P.M. 3d Speak at Lowell to Middlesex Womens Club at 4 P.M. Do fairly well. 5th at Mrs Ole Bulls in Cambridge Fine house, fine people. [crossed out: at] musical at night, am introduced to many people. Miss Longfellow, some Harvard professors etc. 6th A furious rain storm nearly all day; very violent in afternoon, torrents of water; extended all over the country; a hurricane in N.Y. thunder and lightning at West Park; I walk out and look at Higginsons house, where he lies ill; felt much sympathy towards him as I stood there in the wet slippery street under the dripping skies. Then to Lowells house, when I again paused with long long thoughts. Speak at night before the Procopeia Society; rain stopped at dark as I predicted it would. 7th Very bright and spring like; go to the Longfellow house with Mrs Bulls friends (2 girls) and am shown about; a charming impressive place. But I asked myself, Do really great poems ever come out of such houses -- such a correct, blameless life, so conventional, so made up? In evening speak on Whitman before the Metaphysical Society in Association Hall; a fine audience and more appreciation than I expected. A marked success I thought, much more so than I dared hope. I was conscious of speaking strongly and earnestly. But in afternoon came near collapsing under the strain; I feared I should fail. But when I got face to face with the enemy my courage rose.as a soldier I should die before the battle began: if I only lived till the fight opened and I could see the foe, I should rush in fire and sword. 8 Come to Hadley to-night and stop with Clifton Johnson till Monday morning. 11 Reach home to-day at 10 a.m. The same old atmosphere of rangle jangle. Mrs B. mad because I went and mad because I came home. 4 inhes of snow on Sunday. 15. Storms nearly every other day light snow or light rain; not cold. Every night after supper I walk over to the station in the darkness always with long sad thoughts mostly retrospective and centering about the old home. Last night the thoughts of father was with me all the way over and back, the thought of how long he had been in his grave; that all his neighbors with two or three exceptions were dead that all the members of his church in whose society he had so much comfort were dead, that his generation was nearly all gone, and that my generation [crossed out: was] is rapidly passing off the scene. I see the world as it was in fathers time, and all the people he knew and had to do with; then all is changed and new set and new interests are on the stage. How soon others will see their past in me and in my day! Extract from a letter to Mr Stedman Feb 16: "Unless we allow Whitman to be a law unto himself (and it is probably here that you and I come in conflict) I dont see what we are going to do with him. From his own point of view and from the logic of his work he does not violate nature, but honorsFeb 18. Cold wave yesterday mercury 10 below. Cold to-day Start for Brooklyn at 11. Speak before the teachers training school at 4, on Observation of Nature. I am not well and do not speak as well as on some other occasions. 19 Go to New Haven to speak before the Phi Beta Cappa Society on Whitman. Am dreadfully scared and worried as usual, as I sit in my room at Hotel, it seems utterly impossible for me to read that lecture. I could fly to the moon easier. But when the hour strikes and I find myself face to face with the enemy my courage and confi-dence mount[crossed out: s], and I acquitmyself entirely to my satisfaction I speak about one third of it and read the rest. A fine audinece and appreciative of me, if not of my theme. This is the way I began, "I recd a letter from an old Yale boy the other day, Mr E. C. Stedman, whom I trust you all know and love. Referring to my proposed visit here and the theme upon which I was to speak, he said, 'I want to assure you that the Yale spirit is sturdy, democratic, unaffected, American, and so 'cos-mopolitan as to be at home even in its own country! (applause) Well, I come to you with a theme that ought to appeal to all these traits. If it does notthe fault is in me and not in it. Mr S. has himself written wisely and appreciatively of W. Let me take this as a good omen, as a sign that the Yale spirit and the Whitman spirit are not so far apart as they might seem to be. But if it is so, if I have not your sympathy, then there is all the more reason why I should be true to myself and speak my own honest conviction about the man and his work. If indeed the Yale spirit is resolute, self-reliant, unaffected; if it is done with sugar plums, if it has finished with illusions, if it can face the realities of life and the world, it ought to find much in W. to which it can respond. The example he set us ofcheerful self-trust, of unshakable determination to follow the inward light and go his own way in the world etc. ought to be an inspiration to every young man." etc. etc. If I had it to do over again I would make it more of a popular lecture by dwelling upon W. as a man, I would make it more suggestive and a less argumentative. The young men showed me many attentions. 20. Come to Bridgeport in the forenoon and spend the day and night with Smith and Emma. Very gland to see them again. E. looks well, S. getting fat. A quiet humdrum life they lead, the same routine winter and summer, year in and year out.21. Back to N.Y. to-day; stay there till 25th See many people and get very tired. No rest for me in the great hard roaring Babylon. 25 Go to Stamford and speak before a fine audience on Nature with marked success. Speak 1 hour and 10 minutes, and the audience is disappointed when I stop. I see it when it is too late. They linger in their seats. The principle of the High School says he thought I talked about 15 minutes. They would have stood an hour and a half and still been keen for more. 26. Visit Helen Keller this morning with Warner. A visible soul, am strangely affected by her; can hardly keep from tears; she repeatsmy poem "Waiting". Says she believes it all. So happy, almost ecstatic, all soul and feeling, quite handsome, except her eyes. Full grown I should say. A phenomenon indeed. Home at night. 29. Powerful rain. mercury at 42. Snow all gone. A robin and song sparrow yesterday. Go to N.Y. again to-day. Met at a lunch given by Dr Eggleston to Dr Billings at the Century Club Mr Stedman, Howells, Warner, Van Dyke, Matthews, Morse -- ten of us. Stedman is a lovable man not a great personality, he is like a good, frank, brave, bright boy. A fine talker who tells you you are a fool in a way that does not hurt. Something ofa bantam about him, but a very charming one. Eggleston with his iron gray mane makes a fine figure, a wonderful talker too. I am not quite at home with these men -- have no wit or repartee, or anecdotes. My mind is too serious and my life has been too secluded. I can not talk out of the air and make the sparks fly, as they can. Rains heavy all day and at night. The second great rain of the year -- everything flooded. Mch 1st Warm, thickly overcast with a little fine rain. Snow all gone; turbulent creeks and rivulets everywhere. 2. Colder with snow last night and this morning. Ice moving down this P.M. not much broke up yet.3 River all clear from island south. No ice has come back; the north wind seems to have swept it all south, or piled it up along the east shore. 5. Cold hard, brilliant, windy March days, flooded with the white strong light of early spring. How good it looks -- the naked earth, the strong new light! Mercury 18 this morning. 7. Warmer, with rain. It is now 9 A.M. so dark in my study I can hardly see to write. -- Does not the quality of a mans mind, his soul, run through his body also? Will a kind, gentle, loving person ever have any malignant growths, or will anydisease take a malignant form with him? Do not fevers etc. take a different course in headlong, obstinate, vindictive [crossed out: people] persons, from what they take in the opposite type? Some [crossed out: persons] people are like a clinched wrought iron nail, how they hold! Such men I fancy die hard, or with great suffering. In persons of my type or temper-ment, something breaks, and life ends quickly and easily, I do not expect to die of any long, baffling disease, but either quickly, or of some obscure, insidious disease. -- A boy 16 years old writing to me from Pa. praises my "free open style" -- well said I think. I can not stand anything cramped, intricate, blind in my ownwritings. I want my page to be like a room full of windows -- no uncertainty no looking twice to see what I mean. -- 10 March keeps pretty cold, ground bare, but snow threatened to-day. Heard the first blue bird this morning on my way to P.O. He was flying north high overhead. Sparrow and robin in song. 11 Big snow storm; set in about noon and waxed as the day waned. One of those storms that travels along in impulses, like the shaking of a great white curtain -- ribbed or fluted or folded. How the borean spectres stalked by me from the north. Storm centre came up the cost and drew recruits from the frozen north. 12. Good sleighing this morning 8 or 9 inches, mercury 20, river full of floating ice again. Squalls of light snow. 14 Cold, cold, and clear. Mercury 4 above, yesterday morning. 15. Snow set in at noon. 16. Still snowing, 5 or 6 inches -- nearly a foot on the ground. Rugged winter weather. Five blue birds on the 13th. A large flock of snow buntings in the vineyard below the study feeding on the seeds of the weeds that stand above the snow. How cheery they act, how plump and well fed they look; the snow and the cold seem congenial to them. I hear theirsoft, twittering notes and calls. I see the gleam of white feathers amid the brown. Occasionally one alights on a stretched wire. Presently [crossed out: ???] a larger and darker bird comes swiftly by the study flying low under the wires in the vineyard toward the buntings. It is a shrike and he thirsts for blood or brains. But the buntings are on the alert and are up in the air as one bird before he reaches them. He joins the flock and goes along with them for some distance, but makes no attempt to strike one as I can see, and presently leaves them and alights on the top of a maple tree. The birds do not seem to fear him and again sweep past the tree to where he sits, and then go their way.17. Snowed all day yesterday. Deepest fall of the season -- to the top of my rubber boots this morning -- 15 inches. Bright and mild to-day. Ice fast again from H. P. to Elbow. [crossed out: 21] 19. Powerful rain all day. The deep snow on the ground is like a saturated sponge Coming home from Slab-sides where I worked all day, I was nearly to my knees in slush. 21. Bright and sharp; mercury down to 12 this morning. Prof Triggs and I go over to Slab-sides to stay till Monday. 22. Warmer. A fine display of huge March snow flakes in the morning -- big as geese feathers. Clear and thawing inafternoon. Triggs and I have a feast of Whitman and a flow of soul. 23. Colder; leave Slab-sides in morning; very cold north wind. Begins snowing in afternoon from the north. March is turning out the worst month of the season. 24 Storm light, very cold this morning -- 4 above here; river full of stationary ice. A high hole this morning and robins in song. The sun brings the birds, no matter what the cold. Pine grosbeaks here still. Clifton Johnson comes at night and we go over to Slab-sides and pass the night. 25 Bright and cold. J and I have a good time at S.S.; what roaring fires; what heary meals, what free and copious talk. J takes some photos, and leaves at night. 26. Much warmer, 40 degrees, with light rain in P.M. Phoebe-bird to-day and meadow lark. Blue-birds as plentiful as former springs; robins very abundant. Nuthatches calling, sparrows singing. Sap running. Julian kills a black duck on the river. 27 Bright, cold, windy -- the beginning again of another series of days, another rotation of weather crops. -- Those very witty people -- always on the stretch to say something bright or funny, how they finally tire one. Wit is not the bread of life, but only the salt, or less even than that. 30. Typical march weather -- the sour and sulky side of spring, -- rain, fog, gloom, dripping trees, sposhy muddy roads, wet snow spotted fields, chill snow choked woods. Yet how the robins scream and call and laugh, how the sparrows sing. Glassy river with great languidly floating islands of water soaked ice, water-fowl working northward, beaded drops hanging on all the twigs and sprays; thin motionless fog everywhere, the world given up to dankness and chill and gloom. Cleared off in P.M. very lovely 31. Spring day at last; bright, still, brooding; a soft vapor fills the air, voices of the happy birds everywhere; froze but little last night. The train over the river marked only by its great windrow of steam just visible through the shining vapor. Oh, how the sparrows and phoebe birds touch my heart! And to-morrow will be April! My April! Little boat goes by on her first trip about 11 o'clock. April 1st Mild day. Julian goes on his first duck hunt. Kills 6. I start for home on the evening train. 2d Raining this morning; stayed with Abbey last night. Reach Roxbury at 11. Snowing. Boil sap with Ed in afternoon windy, chilly, snow squally. 3. My 59th birth day. Cold blowy, snowy all day. At evening so go over to Edens.Find them well, in the new house. Hiram there and looks well. 4. All day sit with Hiram and Eden and talk; blows and snows a gale all day. Mercury 22 at 9 a.m. No let-up at all. The little sparrows ruffled and blow[crossed out: ed]n about scratch industriously for the grass seed, lately sown about the yard. 5. Cold, but the storm has spent itself. H. and I walk over to Willies. Come back to Roxbury in P.M. warmer. 6. Sap runs a little in P.M. Snows again at night. 7. 3 or 4 inches of snow fall last night, and still snowing. Return home [crossed out: at] on morning train. Snow here also. 8. Bright to-day, but chilly. Snow all off in afternoon.-- I know living writers to-day, men of true genius, whose gravest danger is I think, a kind of inter-marriage of thoughts -- an intellectual breeding in and in process, they do not go enough to real things; they feed entirely on books. They love literature more than they love real things. What makes a thrill in them is what they read, not what they see or hear or smell. Not Nature, but art. This is the literary disease, of which we all have a touch. 9 A great, bright, sharp, still day; go with J after ducks on the river. J. kills 5. I lie in bottom of boat while he paddles up on to them behind his canvas "battery". A novelexperience. The poor ducks mistake us for a mass of floating ice. J. makes some long admirable shots. I row back, reach home at 5. I sleep well that night. 11 A real April day at last, partly overcast; wind southerly, mercury near temperate. Go to P. 12 Still better; a soft, brooding April day, really warm, above 60. No frost for two nights, little frogs on the 8. Lots of sylvaticas in the pools on the 10th Water still partly covered with ice, a regular chorus of peepers this P.M. Blue-birds all disappeared again. Two threatening rain storms have flashed in the pan.13. April still smiles. The air full of the sentiment of spring, the pathos of spring; gentle, soft, wind, whitish blue vapor in the air; the sunlight yellow; the river languidly sparkling; robins calling and screaming, phoebes calling, sparrows singing, bees humming, roads drying and the plow scents the furrow. Mercury 70. 14 How sweet the morning! The sky has melted and come down and lies over the fields an across the hills, a soft, blue-white veil. Air moist and fragrant. On my way to the P.O. I paused to hear the long drawn tr-r-r-r-r-r of the toad; the gurgle of the cow blackbird, the o-kas-lee of the starling, the whick, whick, whick of the high-hole, the note of the phoebe, etc. Roads dry, the grass juststarting. "The farms all busy with labor". Is one sad or glad such mornings? Both. A large troop of chippies too, let me not forget them, Flitting along from one point to another, each moving on his own hook, yet all in company like picnickers. 15 The days are sweeter and sweeter and warmer and warmer. What an appetite I have for them! I sit this morning with my door open and let the sounds and odors come it -- the drumming of the high-holes, the call of phoebe, the trill of the bush sparrows and song sparrows and all the other bird sounds. The river shimmers and glints through the haze. The morning is like a [???] nude woman veiled by her own hair. April is in heat; she is pairingwith the sun; she [crossed out: is in] yields herself to is embraces all day. I can see the union taking place even in my vineyard. First warbler this morning -- yellow rump I think, A slight, shuffling song. The plow lusts for the furrow such a day, and the furrow lusts for the seed. 17 The abnormal heat con-tinues, above 80 and reaching 90 in some places. 81 last night at 5 1/2 on the north end of my house. Arbutus in bloom and dicentra. Lilac and crab apples showing the leaf. A mist of green over the weeping willows. All vegetation is being wheeled into coming out, doubtless only to be frozen next week. A brief but heavy thunder shower with hail at 6 3/4. 18. Clear, hazy, hot as ever; the cold wave seems delayed. House wren here this morning, kinglet yesterday. The last of my fathers old neighbors. 'Riah Bartram burried yesterday, age 88. In a moment of mental aberration took his own life on Wednesday. He was our nearest neighbor on the west for 50 years; always worked more or less for father, helping finish haying butchering etc. How many pigs I have seen him "stick"! and how strange that at the last he should stick himself with his pocket-knife; a worthy, able man, much above the average in many ways, accumulated a large property for a farmer Never saw him ma[crossed out: n]d, or even irritated in my life; head like that of Secretary Chase, whom as I saw him in W. 30 years ago always reminded me of him. His mother owned our old farm early in the century; his father died there when 'Riah was a small boy. How pathetic to think of the old farmer going under the sod in the April days, [crossed out: when] the time when during his whole life he has been the most eager and busy with his work. Farewell, friend of my father and of my youth, and father of my old mates, Jim, and Eleanor, [crossed out: w] we may not meet again, but I shall never forget thee! 19 The abnormal heat continues. I have never before seen 7 continuous day in April so hot as the week just closed, from 80 to 90 Each dayHeat abnormal all over the country. Vegetation coming out on a jump. Shad trees in blow several days ago, arbutus out since middle of week. 20. A slight change to cooler last night; passed the night at "Slab-sides". 21 Start for Binghampton to lecture. The country green and brimming with the feeling of April. Reach B. at 3. P.M. The Knapps drive me about the beautiful city Lecture at 8 to a full hall of nice people. They seem delighted and I am told are sorry when I stop at 9.15. 22 Return via Albany; much enjoy the ride up the Susquhanna; pass throughtowns the names of which were famil[crossed out: l]iar to me in Boyhood -- Afton, Bainbridge, Unadillia, Oneonta -- The thought offFather and mother constantly with me. This was their route to Pa. long ago, when they drove there to visit their friends. I remember their going when I was 3 or 4 years old, and twice later on in the fifties. They passed through the towns above named and down to Binghamton. I strained my eyes to see the road they must have come along here then they passed, I said to myself. I see their dusty but well fed team, their plain "pleasure" waggon; their plainly clad and dusty figures, the farmer country look of it all -- father with his red hair and freckled handsMother with her brown hair and toil worn hands, silent save now and then some remark about the farms or teams they pass. They usually took 3 days to drive to Bradford Co. Pa. Once, in September 1854, Olly Ann and Walker went with them. On that trip mother saw the cars for the first time on the Erie road I suppose. Once they ran a great risk of being drowned in fording the Wyalusing Creek. A traveler happened along on horseback just in the nick of time and he told them to follow him, else father said, they would surely have got into deep water. The next night they came at dusk to a bridgeless creek, and concluded not to risk it, so turned back to the tavern where they were chargedone shilling each for supper and lodging! How all [crossed out: ???] these things and more came back to me as I sped along this lovely [crossed out: ???]valley. at Oneonta I had been just 40 years before about april 11 or 12, on my way to Cooperstown to school. I saw no feature I knew. At Unadilla lived a girl I corresponded with after I left school. Her name I have forgotten, but remember her dark hair and eyes. May be the conductor of the train was her son. Cherry trees in bloom in Albany; willows green; looks like first week of an early May. 23 Frost last night, but not severe. Woods full of young leaves. 25. Cool, the trees in Langdons woods again outlined or sketched with tender green-yellow foliage. Apple trees showing the pink. Season very early. Many hermit thrushes in the woods, silent. Vineyards all plowed. -- I do not suppose it is the music of the bird songs that so delights us. Many [crossed out: people] persons do not hear them at all, who would certainly hear pure musical sounds. Unless one is more or less a lover of nature, the bird songs do not give him much pleasure. Of themselves they are not much as music, but from association, and as the voice of nature they cometo mean very much. Repro-duce any of them by artificial means and apart from their association, they are tame and crude, as signs of joy and love in nature, as a voice of the fields and woods they come home to us. The drumming of the wood pecker, or of the ruffed grouse, is very pleasing to me tho', it have not the quality of music. So the call of wild geese, or the voice of any wild thing. Why is a wild flower as we meet it in the woods, more pleasing than a cultivated one? Because, first of the contrast with its surroundings and because it is spontaneous, and suggests a spirit in nature that is friendly and seems to takethought of itself. It suggests soul, delicacy, refinement, and quite apart from ourselves. April 30. April finishes in a most amiable mood -- a bright warm tranquil day. I spend it at Slab sides Ingersoll comes at 5 P.M. Wood thrush and king-bird and oriole and warbling vireo to-day. Foliage coming out rapidly. Warbler time at hand. May 1st Bright warm day. We spend it at S.S. Vaningen and daughter and Lown come up. A pleasant time. Oh, the charm the pathos of the days! Apple trees just blooming. 2d Overcast, cool. Spend it at S.S. Ingersoll leaves to-day.3 Still overcast, threatening rain, which is needed. No rain this month to speak of. About 15000 celery plants put out last week. 7. Weather keeps cool and bright and dry. Rain much needed. Entrancing day this, so brilliant, so fragrant. Orchards all in bloom, birds nearly all here. So fresh, green and tender looks the world. -- Am reading the life and letters of Holmes; not deeply absorbed. H. was brilliant discursive writer -- did not do well at a set theme -- must have room to kick up his heels, was not much if not kicking up his heels. Nothing profound or suggestive, or illuminative in him to me. His light is a flash light; very pleasing, entertaining but it really dispels no dark-ness. He seems always to write with his eye upon his reader and not upon the truth. A mild literary sensationalism was his bane. Think what the verdict of H must be [???] such a man as Whitman. 15. Hiram came with his bees and bee traps yesterday and a new chapter in my life begins. Van and Charley were all day moving his things from the car. He sleeps in my study and eats in the new shop. I prepare his food and wash his dishes. It is a great comfort to see him around; he is a bit of the old home and of father and mother and it does me good every hour to have him here Tried hard to rain to-day, butonly lays the dust. Very dry. No rain since April 21, and not much then. All things suffering badly. Grape arms from 15 to 20 inches long. 16. Very bright and lovely, [crossed out: but] and cooler. The drought takes another hitch. 18 Hiram and I move over to "Slabvsides" to be out of the reach of the domestic furies. 26. Our life at S.S. very enjoyable I feel like the toad when he escapes from under the harrow. I look about me and find life worth living after all. Hiram is great help just by his presence -- alleviates my chronic homesickness amazingly. Very dry till this morning Began raining in the nightand continued till 7 a.m, -- at times heavy with vague distant thunder from S.W. About an inch of water. The first rain since March. The dryest May I ever saw. Too late to save the hay crop, tho' it will greatly improve it. Celery begins to grow rapidly. 27 Clear, warm, and lovely; the perfection of a May day. Hiram goes over to fuss with his bees nearly every day. I [crossed out: write] work in the morning hours on my Whitman MS. I have taken but one meal at home since we came here. A song sparrow just sang in front of my door.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1913-1915 (November - June)
Text: [XLV] Diary from Nov 10, 1913 to July 1st, 1915 1913 10, 11, 12. At home writing a little. 13. To N.Y. to meet De Loach. Stay at P. 14. At P. 15. In N.Y. lunch with Pratt and De Loach. 16. At P. De Loach with us. Receive a call from Miss Scudder daughter of my old play fellow. Rube sudden in the early 50s. 17. To N.Y. to pose for Pietro, then to Floral Park. 18. Posing for Pietro, then to E. Orange. Fair weather and mild. 19. Back to N.Y. pose again; the best a success. 20. At P. Warm, even...
Show more[XLV] Diary from Nov 10, 1913 to July 1st, 1915 1913 10, 11, 12. At home writing a little. 13. To N.Y. to meet De Loach. Stay at P. 14. At P. 15. In N.Y. lunch with Pratt and De Loach. 16. At P. De Loach with us. Receive a call from Miss Scudder daughter of my old play fellow. Rube sudden in the early 50s. 17. To N.Y. to pose for Pietro, then to Floral Park. 18. Posing for Pietro, then to E. Orange. Fair weather and mild. 19. Back to N.Y. pose again; the best a success. 20. At P. Warm, even hot. 21. C.B. come to town to see the best. Mr. Evans also; both like it. Home in p.m. 22. Fine warm day. 23. We drive to Olive in our car, Julian and Mrs. B. and I. In the Tongore cemetery, see the graves of some of my pupils of 59 years ago and the graves of their parents. Cloudy mild day. Olive soon to be under water, a sad but interesting day. 24. Cool cloudy. 25. Writing in study. 26. Cool, we go to Hobart in p.m. mild and chill at H. Eden and Mag well. 27. Thanksgiving dinner at E's. Olly and Ort there and Charly Grant and Willie and Jennie, snow on the mountains. Froze hard last night. 28. Cloudy, with fine pouring snow. Return on morning train. Stop at R. till p.m. 29. Rain last night, cloudy and chilly today. Write in study. 30. Chilly, cloudy, misty. Feel well these days, in wood for work. Dec 1. Dark, damp, chilly day, C.B. comes at 2 p.m. 2. Fog till 10 O'clock. Trees drip as in a shower. Fine and nearly clear in p.m. mild like Oct. Julian, Chant and I drive to Highland at 3. C.B. leaves on noon train - thinks she will take the house. 3. Bright lovely day. Drive to Yama farms with Julian and his friends in Petersons big car. 1 3/4 hours each way, very brilliant in p.m. and colder. Mr. Seaman in N.Y. visited Jenny brook and Yama farms Inn, a day I think that prolongs life. 4. Fine day, Chant at work in the house. 5. Lovely day, no freezing last night. 6. Clear crisp day, no freezing last night, Mrs. B. leaves today for P. and in p.m. for N.Y. Lovely to be here now. 7. At Pelham, C.B. well. Rain today. 8. At Pelham, the Fords come, windy and cold. 9. In N.Y. with Fords. To Johnson at night. 10. Ford leave today. In p.m. with Mr. Pratt I visit a large Eastside school - hundreds of Jewish Children, bright and eager, know my books. 11. Clear cold; down to 20, at P. in p.m. 12. In p.m. return to Poughkeepsie to Mrs. B. a little warm. 13. Clear, calm, Indian summer like day; river like glass, warmer, men at work on new cistern e.t.c. a nearly full moon at night. 14. Lovely day. Dandelions blooming and maturing their seeds. 17. Still clear and fine like wild Nov, days. Freezes a little at night, much haze in the air. Blue birds here and happy, so am I. 18, 19. Fine mild days, more progressing with the new cistern and pipe and tile laying. Go to Saugerties on 19, farmers plowing. 20. Mild day, drive to P. with J. and his family in Peterson's car. I stay with Mrs. B, she is ill with neuralgia in neck and head - has had a hard time. 21. Sunday, cloudy and chilly. Mrs. B. better. Return to W.P. in p.m. 22. Wonderful weather continues [but] clearing and colder. Bright Nov day. 23. Cloudy, very dark, wind lasts. Rain sets in at 3, continues part of the night with a streak of snow. Our outside work is done. 24. Clearing, still mild, a little frost last night, looks like early Nov. 27. In P. most of the time with Mrs. B. She is gaining, pretty cold, down to 4. 1914 Jany 1st. Cold, at P. Go to W.P. and to Julians in p.m. 3. To N.Y. and to Pelham. C.B. looks well, rain and wind and sleet at night. 4. Clearing, windy and colder. 5. In N.Y. pose for Pietro and see Mrs. Gilder. 6. Home this a.m. cold, a little snow, feel well - [gained] weight 150. 7. At P. Mrs. B. nearly well. Chant progressing with house. 8. Mild the past 3 days. Go to W.P. and to Julian's to dinner. J. drives me to P. in p.m. 9. Mild; off for W. at 8.40 See Mr. and Mrs. Ford in N.Y. for a few moments. Reach W. at 6. Go to the Hummers [on] 812 E. Capitol St. 10. Pretty cold. 11. Go up to the camp of some normal teachers near Sycamore Island. Take lunch with them, Mr. - brings in a handful of hepaticas. At night Mr. Humm aged 86 is run over by an ambulance and so injured that he dies Tuesday night - a fine old fellow in Picketts. Change at Gettysburg. 12. Move to Gerald St. in Meridian hill - a room with Mrs. Duncan near 14th St. Stay here till the 30; fine weather most of the time, see my old friends, drive about W. and out into Md. and Va. in a car Mr. Ford provides, a very pleasant 3 weeks. Work at Cosmos Club every morning. Dine with Peck and Mr. Johns Aaron but little changed Meet Prst Wilson, hear him read a message to congress a fine impression of him; believe he will make a record. Mrs. B. keeps pretty well, dine out 9 days in succession. Jany 30. Start for Atlantic at 8.50. Reach there at 6 on 31. 31. Start for Experiment at 8. reach there at 9.30 De Louch glad to see us. Feb 12. Here with the De Loaches. Fine sunny April like weather most of the time. Our cold snap on [the] Saturday and Sunday last - Lucy Stanton and Miss Brown come down from Athens. Soft maples in bloom and a hive with honey bees. Drive every p.m. with car Mr. Ford has provided. Drive to Barnsville today, 20 miles. On the 10th went to Atlanta and was entertained at lunch by the Burroughs Club. Drove out to the home of Joel Chandler, Harris, keep well and work each morning, weigh 154 too much. 24. Fine days here with De L. Write mornings and walk and drive in p.m. Both keep well. Very cold in the North with 2 feet of snow. At Hobat 30 below. Leave tonight for Fla. 25. Here at Ft. Myers with the Edisons and the Fords, Reached here on the 23d mid summer weather - a real tropical scene - reminds me of Jamaica and Honolulu. I can eat three oranges and grape fruit, a coconut tree loaded with fruit out of my window, pretty nearly an earthly paradise here, looks over the mountains to lift one up toward heaven. Health good mind active, Mrs. B. at Experiment. night cool, days 72 Mch 10. Been here since 22d of Feb. Weather very cool - two or three time down to 34, with light frost. Bright days most of the time. Write mornings, fish, drive, walk in p.m. Edison and Ford good playfellows. E sleeps, 10 or 12 hours in the 24, says he can store up enough sleep to last him 2 years, E. is a great mind and great philosopher. - Loves jokes and good stories, a remarkable man, Mr. Ford a lovable man, a great machinist but not the philosopher E. is. A very modest man - shrinks from any publicity or from these who would make a fuss over him no vanity or conceit at all. He is not puffed up, thinkable no will, has great good will for all, a real nature and bird lover and lover of his kind. Start at 3.40 for Ga. the Fords and I. 11. At Jacksonville this morning; bright and warm. Part with the Fords; they on to N.Y. I to Griffin on Experiment. Reach E. at 5.30, raining. 12. Raining, much cooler, Mrs. B. well. 28. The March days have passed pleasantly and profitably here with the De Loach. I write every morning, drive or walk every p.m. Keep extra well, cool weather with frost occasionally but today is like May. Fruit trees blooming, peas up 6 inches, went to Tallulah Falls on 23d. I drive De Loaches car every p.m. and am getting master of it. It makes me tremble only a little now when I back it out and drive it in. De L. and I sit in the study at night and read and discuss scientific matters. He often gives me good hints but quite unconsciously, my mind these days is like a trout looking for flies. On the 31st we plan to leave for home. 31. Rain last night and cloudy this morning. We leave Experiment at 9.20 for Atlanta. Take train there at 1.30 for N.Y. Rain and fog all the way, much cooler in Va. April 1st. Reach N.Y, all right at 2 p.m. Wet and chilly, Mr. Pratt meets us and takes us to Grand Central station. Mrs. B. goes to Poughkeepsie at 3.30 p.m. I stay in N.Y. and Pelham. April 2d. Clearing, colder, C.B. well but then, call an Alden today and collect $400 of Harpers - 2 articles. Alden a picturesque figure and suggestive talker. 3d. My 77th birthday, clear and cold. C.B. and I take lunch with the Pratts in N.Y. a happy day, I am well and weigh 155. Have finished 5 or 6 essays since last birth day. 4. Clear and cold. Return to P. today. Mr. B well; to West Park in p.m. Julian and family well, snow gone except in woods, Feb and March, very hard months here, deep snow and extreme cold. 5. Cloudy with snow flakes in the air, stay with Julian. 6. Clear, cold, froze hard, last night. In my study this morning at work, Hud and Green sawing wood, Ed. in bad way, near his end, poor boy. 10. Hepaticas today, from Myra C. - found under the hill. Cool a frost at night. 11. Sixty years ago today, began my first school in Tongore. Bright mild day. Go to P. in p.m. and stay with Mrs. B. Light rain at night. 12. Bright windy day, blows the smoke down the chimney and suffer the river so as to reveal its soily water agitation always, vanishes the effect of sky from the river and slows its muddy character if it is such, as anger and excitement bring out a man's true character. Dine at Julian's and drive my car down here. 13. Clear and cold; three of four degrees below freezing last night. River sparkles very prettily this morning, still alone here and sleeping in my study. Ed sinking and we are powerless to help him. 14. Clear, cold, down to 26 this morning. Warn during the day and really spring like. Start the hot air engine today pumping water up the hill. 15. Cloudy, colder again, from North. Threatens rain. Rain and p.m. at night. 16. Cold rain and snow from the North - snow all day but most of it melts. 17. Chilly, a little snow on ground, Wife and I go to Pelham in p.m. C.B. well, never expect to see Ed alive again. 18. Warm bright day. In N.Y. lunch with Ida Tarbell at Arts Club on Gramercy Park. Miss Tarbell, a very superior woman. Dinner at night with C.B. and her friends to celebrate the coming out of her book on J.B. Dinner at The Alps on 6th Ave. 10 present, Mr. and Mrs. Ford, Mr. and Mrs. Pratt, Mr. and Mrs. Dr Johnson, Dr. Baker of Volico, my wife and I and C.B. a very pleasant 2 hours. Mr. Ford sends us back to Pelham in a big Packard car. 19. Hot lovely day; above 80 at W.P. We come back to P. at night. Virginia Scripps of La Jolla Cal. calls in p.m. 20. I come up to W.P. in morning. Raining. Ed. died on Sunday p.m. at 3. 21. Bright day, Mrs. B. come home from P. Ed's funeral day. Poor boy, I shall miss him greatly. For 15 years he had lived and worked here. He was not wise but he was my brothers son. He had many excellent traits. He was proud and carried himself well. He wrote a nice hand but his spelling and his grammar were bad. I doubt if he ever read a line in any of my books. But I loved him all the same. His body rest in a beautiful place, in sight of the Catskills out of which he came. His two children rest beside him. As I stood there that bright afternoon and saw his coffin lowered into the fine soft soil I asked myself how many centuries or thousands of centuries it will be before that sandy ridge will disappear, all eroded away by the elements and no trace of human bodies or head stones remaining? In time geologic time, it must inevitably come. 22. Fine day, Julian and his family and I drive to Kingston in p.m. 23. Lovely day but sharp. Frost last night. In p.m. I drive car to Newburgh, Chant and Eliza with me, a fine drive through the greening land. I enjoy it much, visit Mr. Vanamee; find him in bed, but looking well and talking well; heart trouble, near his end he thinks, an old and valued friend of mine, a great lover of books; a fine writer but a luxurious liver old friend of C.B. 24. Clear and sharp; frost last night. But storm brewing. Never saw so many snow birds as this spring; swarm of them everywhere and many robin, like old times, no plowing yet. 25. Cloudy, cold rain sets in in p.m. 50 Vassar girls at S.S. Go to Falls in slow rain. 26. Heavy rain all night, continuing this a.m. sets up in p.m. Walk up to Julian's. 27. Clearing, cold, more juncos this spring than I ever saw before and many more robins than last spring. 28. Cloudy and warm. Drive to Pot E. in p.m. with Julian and family. 29. Rainy, colder, Charley Benton and family call in p.m. Very glad to see him. Looks the old man but the same Charley only dulled a little, Myrons brother. 30. Rain and mist and chill continues the 4th and 5th day. Wood thrush yesterday morning. Bobolink and house wren this morning. Swarm of juncos and sparrows everywhere. May 1st. Clear, cold, frost last night. 2. Clear, cold with frost. Birds very numerous. The musical festival of the Goldfinches began a week or two ago, in the trees in the corner of the wall near the station and still continues, also purple finches; the latter are feeding on the seeds in the sycamore balls - a hard feat for them [owney] to the long string by which the ball is held. - A downy wood pecker drumming morning after morning on the stub of a dry limb of the big maple up by the side of the road, one morning I saw the female come to the tree and busy herself searching up and around a large limb some distance from the drummer. He was evidently instantly aware of his presence. He drummed rapidly twice, then after a moments pause, dropped down a few feet and clung silent and motionless to the stub. The female worked nearer and nearer but the male made no sign. Finally she alighted on the branch upon which he was perched and busied herself on the opposite side of it, still he made no sign. After a few moment, he flew swiftly away and disappeared in some trees nearby. After about a minute the female disappeared in the same direction. She seemed more ardent than he did. May be he was not drumming for her; he had drummed up an unwelcome female and would have more of her. 3. Warm, day of great beauty and charm, a high hole day, also a white throat day. How their calls and songs bring back the past. Drive to Lloyd and Centreville and Highland with Julian in p.m. Over 50 normal School girls on Saturday. 4. Partly cloudy, but mild and inviting. Bless the high holes that call from below the hill. - the identical calls I heard in my boyhood come up from the old meadow. Working each day on my Life. MS. Plowed garden this morning. 5. Fine May day. 6. Steady rain all day, mild. Dizziness continues. Two weeks now. 7. Clearing, Clara Reed and Miss Clark at S.S. 8. Cloudy plant more garden. Wm. Vanamee died last night, an old friend of 40 years a man of much talent and many admirable traits. Books his dissipature. His library in Middletown was a resort of mine for many years. Peace to his ashes. 9. Foggy, stagnant air, cherry trees in full bloom, maple leaves 1/3 out, mild. Miss Sanderson comes to paint S.S. 10. To Newbury to Mr. Vanamee's funeral, a long day, drive down in my car. Julian and Hud with me. C.B. there very tearful. She comes back with us to look house over. 12. Miss S. goes today. 13. Rain last night, Dark and chilly today. Mr. Ford comes at noon. 14. Fine day. Mr. F and I stay at S.S. 15. Lovely day; walk to old mill. In p.m. Start for Yama Farms in car. Reach there at 5. 16. At Yama Farm; a lovely day. Camp fire at night. 17. Warm lovely day. 18. Warm lovely day. Drive back in morning, home at 11. Mr. Ford leaves on 2 p.m. train, a man I love. 19. Clear warm day, perfect. 20. Clear warm, a red dry sun. 21. Drive to Highland to meet Dr. Barren and the children, a great event. 22 and 23. Helping Dr. B. arrange her house. 24. Drive to S/S in p.m. a fine day. 25. To Roxbury this morning. warm, reach home at 11. Orchards piled with bloom. County very fresh, bobolinks in meadow. 26. Very hot 84 degrees. Work in garden, shoot woodchucks and dream the old dreams. 27. Violent thunder shower in the night - barn struck in West settlement, ash tree in sap bush. I sleep on the porch, a very hot day - from 88 to 90. 28. A little cooler. Return home today no rain here, getting dry. 29 Fine day, cooler, May at its best. 30. Hot day, partly cloudy, lots of company at S.S. and Riverby. C.B. and the children very happy in their new home. 31 Clear dry, cool, a day of wondrous brilliancy, my heart is light. Dizziness slowly leaving me. June 1st. Peterson drives Julian and I to Roofs in Frest Valley. Leave here at 5 a.m. reach there at 8 1/2, a long drive through the fresh cool June morning, an ideal trout day, warm and wind S.W. I fish from 9 to 12 and take 25 fine trout. Julian and P. do as well, a happy day in the lucid stream and with Mr. Roof and Miss Hovey, J. and P. leave at 5. 2d. Cooler; the trout do not rise today, but ?I enjoy the wondrous stream about as much. In the evening sit by the open fire and have much talk with Miss H. a fine Whitmanesque young woman. 3. Warmer, hazy. Drive to Yama Farm Inn. Lunch there and Mr. R. and Miss H. return. Julian meets me at Charn Ferry in R. at 6. 4. Delicious rain all the forenoon, much needed, warm. Mr. Pratt come at 2 p.m. 5. Clear, cooler, moving picture man from Edisons here, to take pictures for Mr. Pratt. They put me through my paces. Mr. Knox Taylor and Mr. cloud come. 6. Warmer, fine day, lots of company at S.S. and here. Mr. Pratt leaves at 5 p.m. 7. Soft warm Sunday. Feel pretty well. S. berries ripening. Drive over to Rifton in p.m. 8. Hot, slow shower in morning. In p.m. drive to P. very warm, muddy and muggy, shower at 3. 9. Clearing and cooler. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Fine June days. Riverby very attractive. 19. Join Mr. and Mrs. Ford at Albany on their way to Detroit from the Edison wedding. 20. In D. cool, clear, go to the Sugarcamp and get our dinner. Ford, Roy and I, moving picture man in p.m. 21. At the Fort bungalow; raining and warm. We pull wild S. berries and have S. Shortcake. 22. Still showery and warm. Back to D. in p.m. 23. Hot, sail on lake St. Clair in p.m. 24. Hot, more movng pictures. Leave in p.m. on boat for Buffalo. 25. Reach B. on time, a fine sail, my second sail on Lake Erie. First sail in Sept 1856 from B. to D. on my way to Ille. 26. At Mr. Hoots last night on the lake shore, - meet 50 or 60 members of the Burroughs Club e.t.c. a drive through the park, in morning with Supt. In p.m. a lunch at Mr. Foreman's under a tree, delightful day. 27. Lovely day, start for home at 9 a.m. Reach Rowland at 5, Julian meets me with car, all well, C.B. all right. 28, 29, 30. Fine June days. Gather Cherries e.t.c. Charley Benton comes on 30th. July 1st. Drive across country, Mrs. B, C.B. and C.B. and me to Myron Bentons old farm, a pleasant day with a background of precious memories. Look on Myrons house and farm again after an elapse of 35 years. - Rain on the return trip. 2d. Cool with light showers, Charley leaves in p.m. 3. Cool, light shower, Harriet and Eleanor leave for home today, shall miss them greatly. Sole of cherries. 4. Cool, clear, air full of bird voices. 5th. Drive to H. to Mrs. Pierce in p.m. humming birds nest and pewees nest, cool, shower sets in on our way home; rains hard an hour or more. 6. Cool, cloudy, pick cherries. 7. Cloudy and showery, pick cherries upper cistern full. 8. Clearing and warmer. 9, 10, 11. Warm humid days. Pick cherries, write a little read a little. On the 11th a shower from N.E. a furious electric storm after dark only moderate rain fall. An enormous charge of electricity came up out of the earth under the maple at the foot of the hill scattering the soil, the roots and bushes and then making a wide ragged trench down the hill in the ground for 7 or 8 ft when it dived beneath the wagon track, bursting out here and there on the surface and escaping out of the bank made by the plough at the top of the vineyard. Here it seems to have left to the wire to which the vines are tied running along it Northward, scorching the leaves here and there and completely demolishing a wren and blue bird box on the post by the path down the hill. It seems to have struck the box furiously going a foot or more out of its way to do so. What drew it to the box? The nail, probably. It came out from under the roots of the tree like an explosion and then it rooted around like a pig. Why did it go down the hill, when one would have expected it it go upward? It acted like some blind crazy material body, a cannon shot would have made a smoother trench. Its zig zag corner is seen in the ground. It seems to have annihilated the turf. It threw out of the trench, not a vestige of it anywhere. What a blaze of fire there must have been around that tree and ground and grape wire at that instant. The explosion was terrific and made me jump from my bed. But it seemed above us and not below us. Is it because of the speed of the lightening that it cannot go straight. Why this reluctance? this strained character? The stress of the other? a sheaf of electrons rooting like a pig. From the tree to the edge of the vineyard where the bolt left the ground is about 20 ft about half this distance it traveled above ground and half below a non-material thing leaving a path like that of a plow shear. 12. Hot, cloudy, stagnant day. Mrs. Dr. More here. Feel very limp and lazy as of the electric storm had used up all my electricity. 13. Still hot and nerveless; cloud and sun, cherries just gone. - The blueness of the waters of the great lakes is remarkable; So unlike river water it the colorless water of our mountain lakes. The vast expanse of the blue sky above them, seems to have colored them; the heavenly blue is contagious and effects the water. There is a hint of the sea in the look of the great lakes. In the smallest of them I have seen St. Clair than as a strange far off elemental look. Superior is the father of it. you feel that that water has been somewhere thus had unusual experiences. July 18,1914, 8 a.m., Roxbury Here I am again at my barn door outlook, clear and fresh after the brisk shower of yesterday p.m. The old familiar scenes and sounds. I hear two scarlet tanagers singing up in the woods, their strong rather harsh notes riding above the continuous warble of the red eyed vireo. The occasional "Per chick on pee" of the gold finch. The tall Timothy in the meadow above me slowly stirs in the gentle breeze; here and there the breeze touches it and gently agitates it, there are tille centres of rippling activity. No swallows skimming over it get as last summer and all is silent in the loft of the old barn, a blue bird warbles in the orchard. Crows call in the distance. The sky is that clear intense blue arching the vault above the hills, that I have known from my youth. Only once in long years is the country so green and fresh as at present, an abundance of rain since spring now and then the jiggling song of the indigo bird in the woods above me. 16 Julian drives Dr. B. and me to Roxbury, reach there at 4 p.m. a pleasant trip. Julian returns next day. 18. All of August spent at Woodchuck Lodge, much rain; country very green. Carry Bexter came about the 25th. Dessie helps us for 10 days. Mrs. B. came last of July. Not as well as I was last year, a good deal of dizziness. Write a little, but not with much zest. The terrible war in Europe oppresses me. That war drunk Kaiser my special detestation. He will bring ruin upon his country and great injury to the whole world. But if the militarism of which he is the embodiment is crushed and cast out by the war, there will be great gain. Drove over to Eden's twice; E. is pale and rather feeble but works some each day. Finish a paper on Life and mind and send it to N.A. Review, Build, reservoirs above the house the later part of Aug; holds 3000 galls. Mr. Childs come and stays over night, glad to have him. Many callers from the village and other places - one party in auto from Ogle Co. Ills. Dr. Clump come and takes Dr. B. and me to his place on Prime hill, an enjoyable trip. Begin the wall below the barn for the new lot, I take a hand in helping to pry up the rocks. Enjoy doing what my father and brothers wanted to do - bring back the old days. Sept came in rather warm and wet. No use for the reservoirs this year. On Aug 30, came De Loach, very glad to have him; like him more and more, - a genuine man and brother. Sept 6. De Loach still here and the days pass pleasantly. He helps pry up the rocks. On the 2d we drove to Harpersfield where I wanted to go to school in 1853, but did not get there, a forlom little village - very sad for me to look upon, especially in the light if my youthful enthusiasm and the rosy lives in which I had painted it. Drive to Hobart in p.m. to see Eden, a bright lovely day. Mr. Pratt came last night, always glad to have him come. Miss Baxter left on the 2d. I walk up in the night and groan in spirit over the carnage in Europe. If that military bully the Kaiser, was only compelled to go in the fore front of the fight! But what can save him as long and England and France are supreme on the seas, I cannot see. In p.m. drive over to old school house and then to the falls. 7. A mild, partly cloudy windy day from S.W. Feel very well today, 10 a.m. De Loach and Pratt have just gone down for the mail in the car. I pray for good news that is for bad news for the Germans. 8. Pratt left this morning on early train. De Loach and I go to Stamford in car to Dr. Lambert. In p.m. I drive down to see Eden, find him digging his potatoes and piling up the tops of weeds, in nest piles on the margin leaving the ground very clean. He is very pale but seems in pretty good heart. 9. Miss Clark, the Dr's patient came last night. De loach leaves this morning. I shall miss him greatly - a very lovable man a bright cold day, near a frost last night. 10. Bright, cold, Mrs. B leaves for home today, sorry to see her go. War news pretty good. 11. Still clear and cold on the verge of a frost. 12. Windy, clear, cold N.E. Write letter to Tinn and in p.m. work at the stone. Feel pretty well. 13. Sunday, clear cold, the 6th cold day this week, near s frost every night; getting dry, N.A. Recien takes my paper on "Life and mind" Killed a yellow ort this morning with my rifle, prowling about for birds and my chipmunks Read little but news papers these days - hungry for war news and for the defeat of the Kaisers army. 16. Days of wonderful brilliancy nearly a week of them. Very cool at night but getting warmer. Drove to Makers. Hollow on Monday the 14th. Work a part of each day with the men digging stone and rocks, Drive down for the papers each morning and rejoice that the tide of war seems turned against the German Heros, not a cloud in the sky yesterday or today. No frost here yet. 18. The wonderful Sept days continues, not a cloud, no wind, a valley of fog in the morning a hot mild day. Cool nights. Farmer thrashing their buck wheat and cutting their corn. We are hauling rocks and stones and building stone wall. Fighting in Europe enormous armies, but apparently small loss of life in proportion to numbers engaged. Advantage with Russia in East nearly drawn battle, in West, a million men in battle in France apparently lose less men than armies of 10,000 each lost in our civil war. 20. The lovely days continue. Warm getting dry. Reading "Pan Germanism" and much impressed by it. I did not dream of such. schemings, such jealousies, such rivalries and animosities among the nations of my own day. Civilization seems to have done nothing toward eradicating greed and and selfishness among the races. For nations to live together as brothers and neighbors seems out of the question. Work a few hours each day with the man prying rocks and stones; it does me good, I am all the time bruising the head of German militarism. 22. Hot clear dry weather continues - above 90 in some places, night cool, well and contented these days. Write in morning, work in stone in p.m. Hot as July. 23. Very hot 90 or over, dry. Drive out in p.m. a thunder shower at night goes South of us. 24. Cooler, cloudy, spits of rain, Eden ill, must go over there today. Go to Eden's for dinner. Find him up and around, but pale and out of serts, coughs hard at times. Eats his dinner with apparent relish. Dr. and Miss C. go with me and dine at the hotel. Go back home at 6. 25. Slow rain all night, much needed, cool. 26. Bright sharp day, Miss Harland comes in a.m. 27. Cloudy and windy with spirts of rain. Clearing in p.m. 28. Monday, over first frost last night, not heavy, Miss H. goes today. 29. Clear, sharp, a killing frost last night. Eden is worse and I must go over to see him today. 30. Found Eden better, will soon be up again I think, stayed there last night. Bright sharp day. Oct 1. Clear, cool, lovely day. Work in field with men. 2. Cloudless day, Fog in the valley. write in morning and work in field in p.m. Drive down at 4 for Miss Bertrand. 3. Another matchless day, still clear and warm; the perfection of Oct days. Dr. Eliots letter in yesterdays 'Times on the war,' excellent, my own views, a broad just and statesman like view. Julian and his family come at 5 p.m. 4. Sunday, very happy to have J. and the children here, a glorious day. We dine on roast duck. Before dinner Julian and Ursa and Betty and I walk over the new field. John up to all sorts of mischief, they leave at 1 1/2 p.m. Down the road they go waving their adieus, a pathetic sight to me. How quickly they vanish on the turn by Caswells. 5. A glorious day - all color and sunshine. Warm and still a soft haze in the air I work a while with the man in p.m. Days so beautiful that they effect one like music, at 4 p.m. a Mr. W.H. Taylor from Berkley Cal. calls. Like him much - a man after my own heart, a traveler an observer, a thinker, a naturalist, a reader of books and a very human genuine man. I could become greatly attached to him. Hope I shall see him again. Talks with his hands and arms and eyebrows as much as with his tongue and talks well. 6. Another day of wondrous beauty. Write a litlle and work with the man. 7. A high fog blots out the sky and sun all day. Chilly. 8. Still the high fog. Miss Bertrand leaves today. - How much labor the old ice sheet has caused mankind. - Covering the soil and packing into it rocks and stones over all parts of a large section of the globe. For many weeks I have had men and teams battling with these obstructions in a field on the old farm. In many places the soil is packed with them; there are medial moraine nearly all over the field, many of the rocks and larger stones that we move are rounded and rubbed and grooved on the bottom as if they had been sliding down hill. The ice sheet nearly or quite doubled the labor of the first settlers in this part of the country and added much to the labor of their descendants without it. New England and New York land would have been as easy to clean up and made tillable as land in Ga and Tenn. Drive to So. Gilboa to dinner with the Laws, a clear lovely afternoon. Walk up to the sap bush where home made sugar. Drive to Eden's at 3. Find him sitting up and feeling much better he said than last week. But he is still very pale and his feet swell - a bad symptom. We spend an hour there (Hatter with us) then drive home. 9. Another fine day. Work all morning with the men; hot, Mr. and Mrs. Chambers from Kansas city come to dinner. Great admirer of my books. We all like them, they followed us up yesterday to S. Gilboa, just to see and speak to me. How many friend my books have made for me! 10. Fog clouds from S.W. may develop rain before night. Rain much needed everywhere. Very dry. - Anything we can write or say without emotion is not poetry whatever else it may be. Still warm. 11. Warm fine day. Walk down for Sunday paper. 12. Cool partly cloudy. Drive to Hubble to get car fixed. 13. Cool. To Margaretsville to get car fixed. 14. Fine cool day, Fred leaves today. Shall miss him much. 15. Cloudy, threatens rain, Frank Talbot and wife of Gloversville come at night. Glad to have them under my roof. 16. Raining slowly; rained nearly all day. Talbots leave at 10 a.m. train. 17. Warm, clearing. Rain over; not half enough. Drive to the village. Clear and fine in p.m. 18. Clear, calm lovely morning. Blue bird voice fill the air. Crows cawing in all directions. Preparing to leave here tomorrow. 19. Rain all night and mist and rain all day, no West Park today. 20. Clears off, a lovely warm day start for home at 9 1/2, a fine run to Kingston. Dine there at 1 1/2. Home at 3 1/2 all well. 21. Fine day, glad to be here. 22. Lovely day and warm. Start for Gloversville at 2:10. Reach G. at 7 p.m. 23. Cool and clear, drive with Mr. and Mrs. Talbot and Mr. Parsons to Lake Pleasant at speculator. See uncle David again, dine there, a cold windy drive. Back home at G. at 7 p.m. 24. Cloudy, some signs of a cold coming on, loof about town with Talbot. 25. Bright cold day a bad night from soar throat and cold in my head. Too much wind on Friday, on a drive of 120 miles. Talked last night before the Burroughs Club at the library. Start for home at 11 1/2. Reach home at 5 p.m. all well. 26. Cold better, mild. Drive to Highland in p.m. 27. Clearing, much colder and windy. 29, 30. Fine days. 31. Fine day and warm. Nov 1st. Lovely warm day, Mrs. V. and her friends from N. 2. Lovely day, like Sept, cloud and sun. 3. Ideal election day. Bright cool and dry. The progressives have had all the evenings they will ever have. 4. Mild, partly cloudy; good day to work. 5, 6. Fine days. 7. Fine day like Sept. Vassar teachers at S.S. 8. Rain a little this morning, not very well, cloudy in p.m. 9. Rained last night, colder. Mr. Childs comes at 2 p.m. 10. Clear, colder down to 24, feel better. 13. Mild, windy. Drive to Napanoch with C.B. and Miss Clark. 14. At Yama Farms Inn. Rain, meet Admiral Goodrich, a very attractive man. 15. Fine sharp day. Drive to Jenny Brook, walk back through the silent sweet woods, C.B. I and others. 16. Mild day, return home. reach here at 3. 18. To N.Y. to attend Academy meetings. Pose for Rowland. 19. At Academy meeting in Acolian Hall. Rain. 20. Pose for R. skip the A. meeting. Cold. 21. Very sharp. Return home in p.m. Winter at W.P 6 inches of snow on Thursday, cold. 22. Clear and cold, down to 24. 23. Clear, milder a winter landscape. 24. Bright sharp winter like days. 25. Milder, start for Hobart today, wife and I reach there at 5.45. Eden and Mag well as usual, Eden much better that when I last saw him in Oct; face quite full though pale. Eats and sleeps well and does a few chores. 26. Thanksgiving day, mild, partly cloudy, snow melting fast from S. wind. Ort and Olly and Dessy come on morning train and Charley Grant. Have a pleasant dinner. Willy and Jenny there. Snow nearly gone by night 27. Go over to Roxbury this morning. John and I fix up on business matters, colder. Clearing in p.m. I go over to Woodchuck Lodge and build fire. I walk around the new field spend night at W.L. cold, freezing, clear moonlight Do not keep quite warm. Pretty lovely. 28. Back home today. Milder clear. 29. Mild day, cloudy, go to P. 30. Mild and very foggy, C.B. at P.B. Dec 1st. Mild, foggy in morning. 2. Mild tranquil day, above 50 degrees, foggy in morning, warm as early Oct. 3. Foggy morning and warm. The one overshadowing and all absorbing event of this fall. The European war finds hardly an echo in this record. It is too tremendous. It eccupies more than half my thoughts. I can read little else than the newspapers. I even read the yellow journals, lest some scrap of news escape me. But the news I most want - the enter defeat of the Kaisers armies. I do not yet find. The struggle in Poland now seems to be the crucial battle. Dec 5. Mild day, start for Yama Farms Inn at 10.25. Lunch in K. reach Napanoch at 3. Get well fixed at the Inn. 6. Cloudy, sharp N.E. wind, establish myself at the Hut; delightful. Walk in p.m. with C.B. and others to Honk Falls. 7. Raining a little from N.E. Mercury 33. 16. Pleasant winter days at the Inn. I have my comfort with me. Write mornings and saw wood or walk in p.m. Gaining in wright fasts. 17. Off for West Park today. Reach there at noon. Stay with Julian over night, off for N.Y. in morning. Pose for Rowland; then to Pratts. 18. Cold, all day with Pratt and De Loach. To the auto Cat meeting at night in Brooklyn. Poor puss fares poorly. Stay with Pratt. 19. De Loach leaves this morning. Off for Napanoch at 12.15. 20. Clear cold day. 21. Snow 4 inches ending in rain. In p.m. ride down hill with C.B. and the Wattsons. 22. Cold and clear; a sleigh ride to Ellenville in p.m. 23. Cold; down to 8. Work in the Hut revising the chapters of "The Breath of Life" a letter from a German prof at Wurzburg protesting against my 'Tribune letter,' not a strong reply. Got a cold in my nose and throat facing the cold wind yesterday. 24. Cold, a light snow - under the weather from a slight cold, a light fever. Took a sweat. 25. Cold and cloudy, much better, news comes of John Muirs death - an event I have been expecting and dreading for more than a year, a unique character - greater as a talker than as writer - loved personal combat and shone in it. He hated writing and composed with difficulty, though his books have charm of style, but his talk came easily and showed him at his best. I shall greatly miss him though I saw him so rarely. 20. Mercury has been down to 17, good sleighing. 27, 28, 29. Cold and fair most of the time. Write a little each fore noon. Gained 7 lbs since the 5th. 30. Warm, rain all fore noon. Mr. Childs came yesterday. 31. Clearing and cold. 1915 Jany 1st. Cold about 7 or 8, clear. A big crowd from N.Y. 12. Fine sharp winter weather most of the time this month - down to 17 and near zero several days. One big rain and break up of the ice in the stream over a week ago; warm and rain again last night and this a.m. In good health and at work wrote ... letter to Trebune and sent ... yesterday; weigh 142 naked ... "a great success. ... kind of hatred it is ... most pronounced and violent when civilization is lowest." Ana Bismarck said that "Envy is the national vice of the German people. They cannot bear that anyone should be greater than themselves" quoted in E's "arch enemy" And, between ourselves, I never hated the French, although I thanked God when we were rid of them. How could I, to whom the question of culture and barbarism alone is all imprtant, hate a nation which is among the most cultured of the world, and to which I owe so great a part of my own culture? National hatred is indeed a peculiar thing. It is always found most pronounced and violent where civilization is lowest, but there is a stage of culture where it vanishes altogether, where one stands, so to say, above all nations, and feels the happiness and sorrows of neighboring people as much as if they were part of one's own. 20. Mercury has been down to 17. Good sleighing. 27, 28, 29. Cold and fair most of the time. Write a little each fore noon. Gained 7 lbs since the 5th. 30. Warmer, rain all forenoon. Mr. Childs came yesterday. 31. Clearing and cold. 1915 Jany 1st. Cold - about 7 or 8, clear. A big crowd from N.Y. 12. Fine sharp winter weather most of the time this month - down to 17 and near zero several days. One big rain and break up of the ice in the stream over a week ago; warm and rain again last night and this a.m. In good health and at work - wrote another letter to Trebune and sent it off yesterday; weigh 142 naked, the "hut" a great success. Goethe said of hatred "it is always found most pronounced and violent when civilization is lowest" Ana Bismarck said that "Envy is the national view of the German people. They cannot bear that anyone should be greater than themselves" quoted in E's "arch enemy" Books Worth Re.. A New English translat.. been published of "Comm... ballis" that remarkable work Abbe de Montfaucon de Villa... which students of French litera... supposed to be familiar. The bo... its original publication in Paris ... and mant editions of it were iss... 13. Two nights and one day of hard rain, water everywhere this morning and snow nearly gone, clearing and warmer. 14. Mild March like day write and walk and pose for Cordie and saw wood. Robins and blue birds here. 15. Still March like, no frost last night. Great earth quake in study. Hell let loose upon earth. 17. Rain all day and night, warm as March. 18. Rain and fog. Snow all gone. Streams very high. Winter is knocked out I think. 19. Clearing, mild, but signs of colder. - "This world is 1/5 hot, 4/5 cold, 1/5 clay, 4/5 water. Air is of the same make up as the world, but in a neutral state e.t.c." from a MS. on "Make up of the universe from a natural cause, by a Johnston Rosedale, Kansas. 1915 Feb Stayed at Yama Farm Inn till Feb 4th - a bad cold in late Jany, on Jany 29 swallowed a small bone that lacerated my gullet all the way down and caused me much pain and several sleepless nights for a week - neck was sore and swollen on outside. Snow and cold when we left. Reached Experiment on the 6th - bright sunshine till today ever since. 15. Mid April here, toads and peepers at night, bear working on soft maples. Heavy rain last night, I am fairly well again and am about ready to send off the last essays of my "Breath of Life". De Loach wonderfully kind and helpful - would my own son cared half as much for me. 19. Nearly a week of sunshine, with frost at night. Heavy rain last Sunday, farmers plowing. Heard robins this p.m. Walk an hour or two each day. Resting my brain for a while, my last upper tooth drawn yesterday, wisdom tooth. Good riddener. Poke around the place a good ideal. Feel much better, cough about stopped, but oh, the past, and the horrible war. It oppresses my night and day. Read but little, eat and sleep well, see but few people. Waiting the proofs of the new vol. Mrs. B. well, mind less eager and active than last winter. C.B. in N.Y. 22. Mild spring like day, partly cloudy, a wedding here, Miss De Loach and Mr. Van - of others, a wedding is always a solemn occassion to me. Correct proof in morning of new book. 23. Rain all night, dark and damp and cooler this morning. - A great thing is to know what you want to know - so that your reading and studies may not be aimless and profitless. In my youth I knew that I wanted to know the birds, to know geology and astronomy and all natural knowledge. - On Sunday my weight was a little short of 150. Feb 25. Sick since Tuesday with my old trouble - low fever and a feeling of discomfort generally. Bright spring like weather, a brisk 2 1/2 mile walk today but do little work as soon as I take food pulse goes up, sleep poor. 26. Poor sleep last night, but fever gone this morning, am taking only a little rice water - have eaten too much this winter - must now pay for it. Julian writes that ice in river broke up on 24. Snow nearly all gone - fearfully muddy. Blue birds there Mendeleef says. If a linen surface, moistened with an acid, be placed in perfectly pure air then the washings are found to contain sodium, calcium, iron and potassium. Linen moistened with an alkali absorb carbonic, sulphuric, phosphoric and hydrochloric acids". The presence of organic substances in the air can be proved by similar experiments. "The chief component parts of the air, placed in the order of their relative amounts, are nitrogen, oxygen, aqueous vapor, carbonic anhydride, nitric acid, salts of ammonia, oxides of nitrogen and also ozone hydrogen peroxide and complex organic nitrogenous substances" also particles of solids perhaps of cosmic origin (Cosmic dust). Here then is where air plants get their ash. They draw their substances from this air soil. They are rooted to this soil through their leaves; they breathe it in with the air. The atmosphere then is another and finer earth with nearly all the mineral and gaseous elements and a living organisms - a finer world superimposed upon the world in which we live. 28. Some rain, cool. Peach trees blooming. Yesterday 60 teachers from Atlanta were here - had their lunch on the ground near the cabin study, cloudy day. Mch 1st. Fine day, cool from the N. nearly well again, correct proof all morning in the cabin. 2. Cloudy, Mrs. R. and Mr. De L. go to Atlanta. Write in Cabin till noon, many white throats at my free lunch table. To town and to the dentist in p.m. 3. Overcast, chilly. In Cabin this morning, feeling well at last. Downy drumming in two keys in woods, nearby. Write on birds. 4. Cloudy, windy from the East, threatens rain. Return of my old trouble this morning, only slight, through qualms I hope have checked it. Two abusive letters this morning from Pro Germans - one very better anonumous - wants me shot from the end of a torpedo. What it is all about, I don't know. The N.Y. journal seems to have been making me say something. 6. Bright day, my old trouble back again - fever and little sleep. Consult on old Griffins doctor, prescribes a tonic - thinks my nerves need bracing. 7. Cloudy and windy and chilly. Keep quiet. Fever again last night, a young Georgian came to see me, a fine, wholesome intelligent fellow, a Rival Delivery man. The shadow of a chill from 3 till I retire, am in doubt yet about the old doctors tonic. 8. A poor night, not more than 2 hours sleep but no pain, a low fever till 3 a.m. a cool windy day, but clear - more than half persuaded that I have malaria. 9. Clear and sharp, down to 32 last night, no fever since night before last. 10. Bright and warm, a little fever no pill last night, am much puzzled. 11. Bright rather sharp day. Fever has gone for good I think. Drive in p.m. 12. Bright lovely day. How the red maples do hum with the bees this morning. No fever, sleep well, think I am well again, no proof this week. 13. Mild, partly cloudy day, a lot of women from Atlanta, members of the Burroughs Club, a little below par today. 14. Lovely bright day. Feel prime today - ample sleep last night. 15. Mild day, partly cloudy. Go to Stone Mt. for the second time, a fascinating climb an hour or more on top. Probably the biggest single granite knob or hump in the world. 20 or 30 buzzards circling high over the top. Return home on 4 p.m. train. 16. Cloudy, windy cold day, correct proof in shanty study and walk in p.m. 17. Clear, cold, near a frost last night. Sharp as some of our March days. Health fully restored I think. 18. Milder, partly cloudy. Finish the piece which I call "Old friends in new places." this morning, a respectable magazine article. 20. Colder, a white frost this morning - down to 28. 22d. Start for home this morning. Partly cloudy, shall probably never see Experiment again - too noisy, no better friend in the world than De Loach. He goes with us to Atlanta. Take 105 train for N.Y. 23. A safe and pleasant journey to N.Y. reach there on time. C.B. and Mr. Pratt meet us at station. We get the 4 p.m. train on West Shore. Reach home on time Julian and Hud meet us at station. House warm. 24. Bright dry sharp day, no rain or snow here this month. Roads dusty. Very glad to be back. How good all things look to me. All early birds here. Day of wonderful brilliancy. 25. Bright day, with some clouds and mild. Walk up to Julian's. 26. A sprinkle of rain last night. Clear today and growing colder, down to 28 before sun down. 27. Cold night, down to 16, but clear and dry. Roads as dusty as in summer. Health good, but my contentment not yet here. 29. C.B. came this p.m. looking well, my fever also came yesterday. 30. Still dry and sharp, freezing every night. 31. Clear, windy, cold, down to 22. April 1st. No change in weather. Consult Dr. Van Tilray. 2d. Cold and sharp; feeling a little better. 3d. My 78 birthday, fever gone. Cloudy, cold driving wind from N.E. Began snowing at noon, a driving snow storm till bed time. Columbia student here last night to interview me for Tribune, a fine Ohio boy from the farm 4. Six inches of snow, clearing and warmer, snow melting fast, no more fever. 5. Warmer snow nearly gone, cloudy. Appetite returning with a rush. 6. Slow rain. Fine in p.m. 7. Go to Roxbury on early train. Ride up from village with Johns milk team, a dark, sour, chilly day. John boiling sap, spend part of the p.m. with him in sap house. Build fire at Woodchuck Lodge and dry out bedding e.t.c, spend the night there. 8. A glorious day, all sun and sky; not a cloud, should be a good sap day but sap runs feeble, though it froze quite hard last night and there is old frost in the ground, I loiter in the woods and climb the hill and look over in West Settlement. [Fines] and hills still shelter old snow banks, Wood on mountains still full of snow. It shines through the dark mantle of trees as I saw it so many times in my youth. Blue birds at W.L. and one robin on song. Several song sparrows. Pass the night at W.L. 9. Partly cloudy, start for home on morning train. Warm at W.P. and lovely. 10. A lovely warm day of cloud and sun. Drive to P. with C.B. and her children. Then drive to Julian's and to woods in p.m. Two hepaticas under the leaves. 11. Slow warm rain last night, gentle rain part of the day. The song of the toad under the hill Prof Lounesbury died suddenly two days ago, a lovable man, I liked him best of all the academicians, my last word and walk with him last Nov in N.Y. He told me then that his heart was his weak point. He would not hurry to catch a street car as I was included to do. He made a most effective criticism of a statement of Arnold in one of his later essays. Hopkinson Smith died also at same age 77. But I cared little for Smith. S. orated when he talked. Rest to their ashes. Both should have lived to see the end of the war. 15. Brilliant sharp April days, freezes a little every night, on the 13th and 14th C.B. and Mildred cleaned Slabsides, a thorough job, days without a cloud. This p.m. we drive to P. 16. Another cloudless sharp day, a high hole morning. How they do call from points near the river, one of the most welcome and characteristic sounds of spring. Write letters in morning. Health good. - It is said that the hedgehog stores up fat in the region of the neck for sustenance during hibernation. The Maki ape of Madagascar stores up fat in its tail against his sleep over the dry season. The bacteria of splenites stands a temperature of liquid hydrogen - 252 degrees. 17. Cloudy in morning, clearing in p.m. Walk to the woods in p.m. Dry and hazy. 18. A cloudless day, wonderfully brilliant. We all drive to Ashokan dam and around it. Julian and his family and I mine except Mrs. B. a day long to be remembered. Eat our lunch in the deep gorge of Tremper Hollow Stream, under the superb arched bridge of the Ashokan Lake Road. Warm and inviting the full clear mountain trout brook casts its spell upon us. About 2 hours run from here. Colts foot in bloom along the stream. Arbutus opening here. 19. Lovely day, warmer, April it her best. 24. A week of dry bright lovely weather, a soft haze in the air one frost. Warmer yesterday and today asparagus and rhubard this week. Plum trees on bloom. At Slabsides on the 20th trying to write again. Up to mirror lake yesterday with Julian and Peterson. No fish but a lovely p.m. Water thrush there and red shouldered starting. Drove to H. in a.m. Well these days, but not much sleep in me physically or mentally, but enjoy the April days - effect me like music. How my mind and heart go back. Had a longing this morning for the old Washington days. How fragrant they are in my memory! C.B. off this morning for N.Y. A very dry spring so far. 25. One hundred and ten Vassar girls yesterday at S.S. and a dozen High School girls from P. also the president of Vassar and his wife, I like the young man much, a lovely still clear warm morning. Rare April days indeed. Jenny Wren here this morning. 26. Hot and dry, above 80. 27. Very hot, start for Roxbury at 10 in my car, a hot drive. Delayed at Griffins Corner, by a flat tire. Reach R. at 4. The country green and lovely. 28. Light rain last night, cooler today, make garden, sleep on the porch. 29. Warmer again, I go fishing down through the Hemlocks, take 4 trout - as good as a hundred, long sad thoughts; fish down below the old days saw mill dam; return up the ridge, Partridge drumming in the Hemlocks a bed of Claytonia makes a little hollow gay. Yellow violets in bush woods. Drive out to Edens in p.m. a brisk thunder shower beyond Moresville delays me 1/2 hour. Find Eden out looking after his chickens. Face pale and full bloated I fear. Eats well but is short of breath. 30. Clearing, cool, start for home at 7 a.m. Reach Kingston at 11 in a mist and fog; reach home at 12 1/2 May 1st. cloudy; a band of school children at S.S. Rain a little, children very happy, Ursa and Betty among them. 2. Fine day. Two bands of Vassar girls at S.S. The night if the apple bloom, cherry, pear and apple trees in bloom at same time. Fringed polygela showing the purple. 3. Fine day, cool. Go to Vassar and talk an hour in Whitman to the class in American Literature - a harum scarum talk. Miss Ballard very sweet. 4. Cloudy, cool, very tired today. 5. A light slow rain from N.E. maple leaves about half grown season early and dry. Peas up 2 inches. Young blue - bird today - flying well and being fed by its parents a surprise. Lilacs just beginning to bloom. May 1st. cloudy; a band of school children at S.S. Rain a little, children very happy, Ursa and Betty among them. 2. Fine day. Two bands of Vassar girls at S.S. The night if the apple bloom, cherry, pear and apple trees in bloom at same time. Fringed polygela showing the purple. 3. Fine day, cool. Go to Vassar and talk an hour in Whitman to the class in American Literature - a harum scarum talk. Miss Ballard very sweet. 4. Cloudy, cool, very tired today. 5. A light slow rain from N.E. maple leaves about half grown season early and dry. Peas up 2 inches. Young blue - bird today - flying well and being fed by its parents a surprise. Lilacs just beginning to bloom. 6. Off to N.Y. on early train. Go to Edisons at Orange at noon. A long auto ride in p.m. and then to N.Y. to Carnegie Hall to the Circle Forum function in home of Edison, Mr. Ford sits by me on platform. I sit next Edison, an interesting ceremony, much speech making, but Edison will not say a word. The gold medal presented him is large and fine, E. notes all the talk and palaver, - the whole thing a bore to him. Go to Belmont and spend night with Mr. Ford. 7. Fine day, Mr. F. comes home with me after seeing Dr. Van. Tiling in P. - the first doctor he ever consulted. The doctor find him sound - only a little sluggishness of the liver. 8. Rain last night, light off this morning, with Mr. F. to sing sing spend. Visit Osborne and the prison. Go through the prison, and then see the 1800 march in to dinner - the rag tag and bob tail of humanity - very depressing to look at their crude impressive faces, not one in ten with any foundation for character building. But an atmosphere of content and good will seems to persuade the place. Osborne a great success - treats the prisoners as human beings and gives every man a show. Incredible [that] for ages that the state should have aimed to punish and torment its prisoners, instead of trying to make better men of them. Osborne has abolished nearly all guards and spies and tries to let the men govern themselves. I leave at 2 p.m. and reach home at 4.30. Mr. Ford to take later train for Detroit. Mr. F. and I both had to make little speeches, in the big dining hall after the men were through dinner. How they did clap Mr. F.! He said he had never made a speech in his life, and he was much embarrassed and only spoke a dozen word. Among other things I said it was their bad luck that they were there and probably my good luck I was not there - which made them laugh. If day had all been as well born as I was and brought up to industrious habits on the farm e.t.c. e.t.c. 9. A bright lovely morning - the perfection of May. 10, 11. Fine days. 12. At S.S. at work in morning playing in p.m. 13. A light rain last night. Start for Shandaken in car C.B., Mildred, the children and I, Julian and his family and Peterson and his off with us for Snyder Hollow. We drive to Chickester to Mildred's home and then to Phoenicia and up S. Hollow, stop in the woods above Larkins old place. I fish an hour, only 3 trout under size. Peterson takes only two, J. now but a joyful day amid the old scenes I have known so well. Start back at 4. a light shower, reach home about 6.15. 15. Fine day, over 100 Mr. Paltz normal pupils and a dozen of more from Schenectady led by principal Jeffers, a happy crowd, I enjoy it all. Lead the way up to Julian's rock not specially tired at night. 16. Partly cloudy, Miss Haight and 4 of her friends from Vassar - one of them a granddaughter of Longfellow, Miss Thorp. We have a good time. Go to the falls e.t.c. 17. Go to S.S. and write. Cool a frost in places. 18. Cool frost, light, go to S.S. 19. Cool frost, light, go to S.S. C.B. and the children off to P. adenoids, work the car in p.m. Omission the use of May 19, May 30, and the first part of May 21. 22. Quite a thunder shower in the night, enough rain to help vegetation and put some water in the cisterns. Sprinkles of rain all day, Nelly Woodworth comes at 4.30, very glad to see her again. 23. Clearing and cooler, surface of the ground fairly well wet. June 2d. Off for Roofs on Neversink this morning at 5. Julian, Peterson, C.B. and myself, a cool fair morning. Reach roofs at 8. Fish till one, take 20 fine trout, a warm day; trout rise freely. Fish also in p.m. 3. At Roofs; fish in morning; take about 20. Feel well and strong. In p.m. we go to High falls, C.B., Frank and I. 4. Start for home this morning. Roofs takes us to Big Indian in auto, a fine ride. Reach home at 12 1/2. 5. Company from Bronx; also 19. Much discouraged about the war; doubt if the English and French force the Dardanelles - mismanagement, too small a land force. Russia completely outgenerated, forced back from Carpathians, nearly a dead lock in Belgium and France. England not united like Germany, common people show lack of patriotism, dissentious in cabinet, a dark outlook. But if Italy joins allies may turn the tide. 20. Clara Reed and Gertrude Ballard come in p.m. Walk in the woods on way to Slabsides, a pleasant night around the open fire - two fine women. 21. Rain a little in the night; misty and threatening in the morning. Walk over for 8 o'clock train. Sprinkles of rain with mist all day. Mr. Pratt and his friend, stay at S.S. Saturday and Sunday night. Mr. Pietro here over Sunday. June 7. Slight soar throat today, but feel well. 8. Very bad throat with hoarseness; telegraph Mr. Ford too ill to start for Detroit. 9. Throat very soar and hoarseness very severe. 10. See Dr. Dobson for throat. His treatment improves it. 11. Feel well and throat better, at 3 p.m. pick two gts of S. [scrubs] take them to C.B.s and nearly collapse on her porch. Came near fainting, heart behaves badly; too ill to go home. Dr. Benedict of Newburgh at night says I must stay there and keep quiet, [Strechman] every 4 hours. 14. Dr. Van Tiling comes; prescribes several drugs; 1 gr calomel, says keep quiet for two weeks; no appetite, no sleep since the 11th. C.B. nurses me and is very devoted. 30. Still at C.B.'s slowly gaining, appetite came back over week ago, put on my clothes yesterday and took an auto ride up to Julian's. The Roofs call, I walk a little. Begin to sleep naturally some lovely days and nights on the porch. Read and write a little. legs weak, but heart behaving well, steady but not strong. Old Adam assertive, no pain at any time during my illness, nearly gave up hope the first week. A cloudy day threatening rain. Telephone peas ready,
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1919-1920 (March - March)
Text: [LII] Diary from March 29th, 1919 to March 21, 1920 1919 Mch 29. Think of the difference between the Old taxidermy and the new! between a stuffed skin and the reconstructed anatomy of the animal inside the skin, a modern mounted deer or antelope, for instance is instinct with life, it fauly breathes and looks and listens. It may bound away the next moment. In a hundred fields we are getting nearer and nearer to nature much so called nature writing is still only stuffed skin - there is no...
Show more[LII] Diary from March 29th, 1919 to March 21, 1920 1919 Mch 29. Think of the difference between the Old taxidermy and the new! between a stuffed skin and the reconstructed anatomy of the animal inside the skin, a modern mounted deer or antelope, for instance is instinct with life, it fauly breathes and looks and listens. It may bound away the next moment. In a hundred fields we are getting nearer and nearer to nature much so called nature writing is still only stuffed skin - there is no touch of reality about it - the bones and muscles of reality are not expressed then. - Still windy and cold, but clearing up a little. Some sunshine, but the frolic of the snow ghosts still continues, up to 26 at noon. Juncos and robins starving I fear. This morning a male Junco sat on the honeysuckles views on my porch with its head tucked under its wing fast asleep. It was just a ball of feathers with no signs of a head. I approached it carefully and closed my hand upon it, it struggled and gave a cry, but was soon quiet. We warmed it and put it in a paper box with ample air holes, but it soon died, starvation and the cold I suppose. Men freezing are overcome with sleep. Probably the little Junco was overcome in the same way, but warmth did not save it. Thousands of trees of thousands of birds will perish as the result of the sudden cold wave. The hardier and luckier ones will survive and thus will natural selection tend toward a hardier race. Write a little on my Darwin paper. Mch 30. Milder and less windy today. Snow melting, partly overcast mercury up to 42. Robins singing again. 31. Colder freezing, mercury 35 at 1 p.m. Cloudy, no singing robins today, practically finish the Darwin piece. What next? April 1. Hail to April! colder, down to 26, wind N. clearing toward noon. Clear and fine in p.m. but wind sharp, 31 at 1p.m. Poor night last night. Still working a little on the D. piece, hard to suit myself. I must have the truth and I must have quality of style - the best way to say the thing. Peace Commissions in Paris make slow head way hope. France will carry her point and get the Sarre Valley. Germany should be compelled to return all her loot or replace it and re-build all the buildings destroyed and restore all the fields and plant new forest e.t.c. a just retribution is called for. There are thousands of Prussian who should be surrendered to the Allies and shot. 2. Warmer, clearing before noon. Peepers at night an enjoyable day. Birthday greetings pouring in. 3d. My 82d birthday, a fair mild day, school children in the morning. Friends and neighbors call, newspaper reporters from N.Y. Sun, World, Evening post, a rather strenuous day. Losing flesh down to 112 under my lowest point yet and strenuous day. 4. More telegrams and letter. Find Edison, Maj, Spingarn and others. Cloudy and chilly. 5. Partly cloudy, mild, clearing in p.m. 6. Fine mild day, nearly 60, a fine drive in p.m. to Clintondale, Garden and New Paltz. Enjoy it much, nearly 40 miles 2 1/4 hours. High hole this morning, some pain in my head lately from the lever I think. Mr. Roy here on my birthday. Woodcock at night in flight song. 7. Fair, some sunshine up to near 60. Train laying walls in coal cellar. Birds very musical and lively. Cow bird here. 8. Mild and clear in morning. Clouding up in p.m. sat in my summer house and watched for an hour or more a fight between a male and a female robin a thing we heard of before, to me. The female forced the fighting much of the time. they fought precisely as tees cock robins do, a great deal of sparring. Sudden dashes, much feinting sudden risings in the air beak to beak and nail to nail, much circling around each other prevent hopping away from each other, then sudden rushes, no feather tweaked or disturbed as I could see and parting finally without victory on either side. It can hardly be possible that they were two males, as one had the bright, fresh plumage of the cock at this season and the other the dull thuls of the female. the bill of one was golden, while the color of the bill of the other was hardly visible. But why a male and female should fight in this way is a mystery to me 9. Cloudy, chilly, threatens rain from N.E. In p.m. lightens up a little and wind dies down. Julian tries his tractor over in Terovis field; works fine, a Knight here this p.m. Eden is a little better. - Read a half hour in Westers Spoon river anthology. Good stuff in it, but no great poetry no beauty, no great thoughts, but humor, pathos, sympathy e.t.c. These younger free verse poets have been influenced by Whitman, but are not to be named the same day with him, no power, no grandeur, nothing elemental or cosmic. The trick of it all tires one after a while. I learn nothing new, I love nothing more, I am brought no nearer nature or the infinite, no music or rhythm as in W. It is good "shredded prose" and not good verse. 10. Brief thunder showers in morning, with a dark of hail, mercury 42. Peace still linger in the lap of war. there is but one safe course to be pursued with Germany - no matter what she thinks or says or wants keep the iron heel in her neck for 50 years or more. Robins very numerous this spring - fear another robin plague. Song sparrows very abundant also. 12. Fine day, start for Washington at 7:40. Go by way of Poughkeepsie. Reach W. at 6 and the Ontario at 7. Stay with the pattens and occupy Mr. Williams apartment of 8 rooms. Delightfully situated - society and solitude at my pleasure. Overlook Rock Creek and the 300, when I used to walk 50 years ago, Mr. Ford car come for me twice each day, not many trips. Drive to Mt. Vernon and in the house and out get closer to G.W. than I ever did before. Edith Rickert and Miss Hummer go with me. One day take Aaron J. and his wife out to Soldiers Home. Saturday the 19, many friends old and new come to see me. One day we drive to Arlington. Sunday the 20th dine with Mrs. Seward (Minne Saxton) her father and mother and sisters are there. Go to the grave of my old friend Dr. Frank Baker in Oak hill Cemetery. Make three visits to the zoo, never tire of seeing wild animals. The last 3 or 4 days very fine. Gain no weight and strength. 21. Fine day, start for home. Reach here on time 6:40, all is well. 22 and 23. Fine, clear, warm days, Maples in full bloom and plum trees also a touch if yellow green here and there in the woods. 23. Walk to S.S. in p.m. and have an adventure with fire - came near burning the place up. Everything as dry as tinder. 24. A change, raining slowly from S.W. 25. A cold wave and snow flakes and plum petals falling together down to freezing, windy and cold. 26. Down to 28 this morning, fruit probably injured, snow flakes in the air nearly all day. How these spring frosts pinch us! Work in morning getting out stone. Milder at night; 40 at dusk. 27. Clear and much warmer, promise a lovely and comparatively warm day. Mr. Black here yesterday p.m. for Brooklyn Eagle to interview me on Walt Whitman. 28. Lovely day. Go to S.S. with C.B. and the children. C.B. works ill, day clearing S.S. many visitors from N.Y., Vassar and Poughkeepsie. 29. Warm increasing cloudiness, go to S.S. at night and spend night. Light rain in p.m. down to P for door frame. 29. Bright day, cooler from N.W. S. sparrows and robins building their nests. Violets and trillium in bloom. 30. Fine day. Drive to H. in p.m. a "blowful" and delays. Buy new tire. May 1st. Cloudy, light rain in p.m. Pear trees and cherry trees in bloom, a mist of foliage in the tree tops, apple trees showing pink buds. Hud plowing vineyards, still chewing upon the Darwin problems. Reading "The White North" and the voyage of the Beagle for the fourth time. the new coal caller and root cellar nearly finished. Eden better. On the whole on early May. Plant corn and telephone peas this a.m. 2. Cloudy in a.m. clearing and warm in p.m. Go to Vassar to Founder day and the Whitman centennial. Mr. Maters makes the address - a poor inadequate affair, a great disappointment. I help save the day by telling of W. visit to Vassar over 40 years ago, no one present knew it. Home at 5 p.m. 3. Fine warm day, hot day up to 80. go to Mrs. Wallheads to lunch - then to Julian's rock and Slabsides with Vassar girls. walk about 3 miles or over. 4. Hot day, nearly clear, apple trees blooming, orioles, wood thrush and views and warbles here, at home all day writing a speech for the Brooklyn celebration of the Whitman centenary on the 9th no interruption. 5. Still hot, sleep last night without cover, write in a.m. on the W. speech. Drive to H. in p.m. for cements, a light shower at 4 1/2 followed by cooler, now at 7, it is about 60. "Again I wild mid orchard bloom" How brief it is and how touching to me! The heavy fragrance of the honey locust on the air this a.m. Maple leaves half grown, oaks shaking out their tassels. The chaos in Europe as bewildering and hopeless as ever, a plague of robins is again threatened this year. 6, 7, 8. Pleasant days 9. Light rain, cool. Go to Brooklyn to Whitman autumnal. C.B. with me. Lunch at Dr. Js' Go to Brooklyn at 2. Reach Academy of music at 2 1/2, afternoon session not very well attended - 2 or 3 hundred people mostly women, a fine speech by Garland. Crathers a disappointment to me, no charm, little humor, little valuable intellectual content. The pulpit spoils any man for serious thinking. Harmes talked, Markham spoke and saw more in W. than I expected he had. But Marcus harsh voice and conceited ways are too much for me. He has been spoiled a young Jews poet, Wulimeyer spoke well. Every session well attended. Hall nearly full. Wm Lyon Phelps of Yale, the best speaker, I knew he used to despise W, but now he has met with change of heart. His speech was fine and did my heart good. Dr. Barnes reads my short paper, but I think was not well heard, but audience was very attentive. Mr. Howe editor of Brooklyn Eagle spoke admirably and exhaustively of W's editorial career, a very valuable paper. Harmed spoke entertainingly of his long acquaintances with W. - but too long. Clayton Hamilton, critic, read some of W's poems, admirably. On the whole, a great time. Dr. J. meet us with his car and took us with him. 10. Visit the American Museum of N.W. in morning and return home on p.m. train. Still cold and rainy. 11. Cold and rainy, a dismal day. 12. Still cold and overcast - very chilly, apple bloom not yet all off. 13. A lovely day. Go with Rev. Mr. Elmer of P. to visit the Beaver dam and beam haunts in Dutches Co. 12 or 14 miles from P. A memorable experience. The beauty of the day, the interest and kindness of Mrs. Elmer the wild solitude of the wooded chasm on amid the hills, the works of the leaves the fallen trees, the dam, the cut and pilled bush or trees e.t.c. the slopes here and there painted with the delicate fringed polygala. We spend about 3 hours there and are back in P. by 2 p.m. and here at West Park by 4. 14. Still warm and fair. 15. Warm day; spend it at home. 16. Fine day ,apple bloom nearly off. Loaf in morning. In p.m. C.B. and I drive to the woods for cyprepedium and to Slabsides to call on Mr. Vrooman. See and hear the oven bird. The polygala in bloom in the Dean woods. 17. A pouring rain nearly all forenoon with some thunder. Ground again filled with water, all planting again delayed Does not all this need extra gain of the rain gods, foretell a dry summer? A spendthrift is bound to see a season of want. - now at 2 p.m. It is pounding and pouring again. 18. Fine warm day after the rain, a brigand steak for dinner. 19. Fine day, drive to H. in morning. Mrs. Northrut and her friend in p.m. 20. Warm, partly overcast; fear more rain, cat bird and wren wet building at the "nest" still writing upon the universe, Plenty of room. 24. A warm showery week. Ground full of water. Rain everyday. Do some writing. 25. Fine in a.m. sprinkles of rain in p.m. and clouds. Go to S.S. for a picnic lunch, De Loach with us have a Brigand's steak, which all like. Walk to the Falls in p.m. Black creek very full - never saw it fuller. 26. Bright and fine this morning. Women talk fifty percent more than men; is it because they think fifty percent less? 27. Mr. Blanchant come to overheat my car, a fine day. 28. Fine day, Mr. R finish car at noon, car in fine order. 29. Our first real hot day, 90 degrees. 30. Still clear and hot 84 degrees today, many people here from Kingston. Poulton Bigelow and friends at 3, Dr. Fisher and family later. They go to Slabsides. I hoe in garden and plant more corn. North winds, signs of dry weather. 31. Hot dry, start for Roxbury. In Shandaken collide with a track. The track at fault, steams gear badly bent, delayed 3 hours. Reach Woodchuck Lodge at 6. June 1st. Very hot, news that Eden is very low. At 4 p.m. comes news of his death at 3 p.m. a great shock. 2. Hot, Eden's death disturbs me more than I expected it could. 3. Go to Eden's funeral with John's C, very hot, 94 on Eden's house. All the near relatives present. We bury him beside Hiram in old glacier sand and gravel. Farewell dear boy, we were youths on the old farm together. How I shall miss you I will know. Age 79. 4. Hot and dry, spend the p.m. out on the border of the Beach woods a delightful place, write and read and muse. 5. Still hot, another p.m. in my nook in the Beach woods. 6. Cooler and slow rain all forenoon. 7. Clearing and hot again. Start for home at 9 a.m. via Lexington and the narrow notch. Reach Watson Hollow outlet at 12 1/2. Eat our lunch under the pine and maple trees near the creek. Reach home before 4 p.m. Hot. 8. Cloudy, cool, S. berries ripening. Am much stronger than one week ago, my native hills were good for me. 9. Light rain, cloudy all day and nights. Garland and Wheeler call. 10. Cloudy till p.m. Evelin Craig comes from Vassar, meet her at Highland, a warm day. 11. Bright and hot, above 80, a good visit from Miss Craig, she departs at 12:24, a fine superior woman. Ten years ago we saw much of her in Cala. 12. Cloudy, still warm. First peas yesterday - the Alaska. 13, 14, 15. Still hot and dry. 16. Hot and dry, Mr. Job comes for moving pictures. 17, 18, 19. Hot and dry, 86 degrees, Mr. Job finishes his job today. The children (Betty and Lorena) have gone home. This is the 19th hot day, am resting my brain and all dizziness has left me. Old brains must lie fallow at times. 20, 21. Dry and hot. 22. Cooler, De Loach come. Mon 23. Cool, start for Rexburg at 8 1/2 a flat tire bet, Fleshmans and Arkville. Give me trouble and a delay of nearly 2 hours. Reach W.C.L. at 4, a frost in the village last night. Tuesday 24. Getting hot again, hoe in garden and write a little in barn. W. 25. Warm and dry, but country very green, a big shower here a few days ago. Fields still golden from buttercups and white with diasies. Oats just make a tinge of green over the red soil. Bobolinks singing in Caswells meadow. The perfume of alsack clover is on the air. A hot night and hot and still this morning. The jungle of the Indigo bunting in the apple trees, not a breeze stirring. 26. Cloudy with light dashes of rain. Have a good day in the barn writing on law and chance. Correct proof of Wa. R. article on "Faith of a naturalist." 27. A fine rain, began at 8 and kept it up till noon, over an inch of water, much needed. Very warm. In p.m. shoot and trap chipmunks digging up my peas, kill 5 very sorry to do it, but I must have peas. 28. A sudden change to cold. N. winds, a fire in the Franklin this morning. Clouds breaking and sun popping out. The anxious phoebes have to hustle this morning to find food for their nearly fledged young and the King birds also, may be a frost tonight if it clears up. 29. Wind kept up all night, cold, but no frost. Clear this morning, slowly warming up in p.m. no thoughts today. too many s. berries. Some callers in p.m. a glorious day, but fruitless to me. "How sharper than a serpents tooth is an ungrateful child" 30. Clear, still cool. Time others in bloom. The height of the summer freshness, diasies still perfect, next week the tide will begin to turn. A hummer industriously working the raspberry bloom, a young 'chuck' shyly trips by my open door not two yards from me. I miss my swallows. The insect world has not yet recovered from it terrible set back of the wet cold spring of two years ago. Fewer insects of all kinds, not one tent caterpillar have I seen since that spring, not one current worm. what do the cuckoos do? I hear them calling, but have seen none, a tanager sings above me in the hill woods and the indigo bunting keeps within car shot. Why is this bird so rare compared with others of its family. The gold finch is common in comparison. Probably the indigo is more limited in its diet. I have never seen it feeding on the seeds of dandelions, as I have the gold finch and chippie, I have in fact never seen it feeding at all. July 1st. Still clear and fine, a little warmer each day. These 6 or 7 letters from strangers called out by my remarks on the June Atlantic about Thorean standing in the abutant of a rainbow annoy me a little, our memories play us such tricks. Tell me what you saw today or yesterday or last week, not what you saw as a boy and tell me whether or not you were thinking about this very point. One of the most common things in the world is inaccurate observation. and one of the next most common is hasty conclusions. The things people tell me and write me that are not so would fill a volume. Here is one that occurred a month ago; Mrs. Covert wife of our hood man told me that Mrs. Allen our neighbor had just told her this remarkable story about robin. They had half a coconut shell out by the barn and the robin had taken that shell, carried it to the (top or to the) roof of their sun pastor, fastened it down with mud lined it with grass and built her nest in it and she had the shell there to prove it. Impossible I said, I don't care who says it. I went straight over to Mrs. A. house and before I could tell her what I had come for she told me the story of the remarkable nest, "And there it is now" she said pointing to a robins nest on the ground. The lining had been removed, revealing the smooth shapely mud foundations. It was of a gray mud color and its true character was obvious at a glance, "Is your coconut shell gone" I inquired, 'I have not looked" Mrs. A. replied, "well this is not it" and I broke off a bit of it and pulverized it between my thumb and finger. "a neat bit of robin masonry" but not a coconut shell" and I at last convinced her. 2d. Hot dry day, no clouds, write a little and kill three chuck. Drive down for Hattie at 4 p.m. Walk [half an hour] in the Presbyterian burying ground and spend 1/2 hour with the old people I knew so long ago. What a host of them rose up before me! How clearly I visualized them all and heard their voices! and could have told some anecdote of each. 3. Still clear with high temperature not a bough ways, hardly a leaf stirs. Put in shape a paper on "Length of days" and cut and re-shuffle the sheets of one on the new theories of nutrition. July 4, no change in weather, are we in danger of being cursed with perpetual sunshine? Where are all the clouds? During such periods of prolonged hot dry weather we are prone to ask such question. As clouds they are no where; they are potential in the invisible vapor in the atmosphere. Produces a cold current or a low barometer and the clouds appear. When is the thunderbolt. It is nowhere. Its elements or possibilities are also diffused through the invisible vapors, or in the molecules and ions of space. A hot, hot day. At noon comes John Russell McCarthy, the new poet from Pa whom we have invited to spend a few days with us. I was so taken with his poems, ("Out Door" and "Gods and Devils") that I wanted to wee him. I am in the big hammock out in the Orchard when C.B. brings him out to me, a young man of the blond order, 29 years old and like him instantly. Very modest and unobtrusive. Quiet reads on all occasions to take a back seat, a smart smile and impressive blue eyes. 5. A hot day, we drive to Tannersville to visit the Garlands, a good time. McCarthy with us, all like him but he talks little, sits on the door steps rather than in a chair in the porch, a fine listener with his sweet smile. We spend 4 or 5 hours with the Garlands and are back home by 6 p.m. 6. Sunday. Heavy thunder shows and rain much of the day. Copious and much cooler. We have a Brigand steak, Miss Bonsher comes up, a good day. 7. Clearing and much cooler. McCarthy leaves on morning train. I love the youth. Wish we could have kept him longer. His wise sweet smile haunts me. He was companionable without being talkative, just his presence was enough. He was his own poem June, in the flesh. Hair cropped close and a fine shaped head. Has read very extensively, but knew little of wordsworth. He has a great future I think. His acquaintance is the event of years to me. His poems have quality, he personally has quality, like some rare new fruit. a day washed and wiped clean, not a film in the air, cool and brilliant. 8. Still cool, clear, brilliant. 9. A change to warmer with soft flying clouds - sun and clouds. Mrs. Shepard and her friends call. Later we drive over through West settlement and down by the Falls to the Baptist grave yard. I once more visit the graves of my dead with long sad thoughts. Beside their graves how much more vividly I bring father and mother back to me than I can here or at the old home. To be near their dust helps my imagination. I feel almost as if I had seen them. 10. Thundered all night with very brief dashes of rain. Thundering and raining by spurts this morning, cool. A couple of days ago C.B. and I walking up in "Scotland" found another nest of the vesper sparrow protected by a small stalk of the Canada thistle, a big herd of dairy cows pasture in that field and no foot of the ground is free from the danger of one of their hoofs. But the thistle will ward off their noses and their hoofs too I think. But how many other dangers beset these humble ground builders, providing skunks, foxes and crows and yet many of them escape. - Why the thought of death does not trouble us or overwhelm us more than it does is a mystery. If we were under judicial sentence to be shot or electrocuted at no distant day, would not the thought of harass us day and night? But we go about with nature death sentence upon us, even in old age, when we know the day is near, as cheerful and contented as ever we did normal old people do not seem to be disturbed, our fathers have struggled so long with the thought of death that the race of man has become immune or callous, which is it? Our inmost self has come to accept it or is it because having never experienced it we cannot take in the thought! We are blank if indifferent when we should be agitated and unhappy. We visit the graves of our friends and visualize them lying there in the utter silence and darkness and know that we shall soon follow them and yet we go home and soon absorbed in a book or paper or are asleep in our chair! Blessed are we in not being able to realize the thought of death! 11. Cold, misty day. Clearing at 3 p.m. 18. Abundance of rain during the past week. Fine day on Monday. We drove to Hobart in the p.m. Two hours at Eden's. It seems since my return as if I had seen him. My imagination puts him back amid the old scenes when I have seen him for the past 30 or more years. The place spoke so clearly of him, that I feel as if I had really seen him. The turf on his grave beside Hiram's is green, only browned a little around the edges, I could hear his voice, "John, time will fetch us" He was a sort of fatalist. He always said he should not die till his time came and he felt that that day could not be put off, hence he worried little about it. Ate what his "stomach craved" and took no though of the consequence I think if he had denied himself, he would be living now. Rain Tuesday night and Wednesday, heavy springs raised. Thursday the 17, bright warm day. I write in barn and we drive to the village after supper. Today warm and muggy, air heavy with moisture. Fog in the morning. Poor hay weather. Brighter in p.m. and hot. So hay makers get in hay, I sit in the woods in morning hours and part of p.m. and write and dream. - Talking of Whitman's want of form - his form was not architectural but rather the form of living things and the free cornering forces of nature. The conventional poetry is architectural, the poets build this softy rhyme. A sonnet is as architectural as a house or a bridge, the lines are cut in regular lengths depth filted together and the thing is as complete as a chest of drawers. It is easier to be architectural in poetry than to be natural. Try it and see our free verse has no music or rhythm; it is plain prose cut up into arbitrary lengths. 19. A warm night, with slow rain in early morning. Great crested fly catchers crying or calling, calling all the morning in the orchard. found a juncos nest in the bank by the roadside by the orchard, 3 eggs, deftly hidden. Chipmunks very numerous this season. I have reduced thin numbers (unwillingly) by 8 or 10 and yet they come. - How often the weather gets into that unsettled condition when it does seem to know what it wants. It rains a little, it shines a little, the clouds gather and then disperse, they come from the East and then from the South or West or North and yet no decision, still the weather has its laws. It is not lawless as it seems, but who has yet mastered these laws? The problem is too complex. 20. Sunday, a warm humid night again, cloudy this morning from S.W. wrents in the clouds, sun trying to peep through. Capt stone and wife camping up in edge of Beech woods. In p.m. Hamlin Garland, Mr. Wheeler of current literature and Dr. Turck of N.Y. come. Then later a call from Dr. Russell and Rev M. St. Clair and Enderlin. But in event of the day was finding a veerus nest in a tussock of ferns near Capt Stones camp. 22. Raining still this a.m. from S.W. Water affirmative as Goethe says. Let it come; the more of it the sooner it will be done. 23. Still rainy, heavy at times with thunder, rained part of the night, warm. 24. Clearing at last. Before noon perfect summer day sets in, ideal; a few soft summer clouds drift slowly across the sky. Wind N.W.80 degrees. Pose in p.m. for Capt Stone with his new colored moving picture process. A week of this weather is due us. 25. Clear warm - puts new heart into one. The haymakers are putting both feet forwardd. 26. Cloudy, I walk up to the fields toward Sumak lot, shoot a woodchuck, a light shower before noon, Garland comes about 2 p.m. a terrific thunder shower in late p.m. 2 hours or more. 27. Began raining again in the night a down pour with continuous thunder and lightening till 10 a.m. a debouche of the rain gods, a drunken excess, very dark, Warm at 11, sun shows a little through the clouds, a fine evening last night with Garland, an eloquent talker. Read an hour to us from his new story. Then told us of the marvelous things he had seen and heard during his investigation of spiritualism. Does not believe in spirits ascribes it all to emanations from the body of the medium. He is almost a medium himself. - Practically one continuous thunder shower since yesterday p.m. The lightning so quick and the thunder so slow. The rifle [bethel] is quick but the report is slow. 28 A warm night; clouds this morning from N.W. but sun peeping through. The reservoirs of the clouds must be nearly exhausted, no word from Ford or Edison about the proposed Adirondack trip by Aug 1st. Aug 3. Leave in p.m. with Capt. Stone and wife for West Park. 4. Leave W.P. on 10 a.m. train for Albany. Reach there at 1 p.m. Lunch with the Firestone Agent, Mr. Van Kuran and some distinguished men at the Hotel Ten Eyck. Ford, Edison and Firestone arrives about 5 p.m. We camp on Green Island on land owned by Mr. Ford - a fine camp in pine and oak woods opposite the Troy dam. I visit Amanda in old Ladies home at Cahols. She is greatly aged and reminds me so much of Ursula that it was all very painful, an empty forlorn life - no intellectual life at all about my own age. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Motoring with Ford, Edison and Firestone through the Adirondack, green and white nets. N.N. Mags come to Watersbury come, where I am met by Mrs. Shipman and taken to her home at Washington. Come stay there till Saturday the 16, when she drives me to West Park spend the night there, then up to Roxbury on Sunday morning train. Gained 4 lbs on trip (132 lbs) and much strength. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. At wood chuck Lodge occupied with shooting and trying to trap wood chucks, dressing their skins and seeing callers. The callers comes in swarms, everyday that it does not rain - some very fine people. Surely the public is wearing a path to my door, a heavy series of thunder showers Wednesday night, 2 1/2 inches of water. 24. Sunday warn and smoken. Sun came up tip a ball of copper. The third fine warm day, a big lot of company in p.m. from Gloversville and Albany and Sidney. 25. A fine day, we go down to Mr. Ives to lunch. 26. Cool and partly overcast. Kill 2 big wood chucks. Wood chuck killing and skinning has become a habit 27. Cold and cloudy with sports of fine rain. - Coming from New England or from Conn, into N.Y. is stepping down to a lower level of everything that relates to home and village life. We have left the country of the grand old elms, the village green, the attractive village church, the conspicuous public libraries and the solid homelike, unpretentious dwelling hours and have entered a region of bald naked dwelling or highly ornate showing villages. The country opens and unnrolls and the farms are better, but life is far less attractive, more wealth but the art of living at a low off. Newness, baldness, rawness, takes the place of sobriety, simplicity, stability e.t.c. - If the sun has an orbit its curve is as yet undetected. But no doubt it has an orbit. - Here we are travelling at thin rate of a thousand million of miles in a year and yet never get away from home. The earth is as much at home in one place of the universe as in another. There is no locality in empty space. 27. The Johnsons came tonight. 28, 29, 30. Much cloud and some sunshine and light rain. Strangers call everyday. Still shooting and skinning wood chucks. 31. Harry Lee and friend call today wants me to write an introductory to his volume of war or soldier poems. Doubt if I can do it. Sept. 1. Two car loads of people call. - One from Poughkeepsie and one from Roxmore. A cloudy rather raw day with spirts of fine rain. Killed 3 chucks today. 2. Cloudy from S.W. with light showers, warmer, Mr. Maxwell from Oklahoma comes all the way from N.Y. to see me, a banker, 41 years old, a great loving my books, more and more people comes to see me. They wear a path to my door. Probably no other American writer was ever so ran after. It is a doubtful compliment, ten or fifteen strangers each day, mostly residents of the state. 3. Rained all night with thunder. Rained all day from N.E. In p.m. a hard down pour for 3 or 4 hours. Clearing at 6 p.m. The ground all afloat. Green pools and green rills everywhere in the pastures. Woodchuck actually drowned out their holes, I shot one by a hole that was full of water; he was all wet and muddy; had evidently just got out in time to save his life; a near by hole where I saw a chuck a few days ago, full of water. Rarely in the spring is there such a surplus of water. The main streams will all be out of their banks. 13. After a week of cloud and rain, we have a perfect day but cool, only one hot day and night so far, hot enough to dispense with all covering but the top sheet, my time is mainly occupied in receiving callers and in shooting and skinning woodchucks, I have some fine days upon the hills watching for de marmots average about 2 per day - some fine ones health improving daily and strength returning, also gaining in weight. Wellie and his wife and mother comes over to dinner. Sept 28. Beautiful day after much cloud and some rain, a light frost last night - our first, blackened the squash leaves here and there, but did not touch the tomatoes. Woodchucks holing up, killed my last down by Caswells yesterday. Northern lights at night. 19. Partly cloudy and warmer, a storm coming, saw 2 chucks today. John Shea and I try to dig one out in the Ford lot, reach the end of his hole, but no chuck there. The end not more than 2 feet deep - the course of the hole almost a circle. 28. The third of the clear perfect days. The fore pat of the week cold and stormy. Yesterday clear and cold - drove to Hobart and dined with Mag - a pretty cold drive. I seemed to get very near Eden amid the old scenes. Everything spoke of him. I stood long by the grave of M's and Hiram's. Our first severe frost Friday night - blackened Julian and his family came on this 20th for a day and night. John shot his first chuck some some of the squash vines, but did not hurt tomatoes down to 36 degrees. Much warm today - 78 thus forenoon on the porch, 70 now at 6 p.m. and clear as a bell and calm. Saw one woodchuck today. Lameness on my left hip - last week it was in my right hip. Still working at the woodchuck skins. Julian and his family came up on Saturday the 20th and stayed till Sunday 3 p.m. John shoot his first woodchuck with my rifle. Oct 3. A hot day for Oct. 78. Leave Wodchuck Lodge today for West Park. Start at 12 1/2 Two slight mishaps. Reach Rondout at 5 and West Park at 5 1/2 no trouble from my left leg in drowning. But very painful to walk when I get out the car. 4. Had a good night, mild overcast. Gordon Sarre come in car to take me at Yama Farms, a fine early drive. Reach Yama at 5, leg not painful. 5. A good sleep, a warm night and a warn day and very calm. Drive down to the farm e.t.c. Too much on my feet today in p.m. leg troublesome but try to make myself believe that the arc light and the message and help at 3 1/2lbs heavier than at 6p.m. yesterday - too much - must eat less. Now at 8 p.m. hair but little pain. Hear the Katy-dids, through my open window - the first I have heard for years. Oh, for the peace and seclusion of Woodchuck Lodge. 6. A slow warm rain till the p.m. Then clearing off and a bright sun. I keep quiet and read" Fighting in the Flying Circus" by Kickenback. - Very absorbing - a remarkable all young fellow. Weight yesterday stripped 122 1/2 today 122. When I came on Saturday it was 119 1/4 - According to the astronomer the birth of our solar system was an accident. In the due past, a billion years ago or more our sun passed sufficiently near another to moble the tidal force to disrupt one or the other and from that disruption. was born over planetary system. Only one chance in 1800 they say of this happening in a billion years, the sidereal space is so vast. But of course it has happened on you and I would not be here. Hence that other suns have a family of planet is such a remote probability that it is negligible. The stars are so widely spaced that the chances of collision involves almost infinite time. 16. Warm light rain, very humid. Leave Yama on 8:24 train. Home on noon train. Leg apparently cured, strength much improved. Glad to be near Julian again. 17. Colder and clearing after a night of slow rain. Feel well. Take my meals with J. Sleep in nest. Write little and send off MS. to Deleneat and no frost here yet, maples in all their glory. 18. Off to N.Y. stay at Dr. J's till Monday, when C.B. and I go to see the Arizona pictures in p.m. very beautiful, a dozen of my friends come. 20. At night am taken with symptom of my old trouble - fever 100 2/5. 21. C.B. and the Johnsons start for home N.Y. to attend Paul's wedding, Mrs. Childs sends car for me. 26. Here at the Childs since the 21, slowly getting better. Little or no pain. A low fever 99 2/5 in p.m. walk a mile some day. Weather fair. They take good care of me. Today drive me over to Dr. Johnsons. 27. Home today by W.S.R.R. at 2 p.m. a slight rise in temperature at times, stay in the nest with Paul and Helen. 30. Rain, rain but warm temperature last night up to 99 2/5, preceeded by a mild chill. Took 2 lapaetre pills a big evacuation from [small intestines] I think. It astonished me - accounts for the dull and the insomnia. An enema is not enough - must look more after the little guts. they get gorged a lapactic every night now and an even every second day. In study with fire arrange and sorting MSS, C.B. at Port Byron since 24th. 31. Warm, rain all forenoon some sunshine in p.m. Go over to S.S, walk in from the road. Fever returns tonight when I thought I had mastered it 99 1/5 very baffling. Nov 3. To N.Y. today, Paul drives me to P. no temperature. Stops with the Roofs on Central park West for 2 days and nights. 5 and 6. At Mr. Franks 66th street East, a fine house and real hospitality. 7 and 8. At Robert Underwood Johnsons on Lexington Ave, a good time, an admirable home. 9. Start for home on 1:15 train on W. Shore R.R. Reach home at 4.30. 10. Clear sharp day, heavy frost last night, cut the green leaves of the mulberry and made them fall heavily to the ground, cut the Lima beans also. Write letters and overhaul MSS. Warmer in p.m. C.B. not yet home. 16. Frosty nights and some cloudy days since the 10th. C.B. came early on week. We plan for California. Mr. Ford sends check of $2500 to put us through. Pass the days in study writing letters and reading. Below freezing the past 3 nights. 23. Went to Yama Farm on Monday 17th Paul and Helen drove me over a cold clear dry week, mercury down to 25. Do much reading, spend much time at the Hut. Leg grumbles a good deal. Read Malkolms Muklers book on the Vandals of Europe. Throws a flood of light on the German, also the book by the Kaisers dentis, Davies, very interesting and well done. Re read some of Mark Twain; Emerson's Life, made my first acquaintance with Horace, a man after my own heart; my tastes were his tastes, cared little for his poetry, but got much out of his letters - had the gift if self portrayal. He and I would have flourished well together at Slabsides or at Woodchuck Lodge, a real countryman - capable of self entertainment, a sweet simple, candid soul. Read Henry James Journey in France - uninteresting. What can be less interesting than minute description of towns and cities, one has never seen! 21. Milder, home today. They bring me to Kingston in p.m. Home at 4:40. 22. Clear and dry and pretty cold. Sit in study and write and sort MSS. 23. Partly cloudy. Cool, getting ready for Cala. trip no snow here yet. 24. Clear and sharp and still. Dec 1st. Start for California on 4 p.m. train. 2d. At Mr. Fords, spend two fine days there; a new bird, the Bohemian Wax wing -100 or more of them very tame, very beautiful. 5. Mr. and Mrs. Ford drive me to Battle Creek - 120 miles. 6. At Battle Creek Sanitarium spend one week there and am treated for chronic constipation, a wonderful institution. I am amazed at its size and at its equipment. I am much benefitted. meet many people, speak at two club dinner, at the high school, the academy the social economics school and one evening in the partons of the sanitarium. Speak much more easily and readily than ever before - bring down the house many times. Dr. Kellogg a great man and a benefactor of his kind. 12. Leave for Chicago, stop with the Pritchards at Edge Water hotel, a banquet at night when I speak again with success. 14. The girls of the university give me a dinner after which I talk for an hour. Then to De Loaches where I spend a few pleasant days. Julian and McCarthy are there. Glad to see them. 18. At Glen Bucks a few days. C.B. and Mrs. J. comes to lunch, cold and snowy. A reception one evening at which I talk again. Nearly an hour, subject Roosevelt. 19. Start for Cala. on South Ferr train at 7.35 p.m. 20. All day in Kansas. 21. In Cala. near Mexico. 22. In Arizona, stop at Grand Canyon, as overwhelming as ever, spend day there; enjoy McCarthy's and Julian's amazement and emotion. 23. Reach Los Angeles at night. Take train for Del near Miss Scrippe meets us with car, reach La Jolla and the Wisetaria at 9 a.m. 24. In this earthly paradise once more. All sun and sky and ocean. What splendor, what novelty. 25. Xmas, The pacific furnishes the music, the sky furnishes the glory and Miss Scripps furnishes the dinner, never spent such a Xmas in such an environment before. - The wave blossoms when it breaks. Drive to San Diego for lunch and then to Sanitarium then to an old town in Mexico. Home at 5 1/2 much fatigued. Go to bed at 10 - unable to get warm, at bout 1 a.m. have a bad chill, the worst for years I know what it means - my old enemy auto intoxication. I have gained six lbs, in past two weeks, must now lose all I have gained. 9 a.m. a fine movement from the 2 lapactic pills, temperature at 8, 99 2/5 - at 9.45 down to my normal 97.3/5 28. Still all sun, sky and sea. Well again, no temperature, a good sleep, feel in good condition. 29. The same continued. 30. A few clouds, a long drive over Solidad- grand views. 31. Partly cloudy, work on MSS. Julian paints sea pictures. 1920 Jany 1st. Partly cloudy, a slight astock of autointoxication last night - temperature up to 90. But all gone this morning night and day the hair seals bark out in the sea in front of us. The killdeer or ring necked plovers are about the house on the lawn and walks. Common as robins, Gulls, Cormorant and Pelican along the beach now and then a robin in a tree, warblers and finches on the lawn and occasionally a small slender thrush. 7. Cold and clear the last few days, down to 40. Want as much covering at night as at home and at as much in driving, one day and one night of rain - rain much needed by farmers, a long drive today. back in the mountains and then to Point Loma - 60 miles in all, on the 5th talked before the [Urrney Club for 3/4 of an hour - a harum scarum talk, but seems to have given much pleasure. Today am to talk before the Y.W.C.A. in San Diego. Writing a little each day; health good. Gambler sparrow, the tree sparrow and a species of Pipet; and yellow rumped warblers on the lawn. The killdeer plovers are gone. 8. Clear and cold, drive to San Diego to speak at a luncheon of the Woman's club. Dr. very well. 9. Clear and cold, a fine sleep last night. Pay C.B. $500 on her salary. - pays for one year from date or 1920. 10. Clear, cold, a Mr. Clark has just called - an engineer on some Northern R.R. but deeply interested in birds and in psychology His appreciation of my books knows no bounds, he says as other often say that I have little conception of what my books have done for people. I hardly know why I am so indifferent to such testimony. It goes in one ear and comes out the other. The reason probably is that I did not write my books to please the public. I wrote them to please myself. If I had made one sacrifice or undergone any hardships or self denial, to please others, I should be pleased if I found I had succeeded. But there is no merit In my success. I could not help it. It was all for any pleasure. 17 A busy week and cold. On Monday we drove over to the Imperial valley, 120 miles, most of the way through and over great wastey granite mts. Towards the last they were like huge piles of gigantic potatoes in size from pumpkins to that of elephants and larger. Rock avelanches were hanging over you and waiting below you. Death and destruction seemed imminent on all side, very little vegetation and none at the last, the naked earth colored boulders lay blistering in the sun. They had weathered smooth and were clinging at the angle of repose - a succession of piles of granite pornsues de terres, 2 or 3 hundred feet high. It was all like a nightmare, never saw mountain scenery further removed from the green smooth restful hills that I know so well. They tired me like a fever - a leprosy of stone - the granite smitten with small pox, at last we streak a cement road and rolled swiftly 30 miles into Al Centro, a wonderful valley and immense; with irrigation very productive. The soil is made up of the finest silt, the very flower of the rocks. It is greatly and sticky. Here is the dump of the gods who excavated the Grand Canyon. The colorado brought all this material from the farrows canyon. And it still keeps the canyon habit; the river and rains cut rectangle grooves in it or leave architectural remains or leave detached positions of soil bounded by right lines, level or vertical. First night suffered greatly with cold - did better the second night at the accidental Hole(?) Prices of living lower than on this side. On Wednesday came back in the train - through tunnels and over bridges and skirting chasms at a startling rate - very tiresome. 15 Very tired after the trip to the great valley. 16 Much better. Speak twice today to school children - in a.m.to the small fry, and in p.m. to the young ladies of the Bishop School. Do very well in p.m. 17 Clear and warmer; feel fairly well. 18 Fair day, write in a.m. 19 Fair and warm. Write in a.m. 20 Our first day of cloud, no gleam of sunshine today. Write in a.m. on our laura birds and on insect life. Walk on the rocks on beach. in p.m. with Julian. All the surface of the rocks and the pools and water between them covered or filled with myriad form of sea life. Some dissolve their way down into the rock other bonach like forms raise huge pimples on their surface. 21 Cloudy, cold. Write in a.m. Many callers, tiresome. 22 Cloudy, cold. Write in a.m. no callers yet. 23 Speak before the University Club at San Diego, 100 or more brainy men, lawyers, doctors, clergymen and others. Lyman Gaze once secretary of treasury and now a Theosophist with Mrs Tryegly among them, spoke on great men. I have known Emerson, Whitman, Roosevelt and c. Was well read evoked many to laugh, spoke 40 minutes - 1/4 hour longer than they usually allow. But I did not feel quite at home. 24 Speak for the Campfire girls at the Painted desert. Have a good time and give the girls some good points about camping and cooking over camp fire, also some nature hints. 25 Foggy mornings, but no rain. Go to the Biological station to reception of Prof. Ritter am compelled to talk again to the children. 26 Foggy morning, clear at noon. 27, 28 Cold, foggy. Go to San Diego today and speak before the Automobile Club, nearly a hundred hard headed, practical business men each with a pipe or cigar or cigarette on his mouth, hard work to speak to them. 29 Fog and cold. Go to San Diego and speak before the Francis Parker school - over a hundred pupils from 6 to 16, speak fairly well, but not with the ease I ought to command, my vocal machinery does not run as smoothly and easily as it did 3 weeks ago. I see that the man who made this Pacific side of the continent worked from models on all occasions. Long before you pass the great divide, you see his canyon models. He began to make them on a small scale, only a few feet wide and deep, sides vertical, bottom nealry flat and architectural features throughout. When you get to the Grand Canyon, you see what all those preliminary studies were for. The same with the mountains; he modeled the Sierra Madre range in masses of clay only a few feet high and a few yds longs, indicating all the dows and canyons and fleeting that were to be copied in the finished mts. He was a wise old gentleman. Feb 7 Another week of sunshine. Warmer yesterday and today. Spent some time each day, studying the Trap Door spider. Many callers, some lovely, drives with Julian. Birds are singing more and more. Planning to leave here Monday for Pasadena. 13 Another week driving, calling, writing in morning. Rain one [2] night and part of a day. Frost the past 3 nights. On 11th spoke before the Audubon Clubs in Los Angeles, a big crowd, did not do very well. Bright and warmer today, a bad night last night - palpitation from 2 a.m. till 5 - from eating too much corn meal much for supper. Beware. Cloudy this morning. I asked Mr. Stevens if it was going to rain "I don't know" he said. "I have been here too long. Ask some one who has just come, he can tell you." 15 Clear and lovely - no frost. The Wilson Lansing back, moves me as it moves the whole country. The tide of opinion sweeps against Wilson, never did a president of the U.S. ever before write such insulting letters to his secretary of state. Wilson arrogance and conceit are insufferable. He wants to be the whole government and consult and conflict with no one. He puts his ugly nose in the ear and sees no one. It has been so from the first. He led us into the European conflict in grand style. No rules ever before wrote such inspiring and eloquent state papers. For this ideality and grand style they were like messages written upon the sky. But when we leave said that we have said all, what a mess he has made if it since! We may say he laid the egg, but he cannot hatch it or rear the young so far as he could addle it, it is addled. A one man government will not go in this country. Wilson will go down in history like a new star that suddenly shone out brightly and then dwindled and went out in smoke or nebulous mist. He has surrounded himself with inferior men, because he wanted only inferior men; his egoism could break no rivalry or advice. Damn him. - My faith as a naturalist or naturist is like that of a man who talks out a life policy in an insurance Co. He believes that the Co. is sound and will meet its obligation. So I believe that the universe is solvent and can be trusted. I do not think the nature god made a mistake or will ever default; yet my religion is not of the nature of an insurance against some future[personal] evil or danger. It is not personal I am not laying up store in heaven. This is all the heavens I expect or want. It is a faith on the universe, that is good, that this is the last possible world and these are the best possible people. My faith asks nothing , it is to own reward. For the most part of the faith of people in another world is a want of faith in this world. They crave another world to make up for their disappointments and failures in this. Probably that feeling is the origin of nearly all personal religion, past and present - so much of human life defeats itself. Mch 2d, Stay in Pasadena till this morning am besieged by callers and visitors. On Feb 27, at the Gamot Club of Los A. a great ovation, the greatest I ever had, I speaks about 1/2 hour on men I have known. Roosevelt and Carlyle, Clara speaks also and does well. On Feb 28, Speak before a crowded house to the Audubon Club of Pasadena, with success. On Sunday 29th, receive many callers the house through till 10 p.m. Mch 2, To Santa Barbara for one 24 hours an enjoyable time. 3d. To Santa Cruz - stay at Riverside Hotel. Mrs. Atkinson comes in car to Ben Lomond stay with her all night, speak briefly in High School. 4th. At Bun Lomond. 5. To Berkley to Capt. Stones, a grand ride along sky line Boulevard and see the setting sun through the Golden Gate of Sant Frances, stay with the storms till the 10th. 8th. Go to Martinez to grave of John Muir with Capt. Stone and Charles Keeler, long, long, thoughts at Muir's grave. 10. Take train for home. 10. All day on The Cala. Overland Limited, a strange new and beautiful country. First miles of curl brown marshes then level bestest plan with thousands of sheep and crabs. Then low rolling hill covered with fruit orchards - apsicals peaches, cherries, peaches etc. Then desert like hills and fields land devastated by the hydro mining of '49 and later then the deep cannon of the America river and then night. 11. Chanting over and through the sun. 12. In while, cross the guest salt lake plains lower the white and barns not a bush for house, the cross the great salt lake, how surprising at al war! Then into Wyoming and Nebraska through Iowa at night. 13. Reach the Mississippi at 7 The cross Illi. and reach Chicago at noon. Julian takes train for home. De Loach comes for and we are at his house on Burns Hills in due time. 14. Warm spring like, no snow Blue birds and robins rest all day, C.B. goes to her friends. 15. A bad night, threatened rain. My old devil of auto intoxication tour a touch of fever and sore throat, got up at 12 and take a reach out - 4 enemas, with astonishing results from the first three - the 4th a clear return. The diarrhea the day before, meant constipation which the enema I took then did not relive should have rather 2 or three. Feel better this a.m. Pulse normal, no fever now at 12 M. Hope to escape. Looked over Kepling's vol. from nothing in it for me clever but not one precious lime in it - no nothing that reaches the soul. 16. Fever 102, for a short time slept some, appetite good but eat lightly. 17. Fever goes up to 100. 18. But little sleep, hear every hour struck but 4 a.m. Fever keeps up all forenoon but goes down in p.m. to 99. Take 3 enemas and a dose of Sal in morning. 19. A good sleep last night 7 or 8 hours, no fever this forenoon 97 3/5. Goes up to 98 3/5 at 4 p.m. One degree above my normal, a good appetite but eat carefully, a spontaneous bowel movement at 4, very thin at 5 p.m. up to 98 4/5 But little bronchitis since illness began. Dark and snowing. At 8 p.m. 98 3/5. 20. Bright and clear, an ideal sap day. Write and read indoors no temperature. 21. Sunday. Soft, calm, clear, spring day. Walk a little, read and write in doors, Glen Buck calls.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1886
Text: 1886 Jan 15. The stillness, the brightness, the sharpness continue [crossed out: s]. Below zero this morning. Yet the sky and air look as warm as mid-summer. A warm haze fills all the distance and gives a softness and tenderness to the sky. - An oracle, says Pliny, [crossed out: had] predicted that upon a certain day Aeschylus would be killed by the fall of a house; so upon that day the poet would trust himself only under the canopy of heaven, when an eagle flying over let drop a tortoise...
Show more1886 Jan 15. The stillness, the brightness, the sharpness continue [crossed out: s]. Below zero this morning. Yet the sky and air look as warm as mid-summer. A warm haze fills all the distance and gives a softness and tenderness to the sky. - An oracle, says Pliny, [crossed out: had] predicted that upon a certain day Aeschylus would be killed by the fall of a house; so upon that day the poet would trust himself only under the canopy of heaven, when an eagle flying over let drop a tortoise upon his head and killed him.- Dr. Holmes as a writer, is like a stove that always draws well; the fire is very bright and lively and the combustion is complete, but then, the heat is not great, often no more than the heat of rushes or straw. If his profundity and seriousness were equal to his wit and brightness, he would take rank among the great ones. No smoke in our genial Doctor, no smouldering embers, but always the clearest and quickest of flame. - Mr Sanborn thinks John Brown caused thewar. Not so: that which caused Brown, caused the war. He only fanned for a moment the fire that was already deeply kindled. - Various reasons are given why the Greek architects fluted their columns; some say it was to preserve the crystalic effect of the marble. Dr. Curtis says it was to carry the eye upward and to identify the column with the building. But the most obvious reason is that it so enhances the expession of strength; it gives the column an athletic, even muscular look. A smooth polished column looks tame and dull; it might be oftallow for all the eye sees; one almost expects to see it crushed; but add these sharp long slender lines, and what life and activity [crossed out: is] are infused into it! - I look upon that man as lucky who feels a want which the Church can supply. It puts him in relation with the world, [crossed out: with com] gives him an interest with communities far outside of [crossed out: himself] his own neighborhood, that is wholesome and desirable. The name of his Church and his heart throbs with a home feeling wherever he is. It doubtless awakens a more personal and intimatea feeling in him than that of patriotism. The success of the church as an organization and of such societies as the Oddfellows is probably owing largely to this desire which we all have for a closer bond of union with our fellow man. We do not like to feel isolated and alone. A common race, a common country is not enough; there are those who belong peculiarly to us, [crossed out: they] who think and feel as we do; let us in some way unite ourselves to them; let us find our bretheren - put all our hearts together and see if we cannot warm one little spot in this cold universeWhat comfort my father had in his church, and in it organ The Signs of the Times. These were the voices of his brothers and sisters who spoke here, though they lived in Oregon or in Texas; their words warmed him. That they had had the same experience as he had, the same struggles and doubts and despairs, touched him in a way peculiarly close and precious. None of his degenerate sons belong to the church, and none of them are as worthy as he - none of them stand as well as men in the community as he did. I do not speak so much of myself. I know I am fathers superior in some ways, and his inferior in others. I have not his self-reliance, nor his innocence. He was as unsophisticated as a child. [crossed out: And] I cannot accept my [crossed out: lot] place and lot in the world as cheerfully as he did, and I doubt much if I could have fought the same battles as he did, under the same conditions, with the same success. I look back at the work he did - he and Mother - the farm they improved and paid for, the family they reared, with unspeakable longing. How idle and trivial seem my own days! Much of this feeling I know is the passion of the past.Jany 29. Cloudywith some fine rain for three days past. Robins here to-day, going north. - Religion as a special and peculiar or miraculous gift - some-thing entirely outside and independent of a man's natural goodness and practice of of virtue, - something which an upright and blameless man may live and die without and which a cut-throat during his last moment of life upon the scaffold may have - this view of religion has had its day. - Yet, as a rule, the most desperate sinners are the most easily converted. Men who have lived fairly correct and conscientious lives, are less likely to be suddenly smitten with terror and remorse. Just as it seems easier for a man to win the love of a woman who hates him, than the love of one who is indifferent to him. Feb 7. A severe cold wave has just passed over us; thermometer down to 8 or 10 below; ice on the river 13 inches thick. A flock of 25 robins yesterday. - What is great thought but the expression of a great man. Without great men there are no great thoughts. Small men may have bright and entertaining thoughts, but only a truly great man can give one the impression of greatness. Feb 13. Home from N.Y. last night after a 5 days visit. Nothing of note to report. Visited the Morgan collection of pictures; saw a picture by Jules Breton, "The Communicants," that pleased me much. Am convinced that Millet ran his theory into the ground at times. In the Wood Splitter, you cannot tell whether the back ground is woods or tied up bunches of corn stalks, or sugar cane. His figures are great because of their seriousness, and the force of nature they hold or expressAt the Water Color exhibition saw little that took me, tho' I am no judge of pictures. Stayed two nights with Gilder and went with him to the authors Club, a slim turn-out, a pretty slim set of authors at best, when all are there. They blackballed Walt Whitman not long since. Think what the hope of American letters is in the hands of such men! I sincerely pity them. They are mostly the mere mice of literature. Such men as Gilder and Stedman and DeKay recognize Whitmen, but probably the least one of the remainder believes himself a greater man.J.W. Alexander makes a sketch of me for the Century - a good picture I should say, but not a good likeness. A pouring rain on Thursday 4 1/2 inches of water in 24 hours. Rain continued on Friday and Saturday. - 14. Warm; Snow nearly all gone; bees out of the hive; ground overflowing with water again. Killed two native mice in my bee-hive where they had feasted on bees and honey all winter. Blue-birds call as in spring. Feels and looks like spring.Feb 18. Clear; ground bare, signs of spring. Pretty good sap weather. Purple finch in song this morning; song sparrow, in song yesterday; robins eating the frozen apples on the tree. Etta, our Clintondale girl, one of the best we ever had, left last night for home, and the dish-towel is again taken up by me. Mrs. B's ill temper, the cause as usual. No girl of spirit can stand it here more than three months. 28. To Millerton on the 24th to examine the bank. Heavy rains on Thursday [crossed out: Friday], the 25thFriday, Saturday and to-day, bright, hard, sharp and very windy. The roaring winds of March. Thermometer down to 7 or 8. Ground bare and hard as iron. Ice on river smooth and firm. - The last of the proof of new book to-day; probably the least valuable of my books. Mch 1st Days of polished iron, cold, windy, hard and sharp. Mercury at 8 this morning. 7. The blizzard has tapered off into calm, clear, remarkably bright days. Not a cloud in the sky yesterday or today. Sharp and dry; ice on the river like a plain of burnishedsteel; roads getting dry. No thoughts for a month past, still reading Gibbon, began last July. Am determined to finish him by April. Carlyle read him in 12 days; I cannot do it in 12 months at least. - Whole seasons pass and I make not one new observation, gather not one new fact; other seasons again I make many of them. It all depends upon your temper or frame of mind. If you are not in the mood for the new facts you will not find them. The new facts are always there beforeyou; the question is, will you, or can you, see them. Some conditions of the mind and heart attract facts as a magnet attracts iron filings; other conditions repel them, or pass them by indifferently. When I am intent upon any particular phase of natural history, I meet with new facts and confirmations everywhere. If a man thinks about arrow heads in his walk, he will be surprised at the number he will find. Train your eye to pick out four-leafed clovers, and you find them everywhere.Mch 10. Sharp, bright day. Ice moved up last night on the river. To-day it is in motion (very slow and entire) below the ice house. Days a perfect plank to me so far as original thought or observation goes. 17 Much bright mild weather, sap weather so far. Julian and I have boiled three day out under the trees by the spring. - The religion of the great mass of people is only a matter of prudence, a form of their present world--liness. They look out ahead, they invest in the securities of the Church because they believe the returns will be ample by and by. How rash, how imprudent to run the risk of going to Hell when a little caution and self-denial now will make all secure! Take the great body of the Catholics, for instance, what are they looking out for but the safety of their bacon, of high spiritual things, what do they know or care? Our methodist bretheren, for the most part, invest in religion from motives of prudence; they do it after duly considering it, as they would a business venture.That which a man can choose or reject is not religion; that is an opinion, or a theory; religion is as vital to him as the color of his blood; he has it, or he has it not, and there is no choice about it. Who would not say that Julian, the Apostate, had more religion than any known Roman of his time - more than of the real essence of Christianity. - Lowell is not a healing or helpful writer; he does not touch the spirit, the soul; but reaches only the wit, the fancy, the intelligence. He has no religion, none of thatsubtle piety and goodness and lovingness that mark the great teachers and founders. Writers and poets might well be divided into two classes; those who rest with the mind, and those who penetrate to the spirit. Poets like Pope and his school, men of quick and keen intelligence, and prose writers like Lowell, belong to the former class; while Wordsworth, Emerson, Carlyle, and men of this stamp belong to the latter, and address the soul.The Westminster Review praises my style etc; says language in my hands is like a violin in the hands of a master. But really I have no dexterity as a writer; I can only walk along a straight, smooth path. Of the many nice and difficult things I see done in prose by dozens of writers I am utterly incapable. What I see and feel I can express, but it must be all plain sailing. I do not know how to utter platitudes, if I wanted to, and the other things come only at rare intervals.Mch 19. Finished Gibbons Decline and a Fall this morning, began last summer; my principal reading during all these months. Not easy reading to me. Gibbon's sentences are like spheres - there is only a smooth curved surface for a mind to grasp. Carlyle groaned over Frederick, but how much more reason had Gibbon to groan over his task; and yet he says it "amused and exercised twenty years." His work is like a piece of masonry of dressed stone. Every sentence fits its place; there is not a jaggedline or an unfinished spot anywhere. And it is plain to see that he tore his material from the rocks and mountains as it were, and set it in this smooth, compact order. A splendid bridge as Carlyle said to Emerson, leading from the old world to the new. - To read Gibbon is to be present at the creation of the world - the modern world. We see the chaos out of which it came; we see the breaking up of old worlds, old conditions and races and the slow formation of the new. The most astonishing and impressive thing in the history of the worldare those swarms upon swarms of barbarians, from the North from the East, from the South perpetually breaking in and over-running the old Empire. One comes to think of the Empire as a circle more or less filled with light; all around it on all sides is darkness, and out of this darkness come [crossed out: rid] fiercely riding these savage hords; as soon as they cross the line made visible to us, out of this fierce volcanic lava of humanity the modern races and worlds have arisen. The main push and impulse comes always from the plains of Central Asia; this seems to be the well-head of mankind. What we see in Roman history is doubtless but a continuation of a process which had been going on for many ages; it is agreed by all that our Aryan ancestors were an eruption from the same fertile source. Mch 27. Much bright cold weather so far in March, much good sap-weather. Roads getting quite dry. Frost about out of the ground, a little rain and snow last night. Bright to-day.Mch 28. Bright day, Sunday. Julian and I walk to the woods and burn an old pine stub, much fun for J and for me too. Hear the first little frog not in the swamp, but in the woods. Newts getting ready to spawn in the water. Van B reports the wood-frog lively in a little pool in the woods beside the road. 29. Go home to-day; reach there at noon. Go up with Hiram from Depot. No sugar weather - rainy. 30. Rainy, but tap part of the bush in afternoon. 31. Still wet; finish the bush to-day.April 1st Heavy rain last night with thunder - the second thunder storm of March, both followed by warm weather instead of cold, as the sign indicates. Bright and windy to-day. All day I boil sap in the old bush; reduce 160 pails to 4 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Enjoy it much. 2nd Still bright and cool; wander about the old place in fore noon with long, long thoughts. Oh, the pathos of the old scenes where my youth was passed where father and mother lived and died, and where my heart has always been. When I come home a sort of perpetural fever I havesubsides, the old place soothes and satisfies me, and yet there is pain too amid it all, the pain one has in walking amid graves. During the rain I sat in the house and read Caesar's Commentaries and the Bible. 3rd My 49th birth-day. Came back from home last night; little frogs in full chorus near depot; Snow on the ground this morning, but bright and mild this P.M. Now for the annual inventory of health symptons: Health probably better than one year ago, except sleeplessness; been nearly free of it for pasttwo months, till I went out home, when it came back. Strength good in both arms and both legs; left-leg about as good as the other, harmonize very well. Less pricking and smarting in ends of fingers and toes than one year ago. Heart still flutters at times, probably indigestion. But little head ache since last fall. Sense of touch better than last spring. 6. Another destructive and damnable rain from the North and East, one of the series of down pours that began last August and have continued every two or three weeks ever since. Everythingafloat. Folly and excess on the part of the weather like that of a drunken man. 9. A perfect spring day at last, one expanse of blue and one flood of light. Bees carrying their first pollen; no wild flowers yet. 11 Sunday - a fine day. Julian and I walk to the woods. See a partridge drum; gather the first arbutus; no hepaticas yet in those woods. 14 A delicious day; warm as May. This to me is the most bewitching part of the whole year. Ones relish is so keen and the bites are so few and so tender. How the fields of winter rye stand out! They call up a vision of England. A perfect day in April, far excels a perfect day in June. How busy the bees are to-day carrying pollen - every bee in a hurry. The river crinkles and stirs slowly and lazily, as if it too enjoyed the warmth and the blue sky. How clearly and singly the bush-sparrows song is projected upon the fresh warm [crossed out: side] quiet. Phoebe and song sparrow building yesterday and to-day. Such days have all the peace and geniality of summer without any of its satiety or enervating heat.April 15. Not much cloud this morning, but much vapor in the air. A cool south wind with streaks of pungent vegetable odor. When I smell too determinedly for it I miss it, but when I let my nose have its own way and take in the air slowly, I get it. An odor of a myriad swelling buds. 16 The fair days continue, tranquil, peaceful, brooding April days, the most delicious of the year. Soft vapory moon-light nights too. In the morning the long drawn call of the highhole comes up, then the tender rapid thrill of the little bush or russet sparrow, then the piercing sword like note of the meadow starling.I am content to sit about all day and dream and muse, and let my eye roam over the landscape, lingering long on the emerald spots. - Always on the extreme verge of time; this moment that now passes is the latest moment of all eternities. New time always; the time we have lived and mellowed and that has been hallowed by [crossed out: ?] the presence of friends or parents, or great events, is forever gone; this we keep only in memory. The day is always new, hence the crudeness and rawness and prosiness of the present. We can keep the old, all except the old times. The oldhouse, the old fields, and in a measure the old friends, but the atmosphere that bathed it all, the past days, this we cannot keep. Time does not become sacred to us until we have lived it, until it has passed over us and taken with it a part of ourselves. While it is here we value it not; but the instant it is gone and become yesterday or last week, how tender and poetic it looks to us. Oh, the power of the past! How the days accumulate behind us, and turn their beautiful sad faces toward us. Here we stand upon the verge, the shore of time, with all thatgrowing past back of us, like a fair land idealized by distance into which we may not enter, or to which we may not return. The future is unknwon to us, [crossed out: does] in fact, does not exist, but the past is a part of ourselves. The days are our children which we have for a little time and then they are taken from us; one by one they step across the line into that land from which there is no returning, and not till they are gone do we see how beautiful and pathetic they were and how deeply we loved them. If our friends should come back fromthe grave they [crossed out: would] could not be what they were to us, unless our dead selves came back also. How precious and pathetic the thought of father and mother yet the enchantment of the past is over them also. [crossed out: The pathos of the memory of them blends with and is enhanced by the deep pathos of the past.] They are in that sacred land, their faces shine with its hallowed light, their voices come to us with its moving tones. Probably the last time you looked upon your aged father and mother in life, you said now let me forestall the grief which I shall feel when he is gone, let me feel it now; I know it must soon come; let me look upon him as with the eyes of the future when he shall be taken away. But you cannot, you cannot anticipate the past; you cannot see the present as you will see the past; beyond the impassable gulf all things assume new and strange features. Probably there is no clew to the past like music, or like a closely allied sensation, that produced by odor. Music and perfume bring back the past to us vividly; a whiff of a certain fragrance, the smell of a room of a flower, the breath of a wandering breeze, or a longforgotten air, or melody, a snatch of a song etc, and [crossed out: for a] like a flash the past is resurrected, for a brief moment we live the life of other days, and live it as it is to the imagination, not as it was to the dull sense. It comes over us like a wave and is gone. We can never see the color of the present; we do not know what it is like until it is gone, and this because it is not complete until it is gone; then it detaches itself, like a fruit. A glimpse of a day, a year, or several years ago, set in the midst of this, [crossed out: thereby] and then you see what it was like. I met a friend I had not seen for a quarter of a century; the sight of his face did not restore him to me, but his voice, that brought it all back; that made the dead alive The great power of music is this power it has to restore the past, and restore it idealized and complete. April 21. The enchanting days continue without a break. Ones senses are not large enough to take them all in. Maple buds just bursting, apple trees full of infantile leaves. How the poplars and willows stand out. A moist warm, brooding haze over all the Earth. All day my little rustic or bush sparrow sings and trills divinely. The most pronounced bird music in April is from the sparrows. The yellow birds are lust getting on their yellow coats. I saw some yesterday that had a smutty, unwashed look from the new yellow shining through the old drab webs of the feathers. Thermometer ranges from 75 to 78. 24. The warm tranquil weather confined till noon to-day when the change came from the north, wind and cloud and rain and thunder. Much cooler. Plumb and cherry trees in bloom. All the groves and woods lightly touched with new foliage. Looks like May. Violets and dandelions in bloom. Sparrows nest with two eggs. Maples hanging out their delicate fringe-like bloom. This period of sunshine and calm, this peace and reposeand repose of the weather, just ended, corresponds to the October calm, which we call the Indian summer. The vernal equipoise. 27. Cool, overcast. Go to Northampton to-day. Spend an hour in Hudson walking the streets. Look across to the Catskills and think of father and the many times he crossed the mountain in spring and fall. Long, long thoughts. When father was a boy of 12 or 13 he came to Hudson with his father in a lumber wagon all the way thence into Columbia Co. to visit friends; must be 70 years ago. Reach Northampton at 2 P.M. beautiful country; the heart of New England, a ripe mellow country. The meadows a great feature. So many colleges all about seem to give an air of culture which our state lacks. Great enthusiasm among the college girls. I lead great packs of them (40 or 50) to the fields and woods and help them ideftify the birds by their calls and songs. Two or three times a day we go forth once to the top of Mt.Tom. On Wednesday the President drives me to Amherst, a beautiful place, a sort of high island in a great rolling plain.30 Home to day via Hartford and Fishkill, a fine day; good view of the country. May 3rd Lovely day. Apple-trees in bloom. Cherry trees have dropped their bloom. Maple tree cast quite a shadow. Ash and chestnut brushed with tender green. Season very early. 4 No May birds till this morning when wren and warbling vireo appeared. Air full of white vapor, warm and bright. Expect to start on my trip South and West to-night.May 4 9 1/2 A.M. - How it comes over me at times, that ones father and mother saw just such a day, saw spring come in the same way, the same feeling in the air, the same hopes and thoughts in their hearts. They saw the apple bloom come, heard the hum of bees, the voice of birds, and the world seemed young and fresh to them. How busy they were, he with his [crossed out: crops] "springs work" she with house hold affairs. Now alas, it is all over with them as soon it will be all over with us, and others will take our places. June 22nd The summer solstice finds me back from my seven weeks wanderings, apparently a sadder but not a wiser man. One cannot long run away from his sadness, nor easily overtake wisdom. All my sad moods and thoughts I find here on my return; a pale sisterhood of regrets and longings and remembrances; here they are again to bear me company. They could not follow me through the din and dust and excitement of my journeyings; only occasionally did I get a glimpse of them; they love solitude, and here they are. Well, welcome drooping and melancholy friends. I could not well do without you after all; I am glad to be back with you again, and to taste your bitter-sweet draught. Thoughts of father and mother, how could I part with you, and how far off you seemed to me in busy Chicago, or [crossed out: in] riding about Kentucky. Now you shall be near me again, the one on my right hand and the other on my left. And the domestic imps and furies, you too can now have your day; you have had but little chance at me for many weeks; now lay on. - Find the country very greenand fresh; a cool wet June in this section On Wednesday May 5th I saw Walt Whitman; spent two or three hours at his home in C. He was not very well and I was myself dull. He looked as fine as usual, sitting there by the window. On Thursday I went to Washington whither Mrs. B and Julian had gone the day before. Was in W. from May 6th till May 16th when I set out for KY. Arrived at Frankfurt, May 18, and drove about the Blue Grass region with Mr. Proctor till Friday 28th when I went to the Mammoth Cave; spent the Sunday at the Cave. Monday left for St. Louis; spent partof June 1st in St. Louis; then up the river by steamer to Quincy; then to Payson to meet the Allabens, friends of 30 years ago. Spend 2nd, 3rd and 4th of June with them; then to Chicago where we stay till June 15th stopping with Dr Burroughs - one of the best men I have yet known. From Chicago to Cleveland where we spend 3 days with the Pecks; then to Niagara on the 18th, then to Utica, where we pass Sunday, then home on the 21st. The fruits of the trip not yet obvious; whether I absorbed anything or not, remains to be determined. July 1st Still bright, cool, translucent days, remarkable. Currants all shipped yesterday, very listless and inactive; too much so at times; something wrong physically. Probably the re-action after the strain of travel. 3rd Soft, cool, hazy; a slight breeze from the river gently lifting the leaves. The smell of the blooming timothy upon the air; the rye fields nearly ready for the cradle 7th The first terrible heat of July: 96 degrees in the coolest shade sparrows and robins in full song. Chestnut trees hoary with bloom, strawberries yet hold out. No thoughts, no observations - dull - dull.July 12. Cool and dry. How the sunbeams dance upon the water this morning. A blue bird (male) with a note suggestive of a thrush - the olive-backed thrush; never hear it but I think of a thrush. No doubt but the progenitor of the blue-bird was a thrush. The speckled breast of the young, indicates this according to Darwins law. - Am reading Drummonds "Natural Law in the Spiritual World", the most [crossed out: amazing] transparent piece of sophistry I ever dipped into. An attempt to show that Calvinism, Scotch Presbyterianism, is scientifically true, or capable of scientific verification. By "Spiritual world" - he means the world of Scotch Presbyterianism. -"Christopher North" said finely that is is not necessary that we should understand fine poetry in order to feel and enjoy it, any more than fine music." 17 The middle of Summer. A fine rain at last from the south west, mainly at night. Strawberries yet to-day; raspberries nearly finished. Laddie kills a wood-chuck to-day upon the door stone, while we are at dinner. The varmints getting very bold; he killed one the other day near my study. Meditating an article on Drummonds Natural Law in the Spiritual World" - a book that will not hold water. 22 Cool, delicious summer weather, never saw a pieasanter July; only three or four very hot days so far. Spent most of day in the woods near P. a most delicious day long to be remembered. Walked up at 5 P.M. to Hyde Park along that beautiful and stately road. 27 Damp and muggy. Walked across country to Salt Point most of the way in a slow rain - 10 miles. A pleasant visit. Return next day. Aug 3rd Light rains the past week and much heat. But to-day is quite autumnalovercast and windy; real autumn clouds; thermometer about 64 degrees at noon. 13. August days of great tranquility; pretty hot: 86 degrees in shade and dry. The little russet or rustic bush sparrow still in full song. Soon squally domestic skies. 15 A clear, hard, brilliant, dry day, rather cool; ground getting very dry. "Papa" says Julian, "What is born with you won't grow again if it is cut off, will it?" Had a scare over the dear boy to day from the results of a bee sting on back of his neck. But he is all right again.- I notice that as one grows older he is less and less disposed to go cross lots. He finds that it is but little farther around the beaten way and that he can make the distance about as quick and a good deal easier. In taking the short cut one has fences to climb and ditches to leap, and he [crossed out: wants] needs the blood of youth. Hence, if we begin as radicals and revolutionists we generally end as conservatives and old fogies. - Discovered in Roxbury the other day that the solitary bee carries pollen on the under side of its body. The abdomen is covered with short hairs which hold the pollen. One of the bees stung me after provocation, but did not leave its stinger. Aug 22 Home to day, called by a telegram, expecting to find Curtis dead. Found him better, and not seriously ill. Up to Hirams in afternoon. 23. Up through the woods and down through the fields where old Sylvester Preston used to live when father first came upon the farm. Drank at his spring and tasted his sour hard apples. Then to Curtises. Find him dressed and walking about the house. Give him $10. He has a hard struggle and his boys are no help to him. He was the best worker while at home that father had, but he has done poorly for himself; mainly his wifes fault. 25 A day among the graves. In the forenoon go down to the graves of father and mother, and then stroll through the gounds, reading the names of the old residents once so familiar to me. Walk into the old church and stand in the pulpit and look over the empty seats where father and mother sat so often and where I have sat on many sad occasions. Oh, the pathos and the ugliness of the place to me! Why do the old scenes repel us as well as attract us? There is something even about the old home, and about my brothers and sisters, and the old neighbors, that makes an unpleasant impression. What is it? In the afternoon I walked through the Presbyterian burying ground and was astonished at the familiar names on every side staring at me from the cold marble. I seemed to have known in my youth half the people buried there. Here lie five of John Lee's family, all died in a few weeks in the fall of 1850. I remember the circumstances well. We were digging potatoes those days on the side hill above Chases. They all died of bloody dysentery. Here is the grave of Uncle Krum, aged 85, a hard drinker all his old age at least much exposed to wet and cold, and yet he lived thus long. A gruff swaggering kind of man, like a character on the stage. Sadly and long I mused amid the tombs. I seem to have seen all the old people, many of them nearly forgotton, in the flesh once more. I could recall their very looks and voices. If any of them had called out to me, I should have recognized the voice26 To Edens last night, find him and all of them pretty well. To Homer Lynchs in afternoon. In the evening tell them about my Kentucky trip. Jane advises me to give up writing - not to puzzle my head over such things; it is bad for the head! Poor Jane, I fear she has never read a dozen printed words of mine in her life, or shall I say, lucky Jane? But how little she knows of what is going on in this world! 27 Back home to-day. Weather very dry and hot. 28 Thermometer 90 degrees. 30 Slight rain. Last year every rain from August to Jany was very heavy. This yearbeginning in June, they are invariably light and slow. Sept 1st Cool and clear, very charming day. Finished the paper on Science and Theology. 4 To Olive today and a few hours with father North. The old man still hardy with a good color in his face. Go out to the barn and hunt hens eggs for him on the hay mow, lose my spectacles in the hay. - How characteristic these first September mornings, if one could only describe them. How still and meticulous, but how unlike the stillness of spring or summer. The air is resonant or hollow as the farmer says, and every sound distant or near is noticeable. The cawing of crows makes the larger strokes, with an occasional distant low of a cow. Then the call of the jay is a finer stroke; the plaintive call of the young yellow birds Still finer, while a steady unobtrusive under-tone of sound is furnished by the various crickets. Bird songs have ceased; the snicker of a red squirrel is now and then heard, and the piping of a chickadee, or the call of the migrating bobolinks high in the air. One would know it was the first week in Sept. if he were to wake up six months sleep, by the sounds alone. 9. Hot and dry. Oh, so dry! Thermometer 84 degrees 11 All day in the woods beneath the evergreens. An idyllic time. Clear and dry and hot.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: July 25, 1894 - May 9, 1895
Text: July 25. Julian and I are off for Roxbury Stop in Shandaken to fish for rainbow trout; do not catch any. In P.M. proceed to Roxbury; reach the old home at 6 P.M. Find every thing fresh and green, no drought yet. All well; haying well along. 29. The days pass pleasantly. J. works in hay field in afternoon above the barn on Curtis's old place. I sit in the shade on the borders of the wood and look down upon the busy scene in the hay field; the past 4 days very warm; have begun the...
Show moreJuly 25. Julian and I are off for Roxbury Stop in Shandaken to fish for rainbow trout; do not catch any. In P.M. proceed to Roxbury; reach the old home at 6 P.M. Find every thing fresh and green, no drought yet. All well; haying well along. 29. The days pass pleasantly. J. works in hay field in afternoon above the barn on Curtis's old place. I sit in the shade on the borders of the wood and look down upon the busy scene in the hay field; the past 4 days very warm; have begun the slaughter of the wood chucks. Aug 1. We stay here till this morning when we take early trainfor W. P. Ed drives me down. We have killed 85 wood chucks. Boys finish haying Aug 1st. On the 2nd Curtis and I and Julian and Johnny go over to Edens. All well. Hiram a little disgruntled. Catch a few trout. A fine shower on Thursday night. Return to R. on Saturday. Sunday very cool and bright. Gained 7 lbs in 2 weeks. 19. Cool and bright and dry as a bone. The worst drought since 1876. No rain to wet the ground since June 13. A purgatory of dryness; fear the loss of the grape crop. Moores Early nearly ripe. The clouds are like smoke, no energy to the storm impulse. Little dog showers again and again.Cloud after cloud lifts up its leg and dribbles out a few drops. The last light shower was on Aug 3d. In the South they are deluged. -- I doubt if Walter Pater had style in the best sense. He had great policy and finish of expression but these things are not style. He had no simplicity; he did not obey the injunction, as true in art as religion, "Take no heed where with ye shall be clothed." He did take heed; he makes us aware of the fact that he took heed; we are conscious of his style because he was conscious of it; the style is not fused and hidden in the matter.-- it is too much a matter of externals. But I have only read some of his "Appreciations". May be the other books would impress me differently. Perfect workmanship, is one thing, style, as the great writers had it, is quite another. It may go with faulty workmanship -- it is the use of words in a vital and fresh way so as to give the impression of a new and original force and personality. When a mans writing is as distinct as his face or character and could not be mistaken for anothers -- he has the main element of style. -- [crossed out: It] I got one glimplse of my youth while at the old home. While standing out in the new barn with Curtis I turned and looked through the great open door out into the sunlit meadow and hill, and like a flash the old days came back. How many times in youth had I seen just that effect. It was about the season when Curtis and I used to thresh out some of the new rye for father to take to mill. In our work [crossed out: we] our eyes would wander out over this view. In my wood chuck shooting I lingered much about grandfathers old placeover the hill -- killed 5 or 6 chucks there, two that lived in the cellar of the old house. Think of shooting wild creatures peering out from the ruins of you grandfathers house! I dug out the spring and drank there, the spring where my ancestors slacked their thirst one hundred years ago. Father had played here as a child and here mother [crossed out: does] did her first washing after her marriage. A little song sparrow had its nest amid the weeds and briers where stood the old house, and sang so sweetly, but plaintively to my ear -- a bird song amid graves.12. Overcast, and wind southerly, but I do not expect rain It is too much needed. Later -- Drizzled half the day but barely made the leaves drop. 14. The ground aches with dryness. It seems as if the old earth must [???] crack open in these parts, tho' East, South west, north, it has rained copiously. Many of the grapes wilting -- shall not have half a crop at the best, not a drop of water has been added to the stock of moisture in the ground since early in June. The light showers since then have only served to check evaporation for a day or an hour. 15 After great effort it rained 15 minutes to-day quite hard -- freshened the grass a little, but did not go through the dust in the vineyard. South of us the rain was heavier. 17. Dry and cool and hard, wind north since the little shower. Dew water in the vineyard yesterday. 18. Southerly winds. Threw water on vineyard to-day through Campbells engine Shall watch the result with interest. It was a great satisfaction at any rate to see the water flow in spite of the weather. I enjoyed a real triumph. 20. Cloudy, a slow drizzle all forenoon; barely made the eaves drop. At 5 1/2 a sharp shower for 12 or 15 minutes. First Wordens to-day. 21 Cool, clear, north winds23. The hellish drought continues -- a sky of brass and a sun of copper. No clouds in the sky for 3 days. In the South they are deluged and have been for weeks -- Six inches of rain yesterday in some places in Ala. and 3 inches in Miss. -- This is my theory of the cause of the hard times -- We are in the high tide of the industrial age. The energies of mankind every where in civilized countries have been for a long time bent upon the production of things and the accumulation of wealth, and augmented by science and machinery, the productive power of every man has beenSincerely Yours John Burroughsincreased the fad, while his consumption power has not been much increased. It is all production and no destruction. In former times a large part of the energies of mankind were directed into [crossed out: to] war or destructive channels. Hence in our time we have reached a plethoric or congested state, over-production in all departments. A general European war would make better times at once. Why? Because it would divest vast tides of energy and wealth into destructive channels, and make an outlet for our congested manufacturies and agriculture 25. Hot, yesterday and to-day about 90. Southerly winds, but no rain. How the tree and vines stand it is a mystery. Well getting very low; will soon fail. 26. Sunday, Cooler, from the north; threatened rain last night, but not a drop fell. Smoky sky, red sun, strong north wind, and dryer than ever. 30 -- Dry and smoky all the week and hot; at times up to 92. Minnie Saxton came to-day, a rare vision of youth and beauty; turns the heads of all the men she meets. Shipping grapes at the rate of one to 1 1/2 tons per day. Delawares very fine. Only the black grapes seemto have suffered from drought. 31. Hot and dry as hell. Lowne and Booth to-day. Sept. 1 Strange days -- the sun a great burnished copper globe. No character to the clouds yet only disorganized vapor, fires all over the country 2d Mr Ingram came last night at 10 -- [crossed out: a curious] with his big hat he is a curious characture caracature of Walt, tries to look like him; an innocent old man, born in Liverpool 68 years ago. Has seen much of life and is a real philanthropist; has reached the garrulous age; lovable, but a great bore. 7. Another week of smoke, heat and drought. The woodslook like middle of october so many of the trees are brown and sear sere; leaves falling from all the trees, a kind of torrid winter. All my maples look as if scorched by flame, red at the top. Never saw the like before; the hickory seems to suffer most, and the elms least. Peach trees half dropped half their leaves. People burning up in Minnesota by the hundred; whole villages swept away. The drought extends as far west as nebraska. Nearly 3 months here without rain. Only a little water left in the well, half a bucket at a time. Grapes nearly all off. 18 tons 700. Dust 6 inches deep in vineyards. 9 Some rain yesterday -- the heaviest for 3 months, over 1/2 inch. Hot to-day, 88 degrees on the house. The woods over the river look here and there as if a fire had run through them and seared the leaves of the trees. I see wooded hills nearly all brown. The leaves are falling here by the study as in October, only they are scorched and killed -- not ripened. Heavy rains in the west in the burning districts. 10 Hot, 92 degrees. A sudden squall at 5 P.M. much wind and light rain. 13. Julian and I take Early train for Snyder Hollow; reach the camp at 11 a.m. Day warm and bright. Camp in the old spot. Stream very low, butwater cold and delicious as ever. After dinner I make the beds while J. takes his gun and hunts. No game. Woods very sweet and quiet. 14. A good shower last night. Bright to-day and warm. I loiter about and absorb the wildness and sweetness. J. hunts. More rain at night. 15. This afternoon we go up the vally to foot of slide, follow the stream till it disappears. Large cold springs very plentiful. A delicious day in the woods. In the morning Julian starts a fox, his first. While at supper in Evening Dr Moore appears. We make him up a shake down of strawDay very warm. 16. Very hot and muggy. We spend the day loitering about. 17. Heavy rain last night. To-day we tackle the W[crossed out: h]ittenberg[crossed out: h]: a hard climb; reach summit about about 11 1/2: J's first remark is, "I could stay a month here," Grand view. After lunch Dr Moore leaves us to catch train at Phoenicia at 4.10. We come down later in afternoon, and broil our one partridge for supper. 18. Go up to the "giant Rocks" the "Colonel" leads us. In P.M. break camp and reach home on Baldwin. What pictures and fragrant memories we bring with us!19. Rain at last from N.E. may be the equinoctial. Probably an inch of rain so far. (11 a.m.) The first day we were at Larkins he was cleaning up buckwheat in the old time way -- using the wind as his fanning mill. Then in the afternoon he with a boy was threshing rye. I took a hand in. What memories it called up! The flail came as easy to me as if I had but just put it by -- instead 40 years ago. Just about this time of year Curtis and I used to thresh of the first rye for father to take a grist to mill for new rye bread. How it all came back!20 -- Rain proved very heavy -- a steady pour for 24 hours -- about 5 inches of water and yet the drains and springs are not affected -- The thirsty soil took it readily, and would take as much more. Summer warmth to-day with S.W. winds. Sunshine. Rainfall in N.Y. 5 1/2 inches. Storm came up from Georgia. Never saw the Earth drink up 5 inches of water so easily. Some wells still dry. The whole look of the woods is changed. Dry leaves dropped off. -- The main thing which distinguishes real literature is that in it the writer puts his mind directly to yours -- gives you a fresh and intimate sense of reality. You touch something real and alive. Whereas in the great mass of print there is a veil or screen between you and the writer, something artificial, some machinery or apparatus, lifeless verbiage. You do not clasp a warm, naked hand, but a gloved hand. The difference comes to me some-times under the image of an open fire -- the real literature is like that, while mere print is the register or radiator. 25. The first feeling of fall last night and to-day -- cool almost to the point of frost, the katy-dids silent, the tree crickets tolling feebly here and there. I hear a water fowl go by to-night, calling every half-minute, probably a goose. Since the rain the grass starts as in spring: it has had a long rest. Thoughts of home and of the old days and the old faces strong upon me to-night. 29. Warm again, summer heat. Katy-dids as vocal as ever. Days very lovely; fields as green as May. Swarm of robins; a very prolific year with them. The locusts and cicadas in May and June gave them a great send-off; rich food everywhere, then a summer free from storms and tempests; not a nest wrecked or injured; hence the ten-fold increase. Grape-vines look very healthy. 30 The last of the September days. Partly over cast with clouds from the last, much wind part of the day. In P.M. go to the woods and sit long and long -- see only a gray squirrel. Oct 1st Nearly clear and warmerIf we come to Whitman in critical frame of mind merely, in a frame of mind begotten by books and not by life, as a professor and judge, both critic and subject will fare poorly. Because in W.N. the professional poet is not uppermost, it is not the literary adept, got up for the occasion that you meet first, but the real man as he lives and breathes, and as he walks the street where you first face a figure divested of artificial and conventional vestments, symbol-ized by the coatless portrait of the poet in the first Edition of the Leaves. Your sense of real things, your grip of nature and life are the first to be challenged. If you are looking for a poet instead of a man, you will probably be repelled at once. The poetry is there of course, but it must be come at by a kind of indirection a kind of sacrifice of [crossed out: the] ourcritical pride and equipment. We must take this man on his own terms or not at all. We must divest ourselves of our theories and cannons. We must seek him as a man and not as a poet. (See poem beginning "Whoever you are holding me now in hand" p. 99) Hence the difficulties the professional critics have had with Whitman, the difficulties the minor poets have had with him (In the mind of the minor poet the sense of poetry as a craft, as something wrought etc. is stronger than his sense of life and reality. He values the shadow more than the reality) Third and fourth rate critics and poets almost in-variable reject him. Men outside of literature accept him, and the greatest natures inside of literature. We find the poet in him and through the man -- in and through his human attributes and powers. The conventional poets all get themselves up for the occasion. [crossed out: As the first in the] Their language and posture is largely professional like that of the lawyer or the priest. They feign and make believe a great deal. They speak through their forms as the sea-captain fisherman through his trumpet. Not so with W.W. at all. You may like the poets very much and not like him at all. He is one step nearer you, nearer reality than Tennyson. The usual literary veils and illusions are not in him. It is as if a living man touched you on the shoulder and walked by your side. Yet if L. of G. is not good literature, good poetry, that ends it. 2d Warm and pleasant. Start for Hartford to-day to visit Warner; reach there at 4 1/2. W. meets me at the station and we are soon at his house, a charming place surrounded by noble trees, with long vistas. Like W. very much, a man to love -- gentle, mellow, human, with droll surprises in his talk as in his writings. Reminds me of Myron Benton. Wish I could see him daily. His house full of books and inviting chairs and nooks -- the ideal scholars house, pictures too and curious -- a house like the man 4 Go down to Bridgeport to see Smith and Emma. Stay till Saturday morning -- very gladto see them both again. Brings up old times. Dessa and Eva there. 6th Go to N.Y. to look for girl, then home at night. 9th Just heard of the death of Holmes -- no news of warning sickness had reached me. Even his cheer and vivacity have at last yielded -- the last star of that remarkable constellation of N.E. authors. I owe him entertainment and more or less stimulus, but probably no deep service. A brilliant talker in letters, gifted with both wit and humor and the poetic temperament -- an open fire to warm your hands by. He had the gift that makes literature -- something direct and immediate -- his mid touched yours. [crossed out: A remark] One of the best of the discursive writers.9th Some rain last night; cooler this morning, katy-dids yet vocal last night, only a little hoarse. 10 Heavy rain from the north. A cyclone coming up the coast The second big rain of the season -- began in the small hours of the morning, 3 or 4 inches. Still the drains do not run. -- In China when the father dies the oldest son scatters fictitious paper money as spirit-toll at the various road side temples. This is like our own fictions about the dead -- fictions out of which we try to draw some consolation against the sting of death. 13 Slow rain nearly all day cool, the fields very green.-- Never a morning does Julian start off for school but I [crossed out: was] long to go with him, to be his mate and equal, to share his enthusiasms, his anticipations, his games his fun. Oh, to see life through his eyes again. How young the world is to him, how untried, how enticing. How he enjoys his holidays! On his last holiday, as he sat eating his breakfast he said, "how glad I am it is this morning and not tonight" The whole day with all its possibilities was before him. When he came back at night after his long tramp, without any game, he was still excited and happy over what he might have seen or might have got, had there not been an if in the way, ah, the happy boy!18. Lovely October day, clear strong light, crisp air; all the woods tinged with gold. Julian holiday; he goes hunting as usual, eager happy. Kills 3 ducks or mock ducks and a little diver. In P.M. I walk to the woods by the falls. [???] a little below for three days. 20. "The day in unaturally long sleep over the wide warm fields," a day all gold, [crossed out c] tranquil, warm, brooding, a ripe day, like golden fruit on the mid-october bough. The maples glow like great lamps by the roadside. Five women from Albany all teacers in St Agnes School came down and we walk in the woods. All good "fellows".26. The fifth day of cloud with slow rain during [crossed out: for] one day. Wind N.E. I begin to long for the sun. Traubel and Dr Plate came yesterday for a few hours, met them in P. Julian near up at off at 4 a.m. yesterday in the rain, up the river after ducks. The poor boy returned without a feather. But he had the excitement of the chase. The yellow leaves lie on the ground under the trees like fallen sunshine. 27. A day of gold after the long cloud period. 28 Another day of gold, still clear, delightful. Sunday. I walk to the woods. Katy-dids still rasping here and there29. New book, Riverby, came to-day. Doubtless the last of my out-door series. I look it over [crossed out: it] with a sigh. For a quarter of a century I have been writing these books -- living them first and then writing them out. What serene joy I have had in gathering this honey, and now I begin to feel that is about over with me. My interest, my curiosity is (are) getting blunted. 31. The last of the October days raining heavy from the south warm as May -- clearing in afternoon. Nov 1. Bright pleasant day. Julian and I drive up to the binnewaters after ducks. Do not see one. Get back before noon. 2 Clear and mild. Walk to Sunset rock.3d Heavy rain in morning for 4 hours from S.W. warm clear in P.M. Girls from Albany here to paint my picture. Walk to S.S. rock in P.M. 5. Rain, rain. Start for Lawrenceville, NJ. Speak there at night to boys; not very well satisfied with myself -- do not speak easily and freely tho, the boys seemed deeply interested. Cold at night. 6 In N.Y. Cold and windy. Snow farther north. A great revolution in politics, A Republican flood tide, Tammany and Hilliam dead at last. 7 Home to-day. 8. A young winter. Snowed all day from N.E. 4 or 5 inchesApple trees yet green. A cold nasty day. Julian goes up river ducking and returns at 1 1/2 P.M. nearly frozen; wet and chilled to the bones. 9. Still overcast and cold; more storm threatened. Fox sparrows and Canada sparrows about my study. 10. Snowing again this morning, great camel-backed flakes come straight down; river like glass, snow lies like feathers. A nasty piece of weather. 16 A week of fairly good weather; no storm. To day like indian Summer mental skies somewhat clouded Don't seem to be able to stand the strain of much writing. [crossed out: 20] 19 A cold wave. Mercury down to 15 this morning. 22d Chilly weater, but not foul. Fog this morning; night boats now at 11 a.m. hurrying by, Baldwin and Troy boats just passing. How they hurry! Day brightening. 27. Cold fine weather; nearly clean to-day. The 42d anniversary of my little sister Evaline. "How can a man learn to know himself" ingenious Goethe, "Never by reflections only by action," This is half truth. He can only learn his fervor of action by action, and his fervor of thought by thinking. He can only learn whether or not he has fervor to command, to lead, to be a legislator an orator etc by trying. Has hecourage, self-control, self-denial, fortitude etc. In life alone can he find out. But if he would rightly estimate his moral and intellectual worth and define himself to himself he must reflect. "The moment Byron reflects", said Goethe, "he is a child. Byron had no self knowledge. We have all known people who were ready and sure in action, who had no self-knowledge at all. Your weakness ar strength as a person comes out in action; your weakness or strength as an intellectual force come out in reflection.29. Bright, still, clear cold, down to 20 this morning. Julian goes a ducking up the river -- gets one nondescript duck. No Thanks giving dinner. Madams temper made me very unthankful all the forenoon. -- Are the men of the hour ever the men of the eternities? -- is like the little girl who when she was sick thought she had the chicken pox because she found a feather in the bed. Dec. 1 Still, motionless day with light snow 2 Two or three inches of snow this morning and still snowing, very quiet. Snowed nearly all day, a still gentle, meditative sort of snow, nearly 7 inches. 3. Clear and mild to-day. River like glass all day. 4 Down to 16 this morning, a thick fog. at noon trees all loaded with frost foliage, masses of white, as a few weeks ago they were masses of green. Wires in vineyards long white cords. River like glass still. -- The unseen, the unkown and unsuspected players in the game of life -- how many there are -- how they take the game from us or give it to us and we know it not! They look over our shoulders, they guide or withhold our hand. See the poor mortal trying to solve his problem of life with all those unknown factors entering into the game. Then invisible players, are first, race, then time, age, country, then family, then temperament, then accidents of birth and environment, education, books, friends, etc. etc. all these things take a hand and help or hinder the result. 7. A kind of Dec. Indian Summer the past 4 or 5 days Still, clear, cold, not a cloud, not a breeze; mercury near 20 each morning; fair sleighing. J. killed two mallard ducks (drakes) this week, a very proud boy. Am off to N.Y. to-day to the dinner to Conan Doyle. 9. Back home last night. Dr Doyle a large hearty John Bull -- plain features, but [crossed out: a] a good, healthy, fresh boyish nature. Liked him much. Mr Mabie presided with his usual skill. Of the speakers I was most drawn to Mr Frost, president of some college in Ky; plain, earnest, nature good; -- no vanity, no attempt at oratory; -- excellent. 12. The ugliest side of winter the past 4 days -- cold, sleety, raining, snowy, dark, foggy, disgusting, the nether extreme of the seasons. Heavy rain nearly all day, ground full of water. Snow nearly gone.-- That humor is the most pleasing and effective that plays upon or across a background of deep seriousness. When there is not deep seriousness we soon tire of the humor. What is more tiresome than a funny paper, or a professional humorist? 14 Fair day with sun and cloud. Go up the river with Julian after ducks; glad I went, tho' we got no ducks. J. had three shots, but gun failed to kill. A beautiful warm sunset as we row back on the painted water. Remarked for the first time this morning that the spokes or rays of light from the sun which ome through an opening [crossed out: from] in the clouds all point to a centre just in or beyond the clouds whereas the sun is 93 millions ofaway. If they pointed to the sun they would be parallel to the eye. How is this to be explained. Never saw it referred to. The phenomenon seems quite local like the rainbow. 15. Clear, mild, still, like early Nov. Mercury up to 50. Albay girls here. 16. Partly overcast, but still mild, Mercury 50. 17. Still warmer, 55, a fine Nov. day; getting colder at night. 18 Clear and sharp; froze lat night. Go to P. at night 20 Julian and I start for home on Early train. A clear mild day, no wind, no cloud walk up from the station reach home at noon.No snow. The old seems draw me as usual. Reamrkable weather. 21. Clear and sharp; we all go fox hunting; old snow quite deep in the woods on the sides of the mountain. Hounds fail to raise a fox. Back through Jim Boutons and Smiths hollow about 3 P.M. 23 Colder. Johnny and I go over to Edens. All well. Hiram and Eden both look well. 24. Near zero this morning. We go fising on the ice; hook up my first sucker; a pleasant forenoon. Catch 25 fish. Go back to Curtis's in P.M. A cold drive over the mountain. 25 Xmas. A light skim of snow last night. Off with the houndsagain this morning. On the big mountain start a fox, which "By kills in P.M. I stand an hour or more by a big fire and warm myself; then back home across the old Clump, carrying a hare which Johnny has killed. Julian returns as we are finishing dinner. Johnny and By, later. 26. Go out to Homer's on noon train. H. looks better, but is in a very bad way. Cold with signs of storm. Hiram comes in P.M. 27. Big driving, N.E. snow storm rages this morning. Go down to the train floundering through deep snow. Up home through drifts and wind. The first big storm of winter, a foot of snow and very cold. 1 1/2 hour walking up. Snows and blows all P.M. 28. Below zero this morning. The boys break the roads and inP.M. take us down to the train Pass the night with Henry Abbey 29. Six below this morning; reach home on Early train. River closed; winter full blown upon us at a bound. 30. 10 above this morning. Snow nearly one foot. 31. 10 above; day bright. 1895 January 1st Five below this morning. Clear; the air full of glittering frost particles. Good skating on river. 2d Clear, cold, -- fine masculine winter weather. Mercury 8. 3d 10 degrees this morning. Ice nearly 6 inches on river. No wind. -- Our best younger novelists like Howells, James, Stevenson, and others, are too conscious of the artistI read a few lines or stanzas, and stop. I see it is only deft handicraft and that the heart and soul are not in it. [crossed out: The itch of literature], One day my boy killed what an old gunner called a mock duck. It looked like a duck, and acted like a duck, but when it came upon the table, it mocked us. These mock poems of the magazines remind me of it. -- Nearly all the religious and devotional hymns of our fathers are a sign for rest, for an end of struggle and strife -- for that in fact which is death. Because when struggle ceases, death or dying begins. "Now understand me well, it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of successno matter [crossed out: how great] what, shall [crossed out: arise] come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary." January 4. Still fine snug winter weather. I ought to go to the Stevenson memorial meeting in N.Y. to-night, but shall not. His death fills quite a space in my thoughts. He seems nearer to me than any other contemporary British man of letters -- of the younger school. Some one has said "be an artist or prepare for oblivion." S. was an artist and he is safe from oblivion for a time at least. Yet he is not one of the great ones. His literary equipment surpasses his more solid native human equipment, as with so many of the late school of writers. He was not a man of mass and power, any more than I am. We are all light weights, and try to make up in cleverness what we lack in scope and power. S. is not one of the men we must read; we can pass him by. But he is one of the men who fills the hour and relieves the tedium of life. He inspires love, and the thought of him as gone from life and sleeping there in far off Samoa on a mountain peak fills me with sadness. -- Dr Holmes [crossed out: was a] wrote fine and eloquent [crossed out: poet] poems, yet we cannot call him a poet. His work never has the inevitableness of nature; it is a feat, a performance very skillfully gone through with. His poetry is a streamin an artificial channel; his natural channel is his prose, here we get his freest and most spontaneous activity 6th Sunday. Snow part of the day, 2 or 3 inches. 7 Much warmer with rain, mercury 45. 8 Still warm, with signs of a change to cold. Old snow reduced to 3 or 4 inches. Ice on the river covered with a thin sheet of water. Overcast -- light snow. 10 Fine slow rain -- freezing on the trees etc. Storm coming up the coast. Cold wave in Canada. 11. Warmer 40 degrees fog, wind S.W.-- Why is F. Harrison far less persuasive and convincing as a critic in the same fields than Arnold? Is it because he seems to have less root in himself that his great talent is less a vital part of his personality? He is more like a flower without the stem and leaves; we do not see where all this richness of language and illustration come from. The weight of the speaker is not so mch in what he says as with A. When a vessel stands so high out of the water, we know it is not heavily laden. -- True you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear; neither can you make a sows ear out of a silk purse, and the ear is of much more conse-quence to the sow than a silk purse would be. -- I heard a reader say after finishing one of Stevesons stories "How well it is written." Was not this after all, rather a disparagement? He had noticed the style, the dress. It should have been so well written [crossed out: that] as to make him forget that it was written at all but a direct laying bare of the authors mind and heart. We should think our pleasure from the essay or story, is entirely in the subject matter. Not ever woman has such charm as to make us blind to her dress, but the best writer always has. I think we do feel with regard to some of the books of Stevenson, howwell they are written, books like The Inland voyage. Travels with a Donkey etc. We do not quite lose sight of the style. Hence a British critic hits it when he says that S. lacks home-liness. Does not the best oratory make us forget the orator in the argument. When the people heard so and so they said, how fine, how eloquent, when they heard Demosthenes they said we will fight Phillip. The complete identi-fication of the style with the thought, the complete absorption of the man in his matter so that the reader shall say how good, how true, is the most to be desired.-- I hardly know why it is, but it seems to me that all the old men I see now adays are shams, counterfeits. The real old men are all dead. I knew a lot of them in my youth. They were always old; they were probably coeval with the hills and rocks, but they finally passed away. And now up springs this crop of imitation old men. Why, I knew some of them when they were comparatively young and now they are trying to pass as genuine old men like their fathers! I have a mind to expose the fraud.12. Clear, still, hazy, two or three degrees of frost. Looks as if winters heart had failed him. Bare ground beginning to peep thro' the snow, here and there. 16 Slow easy snow nearly all day 3 inches, mild. Ill since Sunday with [crossed out: dia] a sort of winter cholera, better to-day, a grand liquidation, probably paying off old scores of over feeding. A sort of house cleaning on the part of Nature, a fearful scrubbing out. 17. Clear, still, mercury 13, trees all white. -- I think one feels of the poems of Holmes, that they are skillful literary feats not an inevitable spontaneous poetic utterance They are less sincere poems than those of Longfellow.January 19. More snow last night, about 6 inches; very light. Mercury 16 this morning. -- Finished the 5th play of Ibsen last night. Have read The League of Youth, Pillars of Society, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, and A Dolls House Do not think I shall read any more of them. There is nothing in them for me. Ibsen is not a sky shaker; shakes the doors and windows a little that is all. Nothing inspiring or prophetic in him. Nothing for the soul, no poetry and not much philosophy. He is interesting, mananges the dialogue well, language vigorous and direct, now and then a happy and telling comparison, but never breathing the atmosphere of the great creative geniuses.20. Down to 4 or 5 below this morning. 21. Warmer with rain in P.M and at night. 22. Clearing off with signs of colder weather again. Rain has settled the snow and put an enamel of ice on things. -- To C.W. Lansing, Mich. Those poems you send me are only the surface indications whether there is really a valuable poetic vain there I do not know. You must find out for yourself. How much you have "salted" your mind from your reading, time alone can tell. 24 -- Clear -- down to 10 this morning Clifton Johnson comes at night. Saw Mrs Barker at H. P. probably for the last time. 25 Still clear, down to 10, in morning.29. Clear cold weather, down to 3 or 4 below this morning. Again the old scenes on the river; the ice harvesters at work, began Monday morning the 28; ice about 10 inches. 31 Clear and cold. Down to 10 degrees this morning; good sleighing; the ice-men are rushing in the ice. Feb 1st Winter renewing his hold -- down to 6 below this morning. Ice on river 1 foot. 2d Light snow 3 Clear, down to 3 above. Saw a flock of 6 robins. Robins have been around all winter -- saw 2 in middle of January on different days and heard of others seeing them.4. Overcast, threatening snow. Down to 15 above. -- Style in the service of style or for styles sake, is like an open fire of asbestos logs payed over by gas flames. 5. Winter keeps his hold; down to zero this morning. A cock robin in the apple tree; his breast glowed, but he looked hungry. 6 Down to 7 degrees below this morning, a wind like a raving maniac Sky clear as a bell. Ice men driven from the river. -- Why will artists in painting naked women so often give them the same expression of face that they wear when clothed and in their right minds in society. Think of the face of a society girl upon a nude figure! One feels sorry forher; how ashamed and awkward she must feel without her cothes! Sometimes one sees the face of a pretty school-marm upon these nude figures. The face and the body should be one, there should be no contradiction, as there is none in the Greek figures. 7. Six below this morning. A storm coming; light snow from the N. in P.M. 8. The worst storm of the season snowed and blowed violently all night, mercury about zero, about a foot of new snow this morning badly drifted. Mercury only gets up to 3 above all day, a seamless cloud over the sky; wind N.W. drifting the snow; a regular blizzard, trains delayed or stopped entirely. 9 Still zero weather-- a hard soulless iron monster seems to hold the world in its embrace-- "Christ is God made easy" -- a good definition. -- Have been re-reading laterly several number of the Autocrat -- read the first [crossed out: when] as they came out in The Atlantic. In places they are very good; in other places very bad -- nearly always a little forced, the writer too conscious of himself and his wit, often using factitious analogies. How absurd for instance the class poems with violins and merschaums as the three things that improve with use. The pipe and the voilin actually change, but there is no change in the poem, no matter how much more it may come to mean to us individually after long carrying of it in the mind. If we see it in print a great deal it becomes hackneyed and we lose our relish for it. What he says of the pipe and the fidddle [crossed out: are true] is fact, what he says of the poem is fancy. This is factitious analogy. Both these implements may be said to be green when they are new -- but how is a poem any more green or sappy when it is an hour old than when it is a century? Holmes was a fine and superiour amateur and nothing more. He took up literature as a young fellow takes up skating, and he excelled in it. He cuts capers and flourishes on every page. -- It is the physical properties of the pipe and violin that he is talking about but what physical properties has a poem? If it has anything analogous to say it always has it. If it is true that we let a piece of writing season, we mean we cut it and revise it and re-shape it. Dr Holmes's writing is like the songs of certain birds -- it always implies a spectator. He is always "showing off" a little. He was so fond of pleasing, too fond, to deny himself at all. Always on the strain to be witty and bright. 11. A little below zero this morning -- the day of absolute clearness and brightness, the sun softening the snow a little. Roads being shovelled out. 12 Zero again and clear. The trees with frost foliage, air hollow -- full of sounds, crows, dogs, and other sounds. -- 14 Lovely St Valentines day. Clear, mild; winter softening a good deal. 15 Days of absolute brightness, days like clear rock crystals. Down to 10 this morning. The P. boys come up a jolly time. 16. Still clear and sharp; down to 3 this morning. The air full of white frosty vapor. Great column of steam go up from the engines at the ice house; I hear the steady rattle and see the racing of the big ice blocks along the runs. 17. Zero this morning. Another white still day, air full of frosty mist; the 5th cloudless day. Mercury gets up to 30 in middle of day and drops to zero or near it at night. -- Old Mr Arnold near me died the other day, aged 83 or 4. A few moments before he died he lifted up a hod of coal and poured it into the top of the stove. He then said he guesed he would go up to his room and rest a little, a thing he had never done before his wife said. In a few minutes she followedhim up and found him just losing consciousness; in a few moments he was dead -- no effort at all for him to die; like going to sleep. -- Sat here in the twilight last night and sang, as I have so often done before, this stanza from a favorite hymn of father and mother: "The day is past and gone The evening shades appear, Oh, may we all remember well The night of death draws near." It always brings them and the old home vividly before me. I see father in his old age sitting by the window in the winter twilight singing it in a broken feeble voice, and I see Mother the same. She sang it during her last illness one night siting by the window of her room. It had deep meaning to the old people and has to me.19. Milder yesterday and to-day; partly overcast. 22 Winter still in a genial mood; bright sunshine nearly every day. Ice men finished on the 20th. Bright to-day and a little colder. Yesterday took a long drive about 10 miles. Struck my usual barren Feb. spell over a week ago. No thoughts, no work in me. 25 Start for N.Y. to-day. Weather mild and March like. 26 Cold and windy and dusty in N.Y. very disagreeable. Stay in N.Y. till Saturday the 2nd Lunch and dine with various people. Enjoy myself fairly well. Meet Madame Ragonin, a Russian woman of prodigious size and learning. Speaks 8 different languages; writes books on India, Chaldea, etc. Said to be a lineal descendant of the first Czar of Russia. Does not look like a Russian; dark hair and eyes and smooth fluent features; works 8 or 10 hours daily, yet says she has no physical strength. Six feet tall and large in body and limb. A kind and gentle nature I should say and truly democratic; always has some poor unfortunate old [???], male and female, depending upon her, it is said. While getting off the elevated at 42nd street, met Stedman getting on. "Where you going" he inquired, "Home" I replied. "Why have you not been to see me? What a fraud you are!" With a reproach-ful look. "How well you are looking" I said. "Same to you" he rejoined and the train moved off.March 2 Three or four inches of snow fell to-day. Reach home at 7 P.M. 3d Clear and chilly. 4 Overcast. Cold wave; Rain and sleet in late afternoon. 5. Bright. Mercury at 18 this morning. Not much spring yet. 6. Gentle snow all afternoon, about 2 inches. 8 Soft still dim sunshiny day air full of smoke and vapor, mercury at 45. Snow melting. [crossed out: No blue birds yet.] Two blue birds in afternoon along R.R. track, male and female. Insects in the air the size of mosquitos muskitos, dark colored, very fragile. Song sparrow near study sings a little. Sap runs very slowly.16. Saturday. A slow snow yesterday, nearly 2 inches. Bright and sharp to-day. Mercury has been as low as 18 during the week. Winter relaxes very slowly. Ice yet strong on the river. Spring birds very rare, occasionally a timid, half-hearted sparrow song-- Where is the letter you burned up this morning? The ashes are there in the grate of the stove, but the meaning, the writing where is it? Surely you could not burn up that? No, that was not combustible. Is there any comfort in that kind of immortality? Death cannot affect your mind in any other way than the fire affects the message in the letter. It destroys the body, or it re-distributes the type, but what you wear were, what you stood for, exists in other minds -- and is that all? I fear me it is so. Mch 19. Clear as crystal and sharp. Excellent sap weather. The river is beginning to wet his sheets. Few birds so far, the fewest I ever remember at this date. Only a song sparrow here and therethis morning, no robins or blue birds or starlings to be heard. Did the severe winter in the south cut them off? -- A remarkable winter in many ways, uniform, even tempered, well-behaved; no spasms or spurts; no rain or hail or sleet, and no great snow fall. The cold came on very steadily, tighter and tighter each week till early in Feb. when it culminated in a week of very severe cold, tho' not extreme, but wide spread. Covered the continent, not heaped up in any one place. Since then it has slowly relaxed. It is now 40 degrees or 45 degrees by day and 20 or 25 by nihgt. A clean heroic winter. I have split and burned an enormous amount of wood since Nov.I have worked pretty steadily all winter and late fall; on my W. W. matter and latterly on nature writing; have been well, except a few days of winter cholera. No cold in 2 years. 21. Clear and sharp from the north, storm passed south of us. No birds to speak of yet; no warmth. A few bees out of the hives some days. Mercury only reached 38 degrees yesterday. 23. Clear sharp weather continues, snow gradually going off. Starling this morning. Roads dry in places. P. boys up yesterday, jolly time 24. Evening. Sitting here by my lamp I hear the honking of wild geese; rushing out I hear them over the river going north. Poor things I am sorry for them -- no open water probably between here and the north pole. What will they eat, where will they rest?In a day or two they will go back, but how tired and hungary. Just before sundown I saw a flock of ducks going south. They too had found only an icy outlook at the north. Light rain with snow flakes this P.M. Not freezing to-night. River liable to open any time. 25. Milder, slight rain. Great [crossed out: w]rents in the ice on the river When the tide ebbs it will probably go out. Heard jack snipe flying over. Do not remember to have heard one before in 25 years. P.M. Ice moved out on the ebb tide. Showers and thunder about 4. Start for home on 4 1/2 train. 26 Reach home this morning Light snow squalls all day No sap yet. Ed and By putting up the sap house. Old snow very deep in places. 27. Still cold and snow squally. Go over to Edens. Find him better. Hiram pretty well. Stay till 29th Snow all the time. The 28th very bad 30. Bright but cold; say runs a little in middle of day. Glad to be at the old spot again. Curtis'es family all well and very busy. Chant getting ready to move over [crossed out: down] on the other place; reparing the barn etc. Emma his wife, and Anne paper-ing and painting her house. April 1st. Light rain; funeral day of Kate Benjamin (Mrs Corbin) Curtis and I drive down to the village. Eden and Mag come over on the P.M. train. 2d Overcast in morning; sun at noon. Looks like sap weather, but too cold.Clouds up at night and snow an inch or more. 3d Give it up and start for home this morning. Bright and clear, but cold. Reach home at 5 P.M. Thus goes my 58th birth day. Some head ache. 4th Bright and lovely. Go with Julian over to black creek for ducks. Heard the first warbler as one year ago. Do not know its name. We pic-nic under a big pine in the swamp. Old Travis and his boy; two ducks for them; none for J. his gun no good. 5th C. johnson comes again Lovely day. Walk and talk. First hyla in the woods. 6 Over cast. Sprinkles of rainWarmer; wind south. J. leaves at 10 1/2. 7. Cloudy, still, mild. Walk to the swamp. Frogs in the pools croaking -- the clucking frog, or wood frog -- rana sylvaticus. Robins numerous and lively 8. Overcast; rain sets in in fornoon from south; warm, near 60. 9 Powerful rain yesterday and last night; ground all overflowing this morning; big pool in Peach orchard; warm, grass growing [crossed out: M] A chorus of piping frogs last night, through which ran like a raveled yarn, the long tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r of the toad. Birds very merry this morning. Mercury reach

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