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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1920-1921 (March - February)
Text: LIII Diary from March 22d 1920 to (Feb 4, 1921 Last record C 13) Mch 22 Leave for home on 1:30 p.m. train. All goes well, a good train; few stops, skirting the shores of Lake Eve about 8 or 9 we see a startling display of Aurora - one of the most spectacular in my life. 23We reach Albany at 12.30 N. Lunch there and then W.S.R.R. at 2.15 p.m. for West Park. Reach station at 4.35. Deep snow covers the landscape, only a few bare places here and there. Three days of warm sunshine has made the...
Show moreLIII Diary from March 22d 1920 to (Feb 4, 1921 Last record C 13) Mch 22 Leave for home on 1:30 p.m. train. All goes well, a good train; few stops, skirting the shores of Lake Eve about 8 or 9 we see a startling display of Aurora - one of the most spectacular in my life. 23We reach Albany at 12.30 N. Lunch there and then W.S.R.R. at 2.15 p.m. for West Park. Reach station at 4.35. Deep snow covers the landscape, only a few bare places here and there. Three days of warm sunshine has made the snow run very fast. Two and three feet about our house. 24 Bright warm day, above 60. Snow melting fast a chill last night and bad time about 8 and 9 o'clock. Build fire in fire place and get warm. Fan the chill in the house I think. Little temperature 98 4/5 at 8. Tonight up to 99 at 9 p.m. 25 A fairly good night. Clear and calm this morning, a little cooler. 25 An important event in my life today - Hudson Covert our faithful hired man for 23 years, leaves us to move on to a farm of his own near Centreville It almost breaks my heart, never was there a more trusty, industrious and efficient man, never a man of a more cheerful and obliging spirit. It gave him pleasure to do anything for you he could. We shall not see his like again. This place will be home no longer, not a brainy man, but an honest one and a faithful one. Good luck to him. 26 Cloudy and mild. Work on M.S. My fever quite today and heart gets steady. 27 Cloudy and foggy, mild, a fine sleep last night for the first in many days. - Dr Thomas, E. Winecoff of Butte, Montana writes on while collecting for the Smithsonian Institute that he has found about on Eastern. robin and the Western subspace swarming north of the artic circle and singing and nesting there. He says he never enjoyed the robins song more than he did during the arctic summer nights. - Ice on the River still solid, from shore to shore, covered with water soaked snow. 28 Clear and still this morning. Colder. Ideal sap weather. Robins jubilant, a good sleep. Read much in Arnolds poems last evening. Some of the best love poems in E Literature in the Vol. All notable and enduring poems sure to last. The note of sadness too dominant, but that is Arnold. Yet Emerson did not value his poetry, no poet since Wordsworth can compare with him. W. was the voice of pure nature. A was the voice of culture and and the old civilization, Tennzen was of a different order. 5 p.m. temperature 99. 29 A few holes in the ice on river, a good night. A day of murk and fog. Warm still. Ice broke up today. 31 Clear and cooler this morning. a good sleep. Became warm in p.m. up to 70. Sit a long time in summer house and have a nap there. Send away pacific notes to Scribners April 1st A little cooler. Hazy this morning still. Ice nearly all gone from the river, and snow from the landscape. 2d Raining this morning, mild grass starting. De Loach came last night. Hurrying up with the copy of new Vol. "The Faith of a Naturalist" these days. Go to Yama Farm in p.m. 3 My 83rd birthday, spend it at Yama. Thirty or more of our friends come to celebrate it with me, a perfect day, clear mild and lovely. In the evening a great ovation I am nearly shearved much with poems and speeches, I get on my legs. and "sass" back as best I can. Garland is conspicuous and has the best poem. Henceforth I know the hill will become steeper and steeper and my breath shorter and shorter. I must give up my loins to make the climb. 4 Overcast with rain. Many of my friends leave today. 5 Rain; a prolonged thunder shower and a down pour for hours. 6 Colder, with snow. 7 A cold wave, freezing temperature. We leave Yama for home. Car takes us to K. Reach home at 12 1/2. 8 Cold, below 38 all day. Work on MSS. Feel well. 9 Still cold, freezing at night. River very rocky. 10 Clear, cold, no signs of warmer weather. 11 Sunday, a little warmer but still frosty at night, a fine day. 12 Overcast, rain near I think. 13 Rain all night and till more today, clearing and colder in late p.m. 14 Bright fine day, cool. 15 Warmer and fair. The song of the toad at night. 16. Mild, cloudy, signs of showers. New Vol. ready to go to publishers. 17 Still slowly raining, but clearing at noon, cool. - Heat does not pass from the sun to the earth; what passes is motion in the either heat is developed when that motion is arrested by the earth, the energy the sun gives out is transformed into heat. This energy passes through glass undiminished and becomes heat in the room - but it does not pass out through glass so readily, because it is now heat, and yet and yet - think of the suns corunna [corona?] and c. But it has always been plain enough to me that the sun's rays conveyed no heat as such, and that the energy they conveyed because heat here. - The most wonderful thing in the universe is the animal eye, no wonder that it staggered. Darwin to [th] try to account for it by natural selection. 18 Clear and cool. Wind in north. Can't sit long in summer house yet, to cool [Burn grape trimmings this morning] 19 Monday, clear, cool, ground drying out. Burn grape trimmings. Drive to H. in p.m. 20 Clear, cool. How alive the river seems on clear still mornings like this. Its surface dances as if a shower of sun beams were falling upon it, along the opposite shore, there is a strip of water directly under the sun when the play of light seems hurried and intensified. 21, 22, 23, 24 Much rain with thunder. Clearing and much cooler and windy. 25 Clear and cool, just finished. short paper on the Unapproachable Rainbow, and one are "Length of Days" which last goes to Leebold at Dearborn Mich. Many callers yesterday. College boys and girls from P. 26 Clear and cold - frost last night, no real warmth yet this spring. House wren here this morning. River like glass. Drive to Malden at 10 a.m. Spend 3 hours with Poultney Bigelow. 27 Cloudy and cold, spirts of rain in p.m. - Herbert Spencer - not a day of blood or sap or juice is here, a mountain of sawdust, a prodigious mind but not one fresh or inspiring thought in it. 28 Rain all night and part of the day. Clearing in p.m. Write in my note book.. 29 Parly cloudy, chilly, new car came yesterday. May 1, 2d, 3 Cold. Company at SS. over Sunday. 4 Fair cold, a light frost every night 5 Clear, cold. The maples are shaking out their pale yellow fringe, a little asparagus today. Thermometer has not been above 60 this spring. 6 Clear, cold, one yellow warbler this morning. A long walk over in the woods and to the falls yesterday p.m. Not a bird, early arches not yet up. 8 Clear and warm. 9 Clear and warm. Start for R. at 10. delayed at the dam by want of gas. Reach Wood Chuck at 4 1/2. 10, 11 Slow cold rain. Sat in the house and grumbled. 12 Bright day. 13 Squalls of rain in p.m. 14 Clearing but cold; frost, plough garden. 15 Harrow and plant garden. 16 Fine and warm. Plant more garden. Catch 6 chucks in trap and lose trap by a chuck. Start for home at 12. Reach W.P. at 5. 17, 18 Fine warm days, above 70 degrees. Foliage well out. The week of apple bloom has come again and the call of the oriole is heard in the land. Letter in N.Y. Tribune. 19 Clear in a.m. Partly overcast in p.m. Warm. Drive down to Centreville to see the coverts, a treat to see them once more. 20 Partly cloudy, a light shower at 11 a.m. Warm, 77 degrees. 22d Mild partly, cloudy, Miss Haight and her friends come for a lunch at Slabsides. 23 Many callers, a fine day. 24 Cloudy, cool. Rain predicted. The May warbler procession seems to have passed. - Last Wednesday night I had a mild chill followed by fever - slept very little. Next day fever returned at 9 p.m. up to 100. next night up to 99 2/5. The old muscular rheumatism much my breast on right side. Took an enema with big results. Today 24, took 2 enemas with surprising results, eat very lightly. Feel good today and can write. Two enemas every other day will keep me well. At 9 p.m. temperature 99 3/5. Indigo bunting yesterday. Last night at 9 p.m. temperature 99 2/5. Took an enema with big results - slept better than I dared hope. Two enemas this morning at 11 with good results. I will keep that colon clean if I have to take 4 enemas per day. 25 Partly cloudy cool. Feel better. 26. Clear, warm still day. Drive in p.m. to Port Ewen with the Van B's. Fever gone. 27 A warm night and an ideal morning. Clear still warm, a thin white vapor in the air. I hear wood thrushes, orioles, vireo, and occasionally a warbler. Heard a warbler this morning over near the P.O. that sang "che chippy, che chippy, che chippy, che." could not make out its color or markings, only its grayish breast, a very small bird. 28 Clear, warm 80 in p.m. Dwight Franklin comes. 29 Clear and cooler, N. winds. My temperature this p.m. 98 1/5. Expect Ruth Drake, a social sparrow has her nest on a horizontal branch of a Brockage that comes in under the edge of my porch. She has 4 speckled blue eggs and is very tame, she sits here and broods her treasures as I brood my thoughts. Many of my thoughts are sterile but I have no doubt that there will not be an addled egg in her nest. She is company for me in her small way and I hope I am for her in my big way. 30 Fine clear warm day, a picnic at S.S. and a Brigand stake. 31 Ruth leaves at 11 a.m. for Chazy. June 1st Fine day, hot and dry. Go to Yama Farms Inn. J drives me up to K. 2 and 3d At Yama. Hot and dry 88. Walk each day. 4 Rain all night and till noon today, much needed. Cold, open fires. Write a little on The Flight of Birds. 5 Home in p.m. J meets me at Chain Ferry, cold. 6 Storm over, sun peeping out at noon. Fire in study. A little temperature every night 99, ate too much at Yama. 7 Partly cloudy, cool. 8 Clearing, warmer, temperature normal again. 9 Lovely day, warmer; the perfection of June. Getting ready to start for Roxbury. Locust trees dropping their bloom. 10 Start for R at 10. All goes well, warm fine day, lunch at High Bridge at 12 1/2. Reach the lodge at 4 p.m. no delays, no accident. 11 Rained all night, much needed, clearing in p.m. 12 Partly cloudy, cool. 14 Lovely warm day. Ideal. Writing a little in the barn. Poet Bellows calls at 2 and recites several of his poems to me, "The Long Road" is good, real stuff, the best of his I have seen. Saw an Indigo Bunting rise up in the air then slide down in song, yesterday saw it feeding on dandelion seeds, never saw the country lovelier. 15 Fair, hot day, 80. Dig out the chuck and recover my trap lost in May John and I. Mr. Seaman, Mr and Mrs Underwood of [Vross] and others call in p.m. 16 Cool and cloudy, a slow rain last night for an hour or more. Hear the rose breasted grosbeak singing up in the woods above me every day at all hours. How soft and mellow the strain is. A fewer sweeter robins sing. Also hear the wood thrush. 17 Cold, rainy, lowery weather from the east. 18 Still cold but clearing. 19 Partly cloudy and getting warm. 20 A wonderful morning. Clear, calm and warm. The valley full of fog which does not take flight, but ebbs and flows and melts till at 8 not a vestige of it remains. At 7 not a leaf stirs, only the plowed grasses wave a little. I walk up the road - see a humming bird bathing in the big dropp, on the foliage of a small ash trees, never know before how the hummer bathed. Saw a high hole, a red headed wood pecker, a king bird and a scarlet tanager in the same tree, a basswood. The flight of the high hole is with four or five wing beats then skipping one and going some feet with wings closed. The red head flies in much the same manner. Discovered that the webs of the little spiders in the road - fairy napkins - saturated with minute drops of moisture, exhibits prismatic tints. In it we see one abutment of a tiny rainbow, step a pace or two to the other side and you see the other abutment, you never see the completed bow because the web is too small. Then fragments are as unapproachable as the bow in the clouds. If you think you can step on one of this, try it. the colors go when you make the attempt. I also discovered that when a suspended dew drops becomes a jewel and rainbow tints, you can see only one to the right or left of you. It also is a fragment of a rainbow. It seems to me there only let to be a point where you could see an entire bow in wet grass, but I could not find it - drops too few and not see presenting the same angle to the sun. 21 A change to bad weather again. Rainy and cold this morning, with fog on the mountains. Let us hope for a warm dry July. 22 A fine warm day, much sunshine. Work mending the road. 23 Lovely day, still mending the road. 24 Ideal June day, warm, scattered masses of soft fluorescent clouds drifting across the great blue spaces. Fields white and orange and yellow with daisies, hawkweed and better cups, s. berries ripening in the fields, my internal economies, working with fair regularity. It does not tire the cloud shadows to climb the mountains. I believe the yellow bird a gold finch, can describe a lancer are in the air with closed wings than any other bird. 25 Still clear and cool from the north, small masses of fluffy clouds here and there on the blue sky. Again seems a vulnerable remedy in constipation. 26 A morning without a cloud till 9 a.m. and then only a mere wraith or two. Warm, but night cool, acts like a dry spell. Cuckoos calling every day, very calm. Political cauldron is boiling as usual on presidential years. I shall not vote for Harding and if Wilson is nominated I shall not vote at all Macadoo would be a bitter pill. 27 Same as yesterday, clear, calm, dry, hot in sun. 28 Fine warm day. Drive out to S. Gilboa to Chester Leeves and have dinner, amid the old scenes where Jane and Horne lived so long. Find the Bocks from Toledo here on our return. 29 Hot, our first hot night, got down to one blanket. Mr. and Mrs. Bock spend night with us, a fine time; in the morning Bock fixes the sink in the kitchen, a wonderful mechanic and inventor. Says he has just finished an invention whereby he can deliver 50 percent of power, where only 40 percent has been delivered before. Applicable to all machinery, a world revolutionizing invention. 30 Rain last night, wet the garden well, cloudy and cooler. - Cleared in p.m. Fine and warm. Take a long walk through the Beech woods and through Silver woods and fields and back along the edge of the woods on the hill and through the meadow and orchard down home. In forenoon people here from Franklin, N.Y. and from Ohio. July 1st A fine mild day, not hot. Finished tinkering with the road scraper. Very busy most of the time. Read Darwins voyage of the Beagle from time to time. Wild s. berries very large and abundant, Miss Bonsheur here to dinner. 2 Shower. 3 In the clutches of my old enemy again. Was chilly all the late afternoon. Set a long time in my woodchuck skin coat, but did not get warm. Temperature 100 1/5. But slept better than I expected to. This morning took 3 enemas with good results, more and more each time. This p.m. took two more. Think I got near the bottom. Rain all night and this morning. Clearing in p.m. Yesterday I had two fine movements, ample I thought. Beware of s. berries and go slow on spinach. Temperature 100 at 4 p.m. only slight pain in breast muscles. 4 One of the coldest fourths of July I ever experienced, cloud and elm, with spirts of rain, at one time accompanied by pellets of snow. Many visitors 4 cars from Yankees and from Lexington - the latter friends of my youth, Jane Kellpatrick and her son and others. Temperature 100 2/5, at 4 p.m. 5 A cold or windy night with mist and spits of rain. but I got enough sleep I think. This morning still cloudy with mist veiling the mountain. Temperature this morning at 6 98, am eating mostly only liquid food. - The noiseless butterfly ever the highest great hums a little. Infact all winged things that I know of make a sound in flying except the butterflies and moths - They whisk about your face without a sound. 6 A wonderful morning, clear calm and warm. Fog in the valley which ebbed and flowed for an hour and then slowly vanished a pretty good night with sub normal temperature this morning, at 4 p.m. 98 1/5. "The Land of the Far Horizons." Isaiah XXXIII 15, 17. 7 A windy night, slept pretty well. Clouds threaten rain. Rain comes at 4 p.m. a short thunder shower. Temperature returns, 99. A Mr. Muller bores me for 2 hours and brings on the fever. At 6 p.m. down to 98 1/5 same as yesterday. 8 Cloudy and cool this morning. Had a good nights sleep and feel better. No grass yet fit to cut, diasies just right, no clover in bloom. The song of the hermit thrush this morning in the beech woods. I had almost forgotten how drive a strain it is. 9 McCarthy and his bride came last night. Delighted to see my poet again and his bride - a beautiful girl. Clear and warm today, after a cool night. The nomination of Gov. Cox of Ohio by the Democrats suits me well. Hope to vote for him and the league of nations. 10 Another ideal day, clear warm and calm. Write a little and visit with the McCarthys. Strength slowly returning. Temp. last night at 9 p.m. 97 3/5. 11 Sunday, bright and warm and calm. McCarthy leaves today and leaves a void. We drive them down to train at 8, 78 degrees at 2 p.m. Finish and seal up my paper on "What makes the Poet?" 12 Rained nearly all night and till 11 a.m. Clearing in p.m. with light thunder showers - much noise but little rain, a fine rainbow at 5 p.m. Signs of fair weather at 7 p.m. Two enemas every other day will keep me well. 13 Clear as fell and warm, no fog in the valley this morning, a clear cool night. The air very humid and yet no fog. I wish I understood Physics of this, a thin milky haze in the air way account for it. 14 Fine warm day. In p.m. visit the graves of my dead in the old Yellow church burying ground and in the Presbyterian burying ground in the village I stood long and long at fathers and mothers graves and seemed very near them. And the grave of dear Chancy B. Died in 74 -four years before Julian was born. Had he been my son I could not have loved him more. The graves of Wilson and Olly, Ann and J Abagail I lingered about them also with long long sad thoughts. I said good bye to them all and said I would come again if I lived, Hirams and Edens graves at Hobart I shall visit later. 15 Rained all night and till 8 or 9 this morning. Clearing up about noon. But no settled weather in sight. The clouds still have the slant from the S.W. Cooler, 72. 16 Clear and cold; down to 50 at night. Warm in p.m. 17 Another cold night - the coldest spell I ever saw in July. I expect to hear of frost in some places, a fog in the valley, but it did not ebb and flow - too stiff in the joints I guess. The wind still has the wrong slant. 18 Not quite so cold last night, fair today. The sun early drawing water, and again at 10 this (over) Killed a chipmunk that was stealing my peas apparently by shell shock my rifle bullet did not touch him but exploded by him, his nose bled probably but his skin was not broken. 19 Rained nearly all night with thunder and again this morning much warmer, almost muggy. Drove to Arkville to the Pockalckan yesterday and had dinner with Anna Haviland, a pleasant time. The clouds still have the portentous slant from S.W. My temperature sticks at 97 1/5. Reading Fitz Geralds letter, very delightful - real wit and wisdom. 20 Clearing, cooler, wind N.W. at last, look for fair weather, a good sleep last night. - You can't catch a mouse in a bear trap. 21 Clear and fine and dry. Good hay weather, caught 3 E. sparrows in a mouse trap this morning. Rainbow letters still come, absurd most of them. 22 A brief light shower in the night. Humid and misty this morning but warm. Had a skink in a trap I had sat for a wood chuck and in trying to liberate him got some of his essence, had to change my clothes and shoes, what marks news they are! I held his tail down with a stick but he managed to unlock his bottle all the same. 23 Rained and thundered all night. Clearing this morning, fairly warm. Poor hay weather. Kill the skink if you will but the order of this essence lingers around you still. My trousers are buried and my shoes bleaching in the sun and rain. 24 Clearing and colder. 25 Fine day, but cool, too cool. Mrs. Shepard (Helen Gould) comes with some friends. 26 Cool with much cloud wind N.W. more sun at 3 p.m. 27 A repetition of yesterday. cool with sun and cloud, a real thrill this morning, early when I went put to the barrel to wash, a large flock of young pheasants near the water such the apple trees. They kept getting up till I had counted 12. They were half grown and about two thirds the size partridges, burn as dry leaves. How the mother bird managed to rear such a brood as that with so many enemies, lurking and prowling about skunk, foxes, cats - is a mystery. They behaved precisely like partridges but mad no vocal sound. 27 Clear and still cool, not a cloud in the sky this morning, but one needs on overcast and gloves something must have happened to the sun these days, into what cold weather spaces has he dragged his little family of worlds these days? - How we think of the sun as fixed there in the heavens! But what an extraordinary thing it would he if it were fixed! Nothing is fixed, everything is in motion. How could it be otherwise? If there be a point or center around which the whole still as universe seems to revolve, then that too must be in motion around some larger center and then around some other center and so on adinfinition. 28 A duplicate of yesterday, only slightly warmer. The publication of July weather. Valley fog did not ebb and flow this morning but silently stole away. Balance in Bank July 26, $3268. 29 Still warm and fair with increasing cloudiness. Probably rain in a day or two. Finished and sent off to Harpen. MS of The Pleasures of a Naturalist. 30 A fairly warm night, partly cloudy this morning with harmless thunder at 7. My temperature has now been normal, 97 3/5 for three weeks, strength in my legs seems to be gaining. 31 Still warm (76 degrees) and partly cloudy. 2 chucks in trap this morning. Thunder with clashes of rain at 5 1/2. The Shepard children and Rev. Van West and c. Aug 1st Sunday, bright day and cool. Callers in morning and at 4 p.m. A wood chuck last night in a trap and a skunk. 2 Partly cloudy and cool, slept with extra blanket last night, callers from Twilight Park this p.m. No chucks today. The boys cut hay this a.m. and draw it in in p.m. The 8th day without rain. 3 Sun and cloud and dry. Return of my old enemy today at 12. Temperature 99 1/5. Goes down to 98 3/5 at 4, then up again. Took a double enema with marked results, my colon gets foul in spite of all I can do. I must take 2 enemas a day hereafter. 4 A day without a cloud and hardly a breath of air stirring, but a cool night, slept under 2 extra blankets, down to 56 degrees. Suter and Caswell are building my garage. Ideal hay weather. 5 A repetition of yesterday clear, calm, dry, mercury at 10 1/2, 74 degrees. Rain is needed. Temp. 98 3/5. 7 Cloudy, calm, warm. Finish garage today. Killed a big fine chuck this morning on the old rock in the corner of the meadow, much like the one I got there last year, but not so dark. 8 Clear, calm, warm, a milky haze in the air. Judge Talbot and Dr. Day and the friends from Gloversville and Sidney here yesterday. Enjoyed their visit greatly.. 9 Hot and dry, 86 degrees fine hay weather. 10 Cloudy, an uncomfortable night, but little sleep. 11 Rained all night 2 inches, much needed. Had a bad spell yesterday - a terrible attack of vertigo - a clycone in my brain - fell in a heap on the floor, a strange experience - the result of a billions attack I think.- a sluggish liver, shall take calomel tonight 1 1/2 grams. 12 Took 1 1/2 grms, calomel last night. Feel let down, but think I am better. Foggy and misty till 9 a.m. and then clearing. Fair in p.m. and warm - 76. - When the chipmunks have worn out the stone wells by traveling upon them - ground them to powder; when the swallows and other birds have worn out the telegraph and telephone wires along the road by perching upon them, when the wood chucks have reduced to powder the rocks upon which they bask in the summer sun - why, I shall not be here! 13 Misty and rainy and warm 76 degrees this morning. Partly clearing by noon, a pretty hard night - much palpitation. 14 Rainy, warm. Dr. Crump and Walter come in p.m. 15 Sunday, warm 84 degrees, partly cloudy, a fine day with the Dr. and Walter. 16 Drive home with the Crumps, rain. 17 At the Crumps on Pine Hill. Fair warm day. Feet begin to swell. 18 Back home this morning. Warm. 19 Partly cloudy, cool. Feet better. Digitalis seems to be the cure. Two fine chucks yesterday shot by Walter C. 20 Drive to Hobart, a fine day stay with Willie and stay to dinner. For the first time saw Eden name carved on a stone in the Cemetery, besides Hirams who had lain there for 18 years. 21 Return today after dinner. 22 Hatten and Chester and the children come for the day. 23 Cold and misty, a slow drizzle all night, signs of breaking this morning. 24 Fine day, growing warm, many callers. 25 Fine day, nearly clear and warm. Telephone peas again today. 26, 27 Fine warm days, nearly clear. 28 Warm and clear. Fog in the valley. Garland comes for us from Onteora. Reach there about 5 p.m. 29 At Garlands, rain in morning, but clears by noon. Call in Mrs. Candall Wheeler, 95 year old. Calm and restful and wise as usual. In the evening many callers a very pleasant time. 30 Home today. Dr Jones brings us in his big car. Home by 3 p.m. 31 A poor sleep from some unknown cause. A thunder shower at noon. Clearing by one p.m. Sept 1 John came yesterday p.m. Delighted to see him. A cold rainy night but I had a good sleep, no dreams. Cold this morning with fitted gleams of sunshine. Fitz Gerald in his letter say Caryle made 6 attempts to write a life of Cromwell and burned them all and finally converted himself with editing his letters. 6 Go to Yama Farms stay till 13th. The usual good time many appreciative people, much talk, overfed at times, gained 1/4 lb per day. Stomach gets out of time from eating too many stewed peaches and taking milk, slight attack of sore throat - stomach - no temperature. Stay at the "Hut" - C.B. and I and Mr. Seaman, Mr. Merrill of The Bronx botanical garden, a man from whom I learned many things. - Little John stayed till the 6th I miss him greatly. The Yama car met us at Kingston and the Roff car brought us to Roxbury via Big Indian. Very heavy rain here on Saturday night. 14 Clear and cool this morning, no frost yet. Plenty of sweet corn. - What dull observers most people are! A woman writes me from Phila. asking me to settle a dispute between her and her friends as to whether the robin hops or runs, of course the robin runs as any other can see who looks carefully. 15 Lovely wild day. 16 Cloudy and cool with mist and obscurity. 17 A sharp, clear windy day. Wind from N.W. very boisterous. Too cool to sit in the shade or the porch; fear a frost tonight. Smith McGregor comes, his head humming with minor literary and moving picture projects. Some nine people from Cleveland to the morning. Dr Curtis and his wife and friends. A slight attack of auto intoxication yesterday - the result of Yama Farms overfeeding I think, a small matter - should not know it, did I not look for it. Am trying to eat a great of milk daily, sweet baked apples and milk is my dessert. 18 Warmer, no frost last night. Still very windy. Chucks out today, caught me on a trap. 19 Bright and cool and windy. Walter Crump and his mother here. Walter shot a big chuck. they spend the day. 20 Our first frost this morning but did no damage, not even to squash vines and tomatoes vines. 21 Chucks out again today. 21 Mild beautiful day intermittent sunshine, a long walk in p.m. back in "Scotland" hunting for chucks, saw 2, but very wild. 22 Warm, clear, calm. Walk over home and get sweet apples. Many visitors in p.m. 23 Clear, calm, warm. Who can tell me the laws that govern the movement of the fog in the valley these calm autumn mornings? Of course it does not begin to stir till the sun strikes it has heat currents going, but why does it ebb and flow some mornings and not others, when to all human sense they are precisely alike? Why this regular beat or rhythm, like inhaling and exhaling the breath? Why is it so langered some mornings and not others? The physics of it all are to me very subtle and obscure. Just now I went out looking for prismatic tints in the drops of dew on the grass standing at one place in the road. I saw two drops showing the orange tints, on my right about 8 feet from my shadow and one drop on my left. Doubtless there were more but they did not face me at the right angle all other drops shone with the white light of glass. This was about 7 a.m. Now at 8 the fog is so dense as to cut off more than half the rays of the sun, song sparrows sing fitfully may be young males. The fog does not seem disposed to leave us. It is like a caller that hangs on till he becomes a bore. 24 This morning the fog began to move to the ebb and flow at day light, at least one hour before the sun was up. What set it in motion? The air was absolutely still - not a leaf stirred. And now at 7 o'clock it is still lazily coming and going. Its behavior is all a puzzle to me, I hear the cawing of the crows from out the white obscurity below me. 25 Clear and hot as usual and calm with the lazy drifting fog in the morning. 26 Sunday, a repetition of yesterday morning. Hot 77 at 9 a.m. probably 80 (83) at noon. Saw a wood chuck this morning up on the Ironstone rock. 26 Many nests of the black hermit this season and chipmunks as thick as in my youth. Sweet corn still in abundance. This morning at 7 I saw rubies and emeralds in the grass 10 feet to the right and left of me - only one on each side. 27 Rainy. Howard and I dug out a chuck that had drawn my trap in his hole. De Loach and Dalla, Lore Sharp come in p.m. clearing later. Greatly enjoy Sharp and De Loach. Sharp not versatile, keen and entertaining mind, a very checkered career, all the car make of genius and he has genius, a flluent and eloqent taker. But he lectures daily year out and year in at the University of Boston, and in neighboring towns. We do not get to bed till 11 o'clock. 28 Clear and fine. We have a delightful day, Mr. Ormrod from Botten, England comes for dinner. We like him, our guests leave at 3 p.m. much to one regret. 29 Fine day. Willie and Bruce come in p.m. Very glad to se them. Bruce is sure to make his mark - a boy of excellent traits and superior gifts. 30 A cold rain this morning from N.E. our equinoxial storm - sure to come between the 20th and 30th of Sept. - 2 p.m. still raining and blowing from N.E. - 5 p.m. still at it. Oct 1 Cloudy and cold this morning. Signs of sun breaking through. 2 Sunday, warm and fine. Dig out a chuck in morning, much company. 3 Clear this morning. Shoot a chuck. Light thunder shower in p.m. sun out at 5 1/2. 4 Rainy this morning and cold down to 46 degrees at 9 a.m. Signs of clearing. 5 A bright cool day, sit by the open fire and muse and write. 7 Cool and bright and now at 10 1/2 not a cloud in the sky. Our 2d frost last night, pretty heavy. This morning I again studied the colored drops in the dew, saw an orange drop 1 inch from my head and 1 at 3 feet. One at 4 ft, 1 at 10 ft and 1 at 5. Had the drops all faced my way would I have seen more? 8 A day without a cloud - clear as bell, calm and warmer, no frost last night, an occasional wood chuck still out. Foliage turning on the mountains. Wood vine dropping its leaves. Plenty of sweet corn still in the garden, sit on the porch and write this, never saw a mass perfect autumn day. If Harding is elected in Nov I shall be ashamed that I am an American. I am so intolerant if that gang of reactionaries in the senate led by Borch and Lodge that more than ever I would like to see the senate abolished. Let the house make the laws. What great thing ever came out of the senate? There have been great men there but not for a generations or more, they are mostly men politicians. 9. Another cloudless night with twinkling stars followed by a cloudless morning. The old miracle of sun rise drew my eye as usual a vast spectrum on the eastern sky the high color changing to a white luminousness as the sun approached, again a lake of fog in the valley. Half an hour before sun up I looked up and saw the farm fetching the cows in the field below me silhoutted against the white background of the fog. It was a pretty sight. Now at 9 a.m. the fog is still in the valley, having retired from its salley up over the hill forms. The sun will soon burn it up leaving only a thin film of smoke. We have struck the autumn summer and it is of wondrous beauty. Why are the clouds so highly colored and the fog remain white? Why does not the sun burn them up too? 10. A repetition of yesterday morning minus fog, only a soft haze not a cloud in the sky, temperature rising a little each day. We dug out the wood chuck in the Ford Lot last night - not as nearly black a chuck as I thought he was, but dark. It was a long hard job. 11. A fine day on the mountain all forenoon with survey or gnawing making a survey for a map of the old farm I got very tired. 12. A light rain and mist began to drizzle about 4 this morning kept it up all forenoon but barely made the caves drop. Glimpse of blue sky and the sun this p.m. 13. A lovely day, except for the fog that lingered till about 10. Spent the p.m. with the surveyors on the hills - walk about 3 miles, in all, a glorious afternoon saw a chuck below the site of the grand fathers, barn. Went in to the old burying ground on the hill and found the grave of Ezra Bartram. It was covered by grass and walls, I lifted it up and put a stone under it a common storm with E.B. carved upon it, date of his death 1823. Father bought the farm of his widow about 1829. He was the father of Zoriah B. I saw him about 81 or 2 while he was on a visit to this place from Michigan. He died there many years ago. Truly here the rude forefathers of the hand it sleep. 14. Another lovely calm warm day. Surveyors did not come. Loafed nearly all day, drove to village for apple barrels. 15. Fine clear warm day. Gather some apples. Write letter about my notes on W.W. to a man in N.Y. Catch several chipmunks in trap. Down to Shatrams to dinner. 16,17. Fine warm days, Mr Roy here from Montreal. Enjoy him much. 18. Warm, calm, foggy till 11 a.m. We pick apples and fail to dig out a chuck. 19. Cloudy in morning, clearing in p.m. Drive down with Mr. Roy at 3, sorry to have him leave, a heavy appreciation sure. Helps me get ready the barrels of apples to be shipped home. 20. Fine warm weather continuous work on the road. 21. Miss Chapen of H. M. Co comes, a bright interesting woman. 22. Cooler, cloudy in a.m. clearing in p.m. Miss C. leaves in p.m. We drive her down to train. 23. Clear, cold, dry. Drive over to Hobart. Reach there at 11 1/2 stay till 3 p.m. Mag has a good dinner, I see and feel Eden in everything. After dinner I walk down to the cemetery and stand a long time by the graves of Eden and Hiram. Willie comes over at one, I wear my wood chuck skin coat and do not feel the cold. Dessie and Harriet go with us. We are home at 4 1/2 p.m. 24. Sunday a cool clear day. Try to dig out a chuck, out on the slope of the hill. Find his nest but the dog fails us and we give it up. 25. Up early this morning to get ready to start for West Park. Nearly clear warm day. We are off at 9, a good run to Kingston. Have our lunch at the high cement arch above the lake. Reach Kingston at 2 p.m. and home at 3 p.m. 26. Good to be back, busy getting settled a light sprinkle of rain. 27 .Warm, 72 degrees, partly cloudy, threatens rain. Drove to Slabsides, no frost here yet. 28. Rained in the night, cool calm and at times all day. 29. Cool, cloudy with light rain, a rainbow this morning, over by the station before 8 o'clock. Nov 2d Election day, cloudy and threatening. Go up and vote in forenoon. Vote straight democratic ticket. 3 For the first time in my life I am ashamed I am an American. If I were in Europe new I could not hold up my head and confess I was a citizen of the U.S.A. I must be crazy. I had supposed a leage of nations was a good thing. I know in advance that it would be impossible to bold the people of this country up to 9 sense of high moral obligation yet the concrete reality has cut me deeper that I thought it could. I am shocked. It seems as if the overwhelmingly saddled all the trouble of the last 8 years the world war and everything upon poor President Wilson, the high prices, the crimes, the disorders the taxes etc. It is probably always so. The Administration is always to blame for everything disastrous that happens, almost for the bad weather. Thank heaven I was not carried away by this landslide, I am proud to belong to the saving remnant, the minority who still have some sense of moral duty. We cannot shirk or repudate the debt we owe to the world. The welfare of one nation should mean the welfare of all, we all contribute one family. What injury one injures all, nation can no longer exist and grow rich by praying upon one[each] other. That is barbarism. It the Republican landslide means we don't care a damn for Europe, we must keep aloof from all its affairs. We deceive ourselves. One extreme follow another in practice as in the weather if the incoming administration is attending by hard times [the] a landslide will carry it off in the same way. 4. A bright cool day, no frost here yet. Drive to Kingston in p.m. to attend reception at Forsyth and Davi's book store, meet many people, spot briefly before Daughters of Revolution autograph many of my books, and of C.B.'s 5. Cool, bright. Busy all day, about the place. 6. Cool and bright. Go to K this p.m. to meet D.A.R. no frost yet. Nov 16, Cloudy cold from N. Went to Yama Farms Nov 9 stayed till the 14 to meet the Ford-Edison's-(Firestone) partly. They came on the 11th. Had a good time gained in strength in my legs and got rid of my cough or bronchial irritation. Came back here on Sunday the 14. The whole party came here. We had a brigand steak here at 3, then a drive to S.S. The Fords started for Albany with Mr. Plantef about 4 p.m. Nov 16, A flock of wild geese going south this a.m. Is winter behind then? A flock of migrating wild geese is always a memorable sight. 17. To P. get our tickets to Cala. cold rainy and misty. 18. Bright and cold this morning and windy from N.W. 19. Cool and partly cloudy. 20. Clear and not so cool, much haze in the air. 21. A White wash of sheet and snow this morning, a dark calm overcast day. Gnats dancing in the air this a.m. Dr. J and wife here from N.Y. I sit in the study before a bright fire most f the day "O pile of bright fire" Julian goes out on the room and shoots 5 blue birds and sees swarms of ducks of nearly all kinds. Snow geese here also he hears. Nov 23, Leave Poughkeepsie on 4 p.m. train for Toledo, when at the house of one friends the Bocks, we spend 2 happy days. Nov 26, Leave this p.m. for Detroit. The Bocks drive us up in their car. We spend 2 days at the Fords and leave there on the 28th for Chicago. While there I saw a flock of young pine grosbeaks from the north, an indication of cold weather I think. 28. At De Loaches, misty and rainy at 6 1/2 p.m. De Loach drives us to the stations of the Santa Fee, where we take the Cala. Limited for Santa ego. Four days on train, no mishaps but lose 3 hours in road from the grand canyon to the "Needles" We spend one day at Canyon and see two or three snow squalls. At Delmar the car of the Scripps meet us. At 8 1/2 and at 9 1/4 we are in La Jolla at the Wisteria where we are at home. Dec 5, Bright cold day since we came, the old loveliness and splendor. Very cool nights, need as much cover as at home. The plovers the sparrows(white crowned and gambles) and the pipit or titlarks on the lawn as usual, no warblers yet, yesterday. Higgins drove us to San Diego. Today the Ford car for our use came from Los Angeles. 6. Clear, cold car comes today. 7. Cold, cloudy, part of the day In p.m. we drive to San Diego. 8. Still cold, but clear in forenoon. Some cloud in p.m. We drive over through Rose Canton - about 20 miles, a mist in the evening, to net the stores. 12 Sunday, Day by day the same cold, drive to 42 one night. We drive 15 or 20 or 30 miles each p.m. the greatest cradle. On earth the cradle of the pacific is still rocking in front of my window, some days a little more gently than on others but the foot or hand that nudges it is never idle. Its white drapery is always in evidence. What a vast cradle it is! What myriad forms of life it holds! both beautiful and hideous beyond words. I heard a talk in sharks the other day from which I learned that there are 12 specific sharks and that some are oviparous and others viviparous that the sharks[have] are cartilaginous or have no hard bones. The toad fish and dog fish are species of sharks etc. Dec, 13 Still clear and cold. Frost warning have been issued for some parts of Cala. 18. Little change, am writing a little now days. 19. Cloudy and light rain now at 8 1/2. Pacific beating its long roll this morning. The McCarthy came yesterday p.m. 20 The light rain yesterday morning turned to a down pour before noon. Rained the hardest for a short time I ever saw it rain in Cala. Cleared off in p.m., with violent cold wind from N.W. which raged all night. Clear and quieter today, but cold. Drove to San Diego this p.m. McCarthy at the wheel. 28. Days nearly all alike, clear with cold nights and morning. I write a little each day, walk a little, drive a little, receives several callers each day. Keep fairly well. 29. The pacific very calm the past few days - only a gentle rocking. The brilliant sunshine continues. I begin to long for a day with the lid on - oh, for the sheet in feeling of a storm - the privacy of storm I think I could get closer to myself on such a day. At any rate it would be more like home. 1921 Jany 1st, No change in weather, bright and cold. 2d I do hope the flood of Xmas cards is over. What a museum it is - inflating across mail with wind. In p.m. I walk up to the Gold Links and back, Good for me makes me sleep better o nights. I can never get over the incongruity of that barking of dogs or hounds out there in the water. The same pack of them apparently as a year ago and in exactly the same spot. 7. Bright cold day, a killing frost last night in some parts of the country. I got up in the night for extra cover. 8. Still dry, bright, cold. White frost this morning on roofs, a killing frost farther north. The day fairly aches with the hard merciless light. 9 Still, cold and dry and bright. I often meet or see Walt Neadon the prose rhymer yesterday I met him in the bank making a deposit of checks. I see him driving about in his automobile. He has a house and family and lives well I think. But had he written real poetry, great poetry, he would probably be living in an attic and walking about instead of driving. I like him there is something wholesome about him and kindly. He is hard of hearing and heavy and clumsy. In a letter to me he says of his rhymer, "I have been writing them for a syndicate of newspaper for many year one every day, year after year and they have had a wonderful popularity - I expected when they were first syndicated that the people would soon grow weary of them but they seem as popular as now as at the beginning. Their want largely lies in the feet, that they are easy to read easy to understand and touch upon obvious pleases of life" I put one of them in regular verse form ad found its merits enhanced so used is the eye to such form. In prose form the mind is little bewildered. 17. Life here goes on about the same, our first considerable rain last night and this a.m. must have dust the ground partly well, clearing in p.m. Rain from S.S. Had an attack of auto intoxication from which I am just free. Began a week ago last Monday. Temperature not over 100 I thought toward the last got down to 99 and then go up. Pain in the muscles of my right breast still persists. I had neglected myself, depending up on Roman meal mush of which I ate freely. It gave me two movements daily or I thought there adequate. But they were not, went four days without "Aunt Martha" or ate a hearty turkey dinner at Gent Youngs in the near time, a dose of salt or a wash out on 3d day would have saved me. Fever came on only at night, kept my bed 2 days but without benefit I think. Have been reading again the correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle and living for a week or more with these two great sports and sharing their troubles and triumph. What an experience it has been. I feel lonesome. Like E's letters the best one tires of C's groaning and appealing to heaven. He did no work cheerfully or uncomplainingly. He should have been thankful that he had work to do. What an outcry and yet all the time invoking the silences. The old world. Sorrow and passing in one and the new world optimism and courage in the other Jany 23d, The season of cold rain. Brief showers from the N.W. and quite a thorough rain from S.E. Snow and hail further north(Los Angeles) a white frost here in the roofs one morning. I have had one mild attack of auto intoxication since one week ago. Fever 101 then fell to 99 and in a few days to normal. If I take a teaspoon full of Epson salts each morning I can stand it off. "Aunt Martha" on Friday the 21 - salts my day since give me 2 or 3 moments daily. 3 today - 2 yesterday. Shall take an enema again on Tuesday, a bad night last night from palpitation from eating a prickly pear. Bad stuff for me. "I am weary of the sea winds. I am weary of the foams. The little strain of Duna calls me home." 1921 27. Alight rain from S.E. we drive over Soledad and then to Mt. Helix. Rather too much of a good thing. six days without an enema, by taking a teaspoon full of Epson salts every morning. Some unfavorable symptoms began to develop today, such as pain in right breast (muscular). Took an enema on my return with good results. - I bragged too soon. At 8 p.m. I had some temperature(99 degrees) proceeded by chilly sensations, must take an enema at least every 5th day. If the salts give 2 or 3 movements each day I think that will do. Jany 28, Nearly clear this morning. Had a pretty good night no temperature this morning. Feb 4, Came to Pasadena Glen on the 3rd -a snug little bangalore called the Blue Bird sung and livable still cold and much cloud. Ann down with soap suds enemas, salt and soda are painless and very effective. Life seems worth living again. Down to Suera Neadra P.O. today now at 7 p.m. I hear the patter of rain. Diary from May... to
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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: 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: 1917-1918 (December - October)
Text: Diary from Dec 5, 1917 to Oct 31st, 1918 Dec 8. Cold, down to 10. Cloudy, began to snow at noon. Cut wood and spend much time in open air. Yesterday walked by the river in a.m. In p.m. went to Slabsides, no wild life some a flock of Canada sparrows near Riverby. 9. Cold, clear, snowed in the night, nearly 3 inches, a cold dry bright Dec so far. 10. Down to 6 this morning with N.W. wind. River nearly covered with ice. 11. Cold, clear, down to 8 degrees. Ice fast in river. Eat, sleep and work...
Show moreDiary from Dec 5, 1917 to Oct 31st, 1918 Dec 8. Cold, down to 10. Cloudy, began to snow at noon. Cut wood and spend much time in open air. Yesterday walked by the river in a.m. In p.m. went to Slabsides, no wild life some a flock of Canada sparrows near Riverby. 9. Cold, clear, snowed in the night, nearly 3 inches, a cold dry bright Dec so far. 10. Down to 6 this morning with N.W. wind. River nearly covered with ice. 11. Cold, clear, down to 8 degrees. Ice fast in river. Eat, sleep and work well, but am thin. The horrible war - who can store up fat [at] in such times? Walk to S.S. in p.m. start a partridge form under my shed. The sight and sound of her hardy wings did me good, no other tracks on the snow, save an occasional mouse and red squirrel. Surface of the snow way where fretted and etched by wind blown leaves and twigs. 12. Still cold - down to 6. Ice in river solid, signs of snow in the air. Send letter to Tribune, returned from Times. 13. Still cold, near zero. Water pipes froze up. River ice solid, snow predicted. 2 robins this morning, one of them about done up, a song sparrow very brisk and very tame. Colder weather coming. 14. About 15 inches of snow last night, leg deep in places between house and study, a little milder, clearing. Mrs. Canfield here. Still writing a little. Letter in N.Y. Sun. 15. Clear, colder. Hud was all day shoveliing us out. Atlantic returns my paper. "Is nature cruel?" (Later, paper no good, repeat myself, shall re-write it) mind still active and sleep good. My poor wife came home one year ago yesterday, never to go away again, except on the last journey. 16. Below zero. Rugged writer Mrs. Canfield here. Write in a.m. 17. Still clear and cold, mercury around zero, a robin today; 4 or 5 letters appreciation of my letter in N.Y. Tribune of the 14th. 18. Cold and clear. Off to N.Y. today with C.B. 21. Home today from N.Y.- the ugliest city in the world - mud and slush and confusion and crowds everywhere, N.Y. is about 4 cities deep, and then is only one system of surface streets and they are crowded and congested by ones endurance. Huge trucks and autos and way ones fill the streets and people crowd the sidewalks. Spent two nights with the Prichards on 60th Str. one day at Rowlands, had one dinner with the Leonards on Gramercy Park, slept well, but had little pleasure. 22. Milder. C.B. comes home today. 23. Bright mild day. Julian and his family here, colder in p.m. 24. Cloudy and milder from S.W. threatens rain, snow much settled. Letter in Tribune brings many responses. 25. To Julians to dinner. C.B. furnishes the duck. Cloudy and cold. 30. Colder and colder. Clear and dry. Down to 22 and 24, below zero this morning - the coldest I have seen it here. Water pipes all frozen, clear. 31. Down to 20 below. Fearful, clear, a struggle to keep warm furnace heat and open wood fire. The poor birds almost succumb to the cold my little song sparrow hangs on and accept my offer of cream of wheat Intense cold and suffering all over the country - shortage of coal holds to the calamity. I keep well and do some writing, another letter to Tribune sent on Saturday 29th. Jany 1st 1918. Still clear and cold - 10 to 20 below, I have never seen the cold of the winter come on so steadily and increase so regularly, I recall no winter like it - for 3 months now a steady tightening of the pressure - little or no fluctuations, no spasms but the steadiness of strength, no South wind, not one warm day and but little storm, save the 16 inches of snow in Dec. The new year finds me in pretty good health, writing in morning, and sawing and splitting wood nearly 1 hour in p.m. mere easily tired than one year ago, but my interests in the war, in nature in books as keen as ever. Weigh about 32. Ann practically well, sight and hearing good, memory a little more uncertain, appetite as good as ever, sleep fairly good, the old Adam slowly hauling in his horns. Have written at least 1/2 a vol. the past year, though have published but little. Four or five letters on the war and the Germans in Dec. The Tribune letter brings many responses, papers written since last April. "The spring bird procession" in hands of Atlantic, "a mid summer idyl". "The singing birds", "atoms and orbs" all in the hands of Harper, "Is nature cruel" in hands of the century. "What I get from science" on hand unfinished, paper in N.Y. Times" Supplant (Sunday) on "might and right" and at least 5 or 6 other short papers on phases of nature. my neighbor Mrs. Smith died last week in N.Y. of pneumonia. I shall miss her greatly, a superior woman, and a live wire in the neighborhood. What of good and bad does the new year hold for me? I am glad I do not know. If it only brings the end of the war - on the terms of the Allies that will be good enough. 2. Still clear and cold - 10 below this morning. As the ice thickens the groaning and mumbling of the river becomes less noticeable. The river sleeps more soundly. What a curious ellusive ventriloquial sound it is! The ice demons seem to be signaling to each other, carrying on a dialogue that the world is not to hear or understand. Vague as a dream, everywhere but no where chords of sound floating in the air, to locate them would be like trying to locate the rainbow, they are in swift motion now here, now there. To the walker or skater on the ice they are as vague and ellusive in their origin as to the listener [walker] on land. They shoot under your feet and echo far off in a twinkling. All through the night one hears these ice sleepers snow - no it is not like a sleeper snoring, it is more like a sentry calling out the home, often it is a resounding grunt - than it is like a giant belching wind. When the river first freezes over, it is more noisy, any change of temperature causes the ice to let off musical valley. It is a hooping and a shouting, like boys coming out of school. But as the cold increases and the ice deepens, the sounds become like more pronounced chest tones fewer and more muffled. 3. Still cold, and nearly clear, down to - 10 this morning, wind N. The grunting of the ice this morning seems to come from bottom of the river. The rivers sleep is becoming more and more profound. The Canada tree sparrows go drifting through the vineyards like brown leaves blown by a gentle wind. What do they find? A few seeds of the pig weed probably shaken out by the wind. Two of them came on the walk under the kitchen window when C.B. had sprinkled some cream of wheat. But they did not eat it, apparently they did not recognize it as food. It was white and their weed seeds are black or brown. It took my little song sparrow 4 or 5 days to find out that the [whe] cream of wheat grains, which I put on a shingle and placed on the snow where it spent much time searching for hay and weed seeds from the haymore was eatable. The color I fancy threw it off, now it has caught on, it feed there many times a day. Wild birds have an eye only for wild food. 6. Clear and cold up to this date. Rarely above zero at noon 10 to 14 below in morning. Today clear but milder up to 20. Hud takes us on sleigh ride around the triangle in p.m. In morning took a walk by river over the top of the hard snow, saw when birds or squirrels had fed on [st] [seemach] bobs, no life but one downey, river groaning much its thick icy cover, an auto on the ice. Writing past week on Thorean and short article on "The might - make - Right Fallony" also letter on the economic war after the war. Signs of storm at sundown. 7. Began raining in the night; trees with icy armor this morning and still raining, mercury 31 - the highest for many weeks. 10. Bright and milder the past few days, only down to 20 in the morning. Ice still on the trees. Mr. Roy of Montreal came last night, a Canadian Scotchman, full of the best juice of humanity; has one son in the war and another who wants to go, only 16 17. Cold and snow since my last entry. Today we start for Washington, C.B. and I. Pass the night at Dr. Johnsons in N.Y. 18. Off at 9:15 for W. Reach there at 3 p.m. C.B. stops at Baltimore. I go to Dr. Bakers, very glad to see them all. Old friends of over 50 years ago. Frank a superior man. Mrs. B. a superior woman, their girls bright and keen, cold here, snow which was nearly 18 inches at W.P. faded out in N.J. 19. Cold, down to 14 and 16. [Polvimer] as solid as a rock. Mr. Ford sends a car for me daily. 20. Not so cold. Friends and strangers come to see me in p.m. Drive out to Cherry chase in morning. 22. Six inches of snow - good sleighing. Winter nearly as sever as at W.P. 24. A bright day, drive 3 hours in p.m. with C.B. to Rock Creek park and on the speedway and to the capital. 25. My old enemy - interested poising - sings me in the night - chilly sensations and then fever. Temperature 100 1/5 Keeps my bed all day, and clean house - Physics and water, a slight sore throat on Wednesday, took 1 1/2 gr calomel. Feel and look better in p.m. C.B. cheers me up. 26. Much better this morning - doubt if I have any fever. Abstain from all food except a cup of ovaltine and butter biscuit. Cough and raise a little but less than with other attacks. Took a dose of castavilla this morning which has just worked - mostly water. Julian has lost his place and is greatly broken up. Poor boy, he has always had smooth sailing. But no need to despair. I can help him, snow and cold at W.P. a good deal of irregular heart action, and pain in legs yesterday, but not today - heart unsteady all night. Got a few hours sleep. Proposed names for my nature vol. [Sucking the mystery.] [Searching for God] In the search for God the intellect is baffled. If one find him only, do not know what to do with him, that is how to fit him into the total scheme of things as we know them - into a world fairly congested with evil; if we fail to find him how are we to account for man and all other forms of life? Could chance do it? 27. Light fever this p.m. 100, keep my bed. 28. Only comfortably ill, fever 99 3/5. Fever broke in p.m. 29. No temperature today. Keep my best appetite good enough. Eat continously. 30. No fever, keep my bed. C.B. with me since Saturday. 31. No fever. Drive out in car, snow deep - cold. Feb 1. No fever. Drive out for 2 hours. 2d. No fever, drive to Capitor, then to Natl. Museum; feel fairly well, cold. 3. Sunday start for Tryon N.C. at 4.15 p.m. a sleepless night, but no pain, a little temperature in p.m. 4. In Tryon at 9. Drive to Mrs. Ravanell and engage room and afford $37 per week 5. Not much sleep, some temperature. Walk down to Library in p.m. Feel better for the walk. Temperature in morning 15, warm in p.m. 6. Some fever last night, which a few drops of aconite occurred to check, got some sleep, catarrh less, cough less. Drive to Miss Johnson and engage her little bungalow furnished - $25 per month. In the woods, very attractive. Bright day, mild in p.m. a brown creeper and a kinglet by our new house. Hope to move on Monday. Mch 1st. Here in Miss J. Cabin since early in Feb, very pleasantly situated. Weather on the whole very fine, clear and warm, most of the time like May. Yesterday and today too warm. Wild flowers beginning to bloom, soft maples humming with bees. No fever now for about a week. Appetite good, sleep better and better. Legs weak, but walk a mile or more each day, and drive. many miles. On Wednesday we drove 23 miles and crossed the mountains at Howard pass. But I am not yet myself - inclined to be morose and silent and take no pleasure in the company of others. C.B. has a hard time with me, most things have a sickish look to me. Yesterday we picnicked in the woods by the Gillett House, a variation that I appreciated. I write a little and revise my MSS. Read considerable, but been over the first vol. of Watts Dentons life and letter - a common place record of a third or fourth rate literary man. Read Dr. Emersons book on Thorean - a feeble production. Dr. Emesron is here at the hotel but has not showed himself to me, many strangers leave called, but not none of them very interesting. The song of the toad last night, and the seruch owls. We are on a Knoll surrounded by pine and oak woods, very little wild life. Have heard the pine warbler and seen one blue bellied salamander but not one rodents of any species. I long to be back at Riverby out of the occurred south - feel that my own land and clime will bring me back to normal again. I can see nothing beautiful in the southern landscape - the everlasting blood red soil, and the dark pine woods, the poor roads, the disheveled fields, the houses upon legs ready to run away, the [nevels] bespattered, house and vehicles and houses and pedestrian, the absence of grass e.t.c, all offend my eye. All day we hear the boom of the genes 5 miles away on the artillery range, where our boys from Spartanburg are learning the art of war. (Along line of hawkins wild geese has just passed over, flying N.E. a good sight and sound. They will reach the Hudson ahead of me.) Mch 6. One year ago today my poor wife breathed her last, I was in the harbor of Havannah, Cuba. This is our 4th week here - warm bright, summer like weather most of the time above 80 some days. Only one really rainy day - Monday - so far. I get one impression here that is new to me - the slowness of life here, both human and vegetable. The men are as lazy and deliberate as vegetation. There is no need to hurry; the season is long, nearly every day, the year through, is a working day - double the working days we have. Hence the people have plenty of time to sit around on their porches or linger about the village stores. Vegetation is equally slow and deliberate and for the same reason - there is plenty of time, a degree of warmth that would make every wild flower in our woods spring into bloom hardly makes the birds swell here. They wake up a little and rub they eyes, and then turn over for another nap. No arbutus yet and the mercury has been from 67 to 85 nearly everyday for weeks. Hepatica is just in bloom and the pine sap is getting ready. The peach trees show pink birds and the soft maples are humming with bees. Some plum trees are white, but gardens are only just being made and the grass is greening a little. Such continued warmth with us would bring out the foliage of the forest trees. The Cardinal is in song, and the woodpeckers are drumming a little, but the birds are all taking their time - no nest began yet! am sure. What man and nature do in six months with us they take nine months to accomplish here. Still farther North they do it in still less time, nobody hustles here and does not need to. My strength is slowly coming back, helped I think by the maltine with J., Q., S., I sleep well and walk a mile or more each day and drive from 15 to 20. But I know the disease of 81 years cannot be cured. A few bights ago, the screech owl rehearsed his long tremendous solo, for some time in the trees near our cabin. 7. Warm day yesterday, a thunder shower last night at 2 a.m. much cooler today. Drive to Columbus in p.m. 8. Clear and cool; fire in the sitting room. Peach trees in bloom. Women sends us a fine bunch of arbutus, not nearly so sweet scented as ours - probably needs the long winter sleep beneath the snow to make it perfect. Blood root in bloom. Two girls brought me a bunch of flowering almon - very striking - a glorified peach bloom, a big red warp here new to me. The mourning cloaked butterfly for a week past in the woods, many warblers yesterday, among them the red start and myrtle. Crows very scarce, with feeble call. - The new knowledge which science brings us which transends experience and is beyond the reach of observation. Seals have to be broken in opening this book - a call from Dr. Emerson a few nights ago. Like him much. Strangely like his father in the upper part of his face, but not his fathers strong chin and mouth, a good easy talker, a great event to me. The son of Emerson; only a little gray, moves and walks briskly, about 72. 10. Sunday. Bright and cool. I walk up on pines in p.m. C.B. and the J's drive in car. enjoyed my solitary walk. 11. Finish the Thoreau paper and take it to Dr. Emerson in p.m. My old artist friend Meyer and his wife Coll. 12. We leave Tryon today at 11.37. Dr. E. gives me back my paper with valuable criticism. Happy thought to ask him to read it. I shall change it and make T. more human. Glad to be off for home, but leave T. with a pang, such a clear salubrious land with its breath of pine and the soil of granite - an ideal climate a truly antiseptic air I think, no milden, no dampness our brother would not get old or strong, or deteriorate at all on the open shelves in the kitchen, meat kept a long time, though mercury was at times above 80. I gained steadily in strength and spirit, bronchial trouble ceased and I stopped expectorating. Weakness of legs, my main trouble, but could walk a mile or more. Leave Ashville at 3.25 and reach Washington on time 7.05 rain and fog. Leave for N.Y. on 8 a.m. train and reach N.Y. at 1. Lunch in Perm station and loaf about till 3 1/2 mild. Take 4.25 train for home. C.B. remains in N.Y. Am home at 7 p.m. J. meets me with his car, stay at Huds. 14. An inch and a half of snow last night. Looks wintery. Ice on river unbroken. Robust blue birds here, a thick dark day, with spirts of fine snow or rain, a thunder shower at night. But am glad to be here. 15. Clear, colder, a rather windy sharp day. Sleep in the "nest." Fire in study. P.m. clear and colder. Enjoy the day. Have gone through pecks of second class meal, accumulation of two months - 5 or 6 back. Some of them worth while. Spent most of yesterday going over papers of the old. Wallkill bank trees burned arm full of them 16. Clear and cool. Fine day. Too cold for sap yet, snow evaporating. 17. Fine day; tap 10 trees good sap day, ideal. Buckets full by night. Go up to J's to dinner. Walk back. Legs getting a little stronger. Happy to be here. 18. Ideal day, warm, clear. Boil sap all day, reduce 12 or 14 pails full to syrup. Sitting by the steaming pan. I dream the old dreams. Drive to Highland in p.m. John and I. Enjoy it greatly. C.B. and Pietro come at 6 p.m. not much sap today. 19. Still clear and mild and still. Froze last night yet sap seems reluctant. 10 a.m. Ice on river has just parted from shore to shore. Lower half slowly moving down, leaving a broad expance of clear smooth water, no sound, no commotion, no wind, never before saw the trick done so quietly. The time was ripe, the ebb tide did the work. Fine sleep these nights. Water pipes still frozen. - There is good sawed timber in Brownells essay (standards) but I do not see a green leaf anywhere. 26. Clear, dry, lovely weather for over a week now; good sap weather most of the time. I have boiled sap in the open more than half the time. Sap unusually sweet. After the trees lead been running over 10 days 18 gts of sap made one lb. of sugar. Not much sign of spring yet except the birds begin to show as big as honey bees in the tops of the elms. 27. Rather cold March like weather, not much sunshine. Froze last night - down to 26 this morning. Sap starts up during the day. Some trees run fast. Write in forenoon on the Thoreau paper. In p.m. walk back to the woods and peer into the creeks and swamps, no sign of life in the water yet. Pussy willows beginning to show their silver. Walk up to the mouth of the canyon - snow and ice there yet. Then down to the creek and on and up Lundys Lane to the highway, my longest walk here since my return. Legs getting stronger. Gardens will soon be dry enough to plow. Ice all gone from the river. Rye greening, but grass slow to start. Johnny says he has heard peepers but I have not. Life is slow to wake up in March. Two red shouldered starling over in the marsh by the station for several days now calling, calling, "o-ka-la," but no females have yet appeared. Plenty of robins and song sparrows and blue birds and one phoebe. Water pipes still frozen up. 28. Clear, dry, cold. Froze quite hard. Good sap weather continues. Wind North. War news very disturbing. I have concluded that Wilson can lead the nations in speech, but not in deeds. His administration seems to burgle everything, nothing is done. He surrounds himself with inefficient men. 29. Same weather continued all sun by day and all moon by night - not a cloud for 3 days. Cool, dry. Mercury down to 26 every morning. Wind N. Remarkable weather, no change in temperature for several days. Columns of smoke rising here and there. Ground nearly ready for the plow. Few signs of spring life. Sap about done, except the old maple by the road which is outdoing itself, a bucket full every day - usually I get about 2 buckets from it during the whole season. 30. Extraordinary weather continues, no change in temperature, freezes every night. The day more hazy than yesterday, a white haze nearly hide the river. Drove to Milton yesterday p.m. to call on the Festons; had a good time; car runs like a top. The great German Drive, puts us all on the anxious seat, if we must personify the power that rules the universe we must say it is just as much devil as it is God. But the universe is not ruled in the sense that a state or kingdom is ruled. It goes on from its own impetus as the stars do. Whence that impetus? It has no whence; neither beginning nor ending. The earth which sustains all things is itself unsustained. 31. Sill the wonderful days are here, such tranquility in March. I never saw before so long continued. Two weeks of it now a soft warm brooding day, a day like a food memory. We drive to the Ashokan dam and to wife's grave. Mr. Langstroch whom we pick up in Kingston with us, a keen, quiet sober, intelligent young man, author of a book on the Adirondacks. Wife's grave looks neglected. Oh, what long sad thoughts, came to me as I look upon it. We drive around the dam and down to Dr. Hull's old place where we eat our lunch. Then on down to wood same North's old place, and walk down the road to the farm where wife was born, much if it under water now. Stand on the spot where I wrote "Waitng" on 1862 in Dr. Hulls old office and have my photo taken. I remembered that 64 years ago this very day I was with the Hulls. I had found a school to teach in Tongore (1854) and returned home April 1st a day crowded with sad and with pleasant events. April 1st. A day like yesterday. The toad began to sing on 30, I am tired from yesterdays journey. Ground ready for the plow. Boil the last sap today. 2d. No change in weather. We go over and burn over the swamp for Gill Drake to plant. Little signs of life. Elm trees in bloom, never before in March have I seen the conservative days like those we have just had April 3d. A change in the weather to cloud and cold and rain in p.m. My 81st birth day. Rowland and Franks come up from N.Y. and two newspaper men Julian and his family over to dinner. I am fairly well, slowly gaining in strength. Weigh about 130. Sleep well, appetite good. Life would be as sweet as ever if the horrible war would end in the crushing of German militarism. Still writing on Thoreau. Sap run over. Fewer letters and telegrams reach than one year ago, on my 80th birthday. If I were to reach my 90th birthday, then would probably be an avalanche of them. 4. Fine day again, but chilly. [Poullsen] Bigelow and sons of his friends call, a pleasant day. 5. More friends among them Dr. Freston and his family; we have a little maple sugar picnic in the kitchen, too windy outside. 6. Lovely day, tranquil, mild. Plant more peas and carrots and beets. Drive to Highland in p.m. 7. Lovely day, Nora W. and her two friends come; we lunch at S.S. an enjoyable day. One clump of blood root and hepaticas in bloom. Arbutus opening a little here and there. I walk to S.S. and back. Astonish the girls by the way I take the short cut on hurrying back for the train. They could not follow me. 8. Cool, cloudy, probably rain near. All the enticement of April on the air the past week, except on the 3d. 9. Rain. Start for Toledo with Mr. Bock and Pietro. 10. Reach T. at 3 p.m. Go to Bocks fine home. 11. Resting at B's in E. Toledo. 12. The day has arrived unvailing of the statue in front of the museum, a great crowd 20,000 school children pass in review before me bringing flowers, over 1 1/.2 hours in passing. I stand there on the steps as smiling as a basket of chips. Then I greet the teachers inside the museum. Pretty tired at night. But all is vanity and vexation of spirit. 13. At Bocks, a delightful house and a delightful family. Go to dinner in town at night. 14. Bright lovely day. The Bocks drive us to Detroit, 65 miles. Stay at the Ford, and loaf and walk and drive till Thursday. Genial weather with some rain. 15. Start for Chicago at 9:10. Reach there in mid afternoon. The ride through Michigan very delightful, a prospers, happy looking farming country. I think of aunt Dolly and uncle Ele Bartram who were our near neighbors in my youth and who were taken there in their old age by their son. I wonder where their bones rest. The bones of Tom Lauren and his family also rest there. De Loach meets us at train and take us to his home on the Beverly Hills south of the city. Stay there till 22d and see many people. De Loach and family kindness itself. Newspaper report after me. 22. Glen Buck come for us, weather cold and wet. Stay to Bucks 2 days and nights and see many people. 24. Start for Polo at 8:40, C.B. goes with me, 100 miles. Reach there about one p.m. Dr. More meets us. See nothing that I remember, but Dr. More, 62 years ago, I taught the school at Buffalo Grove near by. We drove down there, but all is changed except the sky, not one feature do I recognize, new houses, new trees, new roads and a cultivated landscape instead of the virgin prairie I saw in '56, my heart ached for some token of the old days and old friends. Dr. More 88 1/2 years old, a Roxbury boy, gave me my license to teach in fall of 56. 25. Back to Chicago and to De Loaches. 26. At De Loaches, see many people again, reporters and start for home at 5:40 p.m. all goes fairly well, train on time at Syracuse on Saturday. C.B. stops off to visit her old home at Port Byron. I reach P. at 4:45. Get my dinner and go home to West Park on 6:58 train. Have a bad night from indigestion. 28. The country looks good, a bright mild day. Three girls from N.Y. another bad attack of indigestion. 29. Cloudy with heavy rain at night. C.B. comes with here little niece. 30. Lovely spring day, warm up to 76. Cherry and plum trees in bloom, maples yellowing with bloom in their tops, cut a little asparagus. Three rows of peas up. We drive to Highland in p.m. a lovely ride. Robins nesting. May 1st Much rain again last night, clearing and cooler this morning, some apple trees showing the pink, plum bloom dropping. Different kinds of trees begin to be outlined in the woods. The Hems suffer a check in France and Belgium, a disastrous defeat says the sensational headline of the newspaper. 5th Have had a pretty bad week - a slight attack of my old trouble brought on by wrong eating, much gas and palpitation, a lot of people yesterday from Far Reckaway, and Jamaica and Brooklyn training schools and Kingston High school - too much, a fine warm day. 6 Hot up to 90 at noon. Apple trees blooming, maple leaves under the tree half grown, early corn coming up. Pear trees in full bloom. Wood thrush this morning. Oriole yesterday. Some fever yesterday p.m. 100 today up to, not the usual bronchial cough. Sleep precarialy. 7, 8, 9, 10 Beautiful warm days, dry. 11. Lovely day, over 100 people come to Slabsides. 12. Fine day, with signs of rain. 13. Start for Roxbury in p.m. Warm, showers begin in Shandaken rain all p.m. and all night. John C. meets me at train. 14. Rainy, but clearing up in p.m. Sleep on porch at W.C.L. 15, 16, 17, 18. Ideal days. Bright warm (70 to 82) Calm. I sit on the porch and gaze on the old scenes. Do not remember such a succession of lovely May days. Apple bloom, bobolinks, and great splashes of gold from dandelions, on the meadows. But little sign of foliage on Mt. tops but lower woods, half leaved out. Take my dinner at John C's but get over breakfast and supper. How I pour down the delicious water. Work on the Thoreau article and wage war on the Woodchucks. Shoot 4, and dose many holes with the Carbon bisulphide, no chuck emerges from these holes while I stay. 19. John C. drives me down to Ollies. Ort in bad way from gastric ulcer, a very pleasant drive, shower at night and cloudy next day. 20. I poke about all day, and fuss in the garden. Rain again at night, and slow rain all night. 21. Conclude to return to West Park. Raining in morning. Irvin drives me down to train in the rain. Reach home at 12 1/2. Bright and warm. 22. Partly cloudy and warm. Glad to be back. Feel better. 23. Feel much better. Bright and warm. Some thunder in the night, more breeze and cooler in p.m. Locusts blooming. Wild grape fragrance yesterday p.m. as we drove to H. not one warbler yet this May. 24, 26, 27. At home. 28. Go to Floral Park Childs. 29, 30, 31. Fine days at F.P. See many flying machines at Aviation Field at Mineola, sleep improved. June 1st. Home from F.L. warm. 2d. Warm, near 90. 3d. Off for the Roofs, at 2 p.m. 4. At R. Ideal trout weather. Wade the stream and take 8 fine trout. Days calm, hazy warm. 5. Again I wade the rapid stream and take 10 trout, 2 hours. Strength stands the test. 6. Leave Wintown. The Roofs come to Ranchout and J. with them. Julian and the children meet me at Chain ferry. 7. At home. Heavy rain till now. Clearing in p.m. 8. Cooler. In p.m. we drive to Brookman field for S. berries then to sunset rock to witness the eclipse of sun. Eclipse on at 6 1/2. 9. A cool night, warmer this p.m. 10, 11. Overcast, mild. Gather a lot of wild s. berries in Gordons field, never saw such large wild berries and very sweet, no warblers here yet, but two black and white creeping warblers. 12. Warm, showers in morning. Clearing in p.m. 13. Much cooler, start a fire in the fire place. In p.m. go to Gordons orchard and get fine lot of wild s. berries. I enjoy picking berries about as much as I do fishing. It is always a kind of adventure. Heavy clouds all day. Dr. Johnson and his son Douglass and the Golden Bantum here. 14. Clearing and a little warmer. War news better. In morning work on Emerson and his journal. 15. A cool, clear day of great brilliancy, the high tide of June. Drive up and around the Ashokan dam - never saw it so beautiful. Eat our lunch under a tree near the Watson Hollow Inn. Feel the pull of Tongore and its cemetery as we pass. Back home at 6 1/2 p.m. 16. Another day of great brilliancy, still cool. Gather mere wild s. berries in Gordons orchard; road hot with autos, disgusting. 17. Still fair with promise of warmer, nights very cool. Poor sleep. 23. Fire in study and in the nest. Squalls of rain probably snow in the higher Catskills. Last week the coldest I veer saw in June. Bright and dry but cold, till Friday at night a heavy rain. Today mercury stands at 48. 29. A cool week, unusual. Today fair and warmer. We start for Roxbury. After many hindrances and delays we reach the Lodge at 6. in a short shower. Country very green and beautiful. 30. A fine warm day, several callers, among them Dr. Hulls eldest daughter, Mary Elizabeth, Hull Smith. Glad to see her. July 1. Rain in this morning. Sunshine in p.m. I go strawberrying in the home meadows. The air full of meadow perfumes. Clover daisies, hawkweed e.t.c. S. berries very sweet and fragrant, a cuckoos nest in a thorn tree in the little meadow. 2d. Cold and cloudy, a fire in the Franklin this morning. I hear the bobolinks getting ready to migrate southward. The mowing machine did not disturb them this year. 4. A brilliant warm day, all Janes children and grand children meet at John's all bring baskets of food, we join them; two full tables. I enjoy it all, Smith McGregor, a superior young man. He should make his mark. 5. Another brilliant and warm day. The air loaded with meadow perfumes. These are the days of the daisies myriads of them everywhere like girls faces in their teens. 6. Rain last night, and this forenoon. Clearing in p.m. 7. Partly cloudy and cold. Weather cannot settle itself. 8 A cold night, fire in the Franklin this morning. Looks and feels like Oct. cloudy now at 9. - looks squally. - An indigo birds nest near the house in a blackberry bush. The male never shows himself here. I hear his song occasionally 3 or 4 hundred yards away, young in it since the 2d; the little brown mother cares for them alone. Cuckoos nest (blackbilled) in thorn bush in meadow East of house, young out of the nest. Both birds and in feeding them. 10. The sixth day of cloud and cold and spirts of rain, a brief shower caught me up in "Scotland" this p.m. 5 chucks today - all small. 11. Weather improved, some sunshine and blue sky this a.m. Warmer. Poor sleep. 12. Warm, the best day for a week 14. Rain all forenoon. Julian comes at 6 in his car. 15. Clear. We start for sea shore on mass coast. Reach Athens at 11, then on across Columbia Co. Eat our lunch near state line, besides a little brook under the trees. Then on to Great Barrington and Lee and so to Springfield which we reach at 5. Get a bite there then on to Worcester and beyond to Northboro - 32 miles from Boston which point we reach at 9 p.m. - a run of over 200 miles, a perfect day, perfect roads and a perfect car. 16. We are off in the morning at 8. Reach Cambridge in good time - see Brewster on Brattle St. and by chance Dr. Edward Emerson; Thrice on through the suburbs of Boston through Milton, Hingham e.t.c. to Ocean Bluff, which we reach at 12 1/2. Find Julians family easily in their cottage on the beach the whole Atlantic at their door. 17. Lovely warm day. I loaf on the sands and see and hear the lazy swells roll in. It is good to be here, sand, sea and sky, - gentle breezes, a quiet surf, but water too cold for me to bathe in king bird on the beach probably, picking up the sand fleas, and an occasional robin. Beach paved [near] along its margin with worn fragments of granite of all hues and texture - a marvelous display of varieties of crystatic rock - some of rare beauty. I would like to take enough home to pave my door yard. 18. Lovely day. We drive to Plymouth, 20 miles, a fine old town, solid and clean. We see Plymouth rock - a small affair. The monument on the hill rather impressive. All this part of mass, looks howlike thrifty and well ordered, good state roads and fine gardens and meadows - the N.E. look and order everywhere, much more satisfying than similar things in N.Y. state. I am sleeping well here, and eating well of course, the soft clam juice touches the right spot. I walk to the P.O. about one mile and back briskly and with ease. 19. Lovely day, a blue green sea and a blue [green] sky. I read the good war news with deepest satisfaction - if it will only continue good. 20. Still clear, calm and warm. War news still good. I weigh 130 this morning. Tranquil, enjoyable days by the sea, only two events of importance - sleeping and eating - yes a third the negative of the latter. When those three work well together life is worth while. If Clara were here I would ask no more. Apparently the old elemental ocean mill gets to a point where it can grind the sand no finer. It cannot even grind off the angles of the grains of sand. Is it the skin of water that prevents their clashing? 22. Getting hot, clear, calm. 23. Very hot 98 in shade. I spend much time on beach and wading in the cold water with only my underwear on. After supper we drive in the car and by chance find the old home of Daul Webster and the cemetery where he is buried. I linger long around his grave. The estate is large and fine - a fit aboch for a great man. There is no marble or granite monument at the grave but a very large mound of earth above his remains to emphasize his greatness. His name without dates is carved on a small marble slab fixed along the top, a bronze tablet sunk in a granite block by the roadside, gave us the dew. 24. Cooler this morning, but still fair. - How prone we are to think that the things in nature were made for our use. Was the notch in the mountain then designed made for the road to pass over? or the waterfall to give us water power? or the land locked harbor to give protection to our ships? One can neither say they were or were not. We are so made and our wants are such that these things serve us and that is all we can say about it. The organic adopts itself to the inorganic and not the reverse. 25. Take train for Boston at 6.38. Then train for Bath Me at 9. Leave Bath at 2:45 for Squirrel Island, a warm fine day. Reach the Island at 5 Stay with the Ballards till Monday, a lovely Island, granite crowned with spruce and encircled by arm of the sea. Meet many interesting people, among them a Mr. Stanley who entertains me at dinner Sunday night, and who was killed in auto accident a few days later. Gertrude B. a lovely woman. We walk around the island. Weather fine and hot. 29. Leave the Island today. Hope I shall see it again. Hot day. Reach Boston at 3:40, and get back to Marshfield at 5:30. Julian and John meet me with car. 30 and 31. Two more days by the sea, wandering up and down the beach and selecting specimens of the many colored large and small granite pebbles. When does all this endless variety come from? Aug 1st. Julian and I and John and Ursa and Jack start for home. Skip Boston and strike Worcester for lunch which we eat in a wood a few miles beyond, a hot day. Springfield at 4. and Hinsdale in Columbia Co. at 8 1/2 p.m. Pass a hot night there. 2d. Off at 6 1/2 reach Hudson in good time. Eat our breakfast in woods beyond Athens at 9. Then a good run over the Catskills and home at 12. Julian and his children start for West Park at 3 p.m. Pretty dry. 10. A hot week just passed, unprecedented. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 96 and 98 on our porch here - over 100 in many places. 103 in N.Y. Sleep without cover. How the corn rejoice, but the pastures suffer. Drive over to Edens on Tuesday. Eden looks well. Kill wood chucks daily. 7 on Monday, 1 on Tuesday and two each day since, a large light yellow one yesterday in Ford lot, but he got in his hole with a bullet through his paunch much cooler yesterday and partly cloudy, cool and cloudy this morning. The war news makes us want more of same sort - and I think we will get it. Wrote letter to Roosevelt. Work on MS. each forenoon in hay barn. Feel nearly 50 percent stronger than when I left home the middle of July - gained 3 or 4 lbs. August was a pleasant month. De Loach came about the 10th. On 13th we went to Edisons at Orange. Next day start in his car for Pittsburg to join Ford and Firestone for the auto trip to the great Smoky Mts in N.C. Stop at Gettysburg first night 200 miles, next day reach P. at 6, very tired. On Sunday we start on the trip - 2 big cars, 2 Fords and 2 trucks with a crew of 7 men Trip last about 2 weeks, very tiresome, fine weather, rather hot, go through Maryland, V. Va, Va. E. Tenn and into N.C. to Ashville. Here De L. and I leave the party and take train for N.Y. I stop at W.P. very dry, garden all trout up. Reach Roxbury next day; dry here, but not bad, garden in good shape. Spend Sept at Wood Chuck Lodge, a cold wet very disagreeable Sept - the worst I remember. One fair day each week and that about all. Rain all from W. and S.W. day after day. Health pretty good. Kill and poison many "chucks" Corn from the garden all the month, only 2 very light frosts nipped squash vines a little. Oct 1st. Rained all night - but clear and cold this morning, a light frost and a little ice on the mud puddles, not a cloud in the sky. Cold and clear all day Oct 2. Cloudy this morning, no frost last night. Maple wood boiling and foaming with color. Red buckwheat fields, brown pastures, the mountains flocked with gold, apples dropping in the orchards. War news good. 3. Rained all night again last night. Warmer still overcast, clouds still have a slant from the West. 4. Clear and cool. Turns out to be a day of great brilliance, the glory of autumn. 5. Warmer, hazy, many callers - a car load from Cooperstown and a car load from Onteora - the Colgates and friends. 6. A violent thunder storm at 9. and heavy rain - rain kept up all night; ground overflowing with water clouds breaking but still have the vicious stunt from West, no settled fair weather as long as that lasts, saw a woodchuck this morning in meadow above the road. Woods all aflame now with color. - How perfectly the drone or male wasp when you hold in your hand mimicks the act of stinging. It fairly makes one wince, such a savage thrust as he makes with the stinger end. How be be reaches out and feels for a vulnerable point thrusting out some slender organ which looks somewhat like a stinger. It is the most perfect bluff I knew of in nature. You may know him by his yellow face, but beware the black faced ones! - The house fly seems to know a thing or two, or acts as if it did, she is much more wary on a cold morning, when she is stiff and slow, than on a warm morning she seems to know that she cannot dodge your hand as easily, of course it is the instinct of self preservation that pervade all animal life and that is always on guard. The big "blow fly" on the window pane, knows more than a bird does, it will not remain to be captured by your hand as the bird will, but will turn and escape into the room. Mr. Blanchard from Ford motor co. of N.Y. came and fixed up my car on the 4th and probably saved us from a serious or petal accident by discovering that the nut that holds the main stearing rod was ready to fall off. We drove in p.m. over to Smiths and saw Mary Ann and Tommy again - both old school mates of mine. Then drove to Baptist cemetery where I once more visited the graves of father and mother and all my kindred there. How silent was all that welcome - hundreds of one Roxbury people whom I had known in my youth! Two ollies there among my kindred - my sister and my aunt - both died at 27, and both of consumption - one in 37 and one in 56. 7. Blew hard all night and grew very cold - down to 38 this morning with high wind and a seamless cloud shutting down over us and resting on the mountains like a cover to a pot. The wind makes no impression on the canopy of fog clouds; its line along the mountains is level and straight, clearing between 12 and 1 p.m. 8. A lovely morning still clear as a bell, a frost last night; no fog in valley this morning. Woods and mountain sides aflame with color, apples dropping in the orchards. Sleep well and feel pretty well these bright days. The war absorbs all our thoughts - the Hems are getting it right and left, and are crying for peace. We will make peace with Hell before we do with them, not till the last Hem is killed or surrenders will there be peace again in the world, a nation without a soul - no honor, no decency, no sense of justice or fair dealing - swiftly robbers, murderers, incendiary, thieves, pirates - world malefactors - out with them. I would like to see a blank space on the map where these empire lies. - Caught a meadow mouse yesterday in his nest under a bundle of corn stalks. I brought him in the house and held him a while with my gloves on, I handled him rather roughly but did not think I injured him but when I carried him back and put him on his nest he was seized with convulsions and died in half a minute. He bit viciously at my gloved hand as I put him down. What killed him? It looked like an [aplophetic] or epileptic seizure, was it fright or the will to die to cheat his enemy? I know not. 9. Yesterday was one of the most remarkable days I have ever known - not a film in the sky, and not breeze enough to move the leaves. The sky was like a newly washed window pane not the least blur upon it all day - a superb day in all respects. Today has been warm, with some cloud, but no signs of rain. Began closing up most end of my porch today, not writing this week. War news too exciting, Wilson is as great in diplomacy as Foch is in war. My hardest trial now is to wait from one newspaper to the next. 10. Drive to Hobart and to John McGregor. Eden well, Mag looks as if she was failing. McGregor all right - a remote mountainside home - thrashing buckwheat. Day fine. 14. Cold, windy, rain all p.m. from N.W. 15. Fine day, cold, slept cold last night; formed ice. Shepards up in p.m. Exciting days - momentous war news. The Hem is breaking Kaiserisen is doomed. The German empire is in the thrones of Revolution. The day of reckoning has come. The cyclone of world war, which the military power of G. mellowed and which they expected to ride and control, has got out of their hands and they are now its victims. G. will be impoverished in men and money for generations. The bills, she must pay are staggering. President Wilson equal to the occasion - a man of the ages. The law of moral and intellectual gravitation seems to centre the allied cause in him. All spontaneously look to him to speak the right word and he speaks it. Few words but they are written upon the sky. When all may see and read them. 16. Cloudy this a.m. and warmer. Hope to drive to Hobart. - Day turned out fine and mild. Drove to [H] Edens to dinner. Eden well, Mag active and got us a good dinner. Willie and Jenny in p.m. Willie a keen intelligent man - far ahead of any other relative of mine of the B. tribe. Mr. Scott called - much broken - walks with difficulty - near the foot of the hill I fear. A pleasant drive, home. 17. Mild, foggy. Fog lifts at 10 1/2 a warm hazy day. Woods getting bare. Poor sleep but night, too much dinner probably. The trial of each day is to wait the arrival of the postman. How the hours drag! How we watch for him down the road; often we have to wait till one o'clock to know the war news, but every day brings the end of Hem nearer. - A few days ago the air was full of smoke - fresh and pungent evidently from the great forest and prairie fires in Minnesota as all the country this side of there was too wet to burn. 20. Cold, windy, rainy. Pick apples. 21. Partly cloudy. Pick and pack apples. 22. A marvelous day, all sun and sky sharp air, still invigorating; work all day packing up. In forenoon the baying of a fox hound across the valley on Hack Griffin mountain. distinctly heard, now on this side the mountain then on that, then the sound is lost as the dog follows trail over in the heal of Batavia Kill, at 11 1/2 bang, bang goes the gun of the hunter, a few moments later the baying of the hound is again heard as he sweeps around the mountain toward the hunter; then suddenly the barking ceases, the [the] dog has reached his master, who prob- ably has the fox, no more sound till half an hour later, when I again hear the hound; he has probably started another fox a clear sharply defined sunset, not a film in the sky. Promises well for tomorrow; we may start for home in the morning. 23. Bright and cool. We start for home at 10 1/2. Leave the village at 11:20 a good drive, a lovely landscape very brilliant. Car runs well. Reach Tongore at 1 1/2 p.m. Eat our lunch at the rear of the church where we ate our lunch in Aug. one year ago. Visit the grave of my wife. Looks neglected - no grass only weeds. She would not have neglected my grave I am sure, must go up and plant some seeds from home. Met a son of Aaron [Mavrihen], who knew me. We have quite a talk about the people I knew. He is gathering apples near the cemetery. Returning got a flat tire on on the dam. Workmen near by help me put on new tire - a help in time of need. Reach Kingston at 4 1/2. Julians family nearly well. Reach home at 6. Looks good, no killing frost here yet. 24, 25. Mild, partly cloudy days. Drive to S.S. 26. Mild day. The Whiteheads from Byrd Cliff call, a daughter of Mrs. Coonley Ward with them. Greatly enjoy their call. Julian calls in the evening. 27. Bright and warm for Oct. A warm night mercury 70 this morning. Great dullness and lethargy - need stiring up with a long stick. 28 and 29 and 30. Warm muggy days, little sun. Drive to P. on 28th. Oct 31. Rained slowly all night, and night before. A little cooler, and signs of clearing this morning. - Roosevelt criticizes Wilson severely yet here is the fact over all - we have won the war. Germany is beaten to her knees, and is begging for mercy. That is what we set out to do or help do and it is done. Two men in the world have contributed to that and more than any others. Foch and Wilson - one in the field, the other in the counsel of the nations. Wilson lofty ideal of justice and intruation fair play has been our guiding star; he slated one cause in turn of world democracy and his words have been an inspiration; in the field Foch has been his equal and we have won the war.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1917 (March - December)
Text: XLIX Diary From Mch 23d, 1917 to Dec 5, 1917 Mch 24 Mild fair day. Sugar off. J's family down. 25 Still wild and fair. Sap run letting up. 27 Light sap run, sugar off again, syrup boils as if trees were budded. Run my car today, and greatly enjoy it. Put on new Firestone tire on right side fore wheel, mileage record 10176. New non-skid tire put on kind wheel late last fall. How long will they last? 28 Rain yesterday p.m. and last night. Clearing and colder this a.m. Ice all gone from...
Show moreXLIX Diary From Mch 23d, 1917 to Dec 5, 1917 Mch 24 Mild fair day. Sugar off. J's family down. 25 Still wild and fair. Sap run letting up. 27 Light sap run, sugar off again, syrup boils as if trees were budded. Run my car today, and greatly enjoy it. Put on new Firestone tire on right side fore wheel, mileage record 10176. New non-skid tire put on kind wheel late last fall. How long will they last? 28 Rain yesterday p.m. and last night. Clearing and colder this a.m. Ice all gone from river, no snow in sight from my study windows. War still the engrossing topic of my thoughts. The revolution in Russia, a great gain for humanity. God be praised for the downfall of that despotism, now if it could only come to Germany - as it must in time. 30 To N.Y. C.B. and I to attend birthday reception at Roulands in p.m. A pleasant company I see so candles big and little on a table made up to represent a huge cake. 31 To call us, Miss Ballard at Flattush, then to Floral Park. Warm and pleasant. April 1 At Mr Childs at F.P. An ideal April day, calm clear and warm - up to 79. 2 To N.Y. and then home. Cooler. 3 My 80th birthday. Cool and clear, a deluge of letters and books and flowers. I am well and enjoying the spring. The feeling of canyon in my leg, of one year ago much less. Weight about 133. We dine at Julians. Myrer C. brings me a bunch of hepaticas. Prest Wilsons greet message my best gift today - a great message to the whole world. I read it with profound emotion. I believe it will play a great part in the future political history of mankind. 4 C.B. and I write letters all morning. 5, 6, 7 Still struggling with the pile of letters; get off about 20 each day 8 Bright fine day, but windy. Drive car up to P. Ewen in p.m. 9 Bright but windy and cold. Finished letters today. Walk to S.S. in p.m. See one hermit thrush. 10 Cold, froze hand the past two nights. Wind and bright today. Crocuses in bloom under the window. The British began a great new. Drive yesterday against the German at Arrax. Catskill mts still white with snows of last week. One year ago today. Mrs B. came home from Georgia. As the train stopped at the station I saw her get up and walk along to the door and come out on the platform just as she always did. She looked and was feeble but was better than I expected to see her, I never again saw her in the train, though she reach several short R.R. journeys after that. "Her last words to me were "Good bye dear" when I went away with Mr Ford Feb 19th. The last time we slept in the same bed was on Oct 24, 1916, on our return from Roxbury. The last time we occupied the same bed in health was on the De Sota Inn in W. about Jany 4th or 5th, 1916. 11 Cold, clear and windy the past three days, freezing hard at night. Calm and cold and clear this morning. Robins all disappeared hunting for food else where, no worms near the surface now. Peepers and toads silvered, elm blossoms, frozen I think. 63 years ago today I began my school at Tongore in sight of the spot where my poor wife is to be buried on Sunday. In p.m. drive to Port Ewen with C.B. on our return about 4 1/2 I let C.B. drive the car from about 1 mile above Esopus. She did so well that I grew careless and did not keep my hand on the wheel. As we crossed Col. Paynes new bridge, going very slowly. She lost her head and drove the car diagonally up the bank. When it stopped and instantly turned turble catching me beneath it and holding the down by the legs. I heard my left arm crack as the weight of the car came down upon my right shoulder. I could breath but my chest seemed pressed close together, a few awful moments. I could hear C.B. shouting for help and so knew she was not killed. In three or four minutes workmen from Col. Paynes who were passing near by on their way home came and lifted the car off from us. I got up conscious of no hurt but in my left arm C.B. hurt in her right leg below the knee, but bone not broken. Julian soon came with his car and took us home. Dr Freston arrived in about an hour. Could not decide that the bone of my arm was broken, a good deal of pain, also on my right side under the nipple, strapped me up with arm in sling. 12 A sleepless night from pain and shock I suffer. Dr F. comes again, makes suggestions, hopes bone is not broken but not sure. 13, 14, 15, 16 Doing well, much dull pain and a terribly black arm. Right hand lame also and neck lame, with pain in head at times. Eat well and sleep considerable. 17 Drive to Newburg with Dr F. have x-ray photo of left shoulder. The neck of the luminous fractured but in place, a fine day and enjoy the drive, nothing to be done but to keep the arm in position and be careful. I write a little and find little for new volume, "Field and study" See the April days, some of them fine ones, go by regretfully. Walk and ride a little, sleep poor most of the time but appetite good. In the "nest" most of the time. C.B. devotes herself to me and anticipates my every wish. So more than thankful that she did not kill me. Cool weather with frosty nights, maples in bloom. Plum and cherry trees trying to bloom, asparagus on April 30. Many white throats. May 7th A week of May very wet and chilly. Only grass can grow. Early peas up, for a week, but stationary, many myrtle warblers here. Arm doing well I suppose, but a dull pain much of the time. Ribs well. Right hand not quite well arm clearing up - a dirty yellow now. Heart very steady since the accident. Eat no supper but cup of ovaltine and 2 graham wafers, no sunshine for 3 or 4 days. Slept 5 or 6 hours last night. Feel well at heart. War worries me more than all eles. "The Happy Birds" a good title may stimulate me to write another bird article. My hunger for nature unabated. 8 Another day of cloud, chill an light rain not energy enough in the weather to rain or to clear or to warm up. Three or four inches of snow in Roxbury yesterday morning. Walked to the woods yesterday along the old cedar lane of Mr Mannings of my early days here - the lane where I found the golden winged warblers nest last season. My food yesterday was the nest of the turtle dove on the top of the stone wall - a [little] shallow depression in the stone, lived with dry grass stems and twigs - 2 white eggs. The blue-gray bird was well hidden on the blue gray wall. The only dove nest I remember to have found. Had she kept her place as I passed by I should not have seen her. Came home by way of Col. Paynes chicken farm and the highway. Robins nest on one porch has 3 eggs, encotation began - 4 nest on the place. Arm improving I hope - a slight gain from day to day, judging by the feeling - normal color and size coming back, nights still long and hard to bear. Sleep but little in horizontal position. C.B. very devoted and helpful - indeed indispensable. Kingfisher down the dock road deepening his old hole I think. High hole excavating a chamber in a dying button ball near by, no fox sparrows yet this season - plenty of white throats. Wood thrush on Sunday the 6th on deck road but silent. His ride clear brown intensified on his head till it fairly glowed, several hermit thrushes yesterday near the woods. Myrtle warblers still much in evidence, creeping warbler here several days ago. 9 Clearing and warmer, much sunshine. Sit in study in forenoon and read and sleep and write. In p.m. walk over to old cedar lane via Demerons meadows. See my first cat bird, hear my first cheewink. Turtle dove all ok, kept her place on nest till I had passed here and there. I hear the snap and whistle of her wings, cross the field where most is plowing a field for corn that has lain fallow for years. It looks good to see the soil laid open to the sun and air again. How friable and ready it looked - hungry for the seed, my new note today, a chipmonk just beginning a new hole in a small patch of woods on Col Paynes place. He had dug about six or eight inches. I interrupted him at his work and he scampered away to his old den, must renew my visit there today. Much overcast and windy and colder today, nothing grows but grass, maples in bloom for 10 days but make little progress. Cherry trees trying hard to bloom. Catskill white with snow, only myrtle and black and white creeping warblers here. Still a cripple with poor sleep, but think arm must be mending. - Just finished Waldon for the 2d time. Many delicious page in it - enough to keep it alive, but a vast deal of chaff without any wheat such an exagerater! His trick always to say the contrary the unexpected thing. He writes his fractions large - enormous denominators, enormous numerators - reduce them to their simplest terms and it takes the conceit out of them a bowells in forced and false analysis, a great deal of ingenuity spent in trying to wed things that will not be wedded. Oil and water will not mix, churn them as you will. Little or no wise counsel in the book - throws no light on any of life serious problems. It is as he suggest the crowing of the cock in the morning, or in the woods - a pure piece of brag and if the cock had not had the home barn yard larder to resort to, he would have crowed a different time. If he woke his neighbors up, to what purpose did he awake them? Not to be better farmers, or better mechanics, or better tradesmen and c, he shirked all civic and social responsibility and was able to live his life in the wood off and or for two years, because other stayed at home and helped make the wheels go around. His refusal to pay his pole tax and going to jail till a friend (probably Emerson) payed it is a sample of how petty and futile his life and his views of the state were. The act was childish and grotesque - not a great man like Emerson - not a great soul, but at times a very clever, stimulating and suggestive writer, with reference to his turns and country, he was like a snarl on a beach or birch tree - hard and fine grained but containing little available timber, about his best books, are his "Maine Woods" and "Cape Cad." About half of Walden is precious. The "Week" has little real stuff in it. 11 A cold sour forenoon; a feeling of snow in the air, only brief gleams of sunshine noticing a stream of cherry blossoms drifting down from one of my cherry trees, the Windsor, I investigated and found a half dozen purple finches snipping off the blossom, cutting out the germ or ovary I suppose. Bad business for so charming a bird to be engaged in - a serious blemish on its character. I had Hud shoot one to make sure; it was a female. I could not make out any males in the tree. The blossoms are still snowing down, greatly reducing the robins cherry crop as now they are in the early white ox heart. - Found yesterday p.m. that the chipmonk had not worked much at his hole since the day before. May be the chilly weather caused him to knock off, a family of red squirrels in a hole in a Tamarack near the ground which Ursa had discovered were not at home, no chattering and scolding came from the hole as we looked in as there had [done] the day before when W. and her companion first looked in. Then the mother squirrel bit savagely at a stick thrust in with much scolding, a hole on the ground near by under a hickory indicated their permanent retreat. 12 Still cold and sour. Snow squalls yesterday in the Catskill and probably this morning. Purple finches, both sexes cutting the heart out of my ox heart this morning. The temptation to shoot them is very great, my "shooing" them away they seem to take as a joke. No walk yesterday only to my neighbors the Van B's. First oriole this morning in cherry tree - a bit of orange amid the white. Charley Keiler and his friend Mr Cady came at 2 p.m. and stayed till 8. Glad to see them. Mr and Mrs Elting of Highland bring me some trout 4 fine ones caught in the Neversink near Claryville. 13 Sill could, cloudy and sour - the worst side of May. The maples cant get out of the blooming stage nor into the leaf stage; grass alone grow, no sunshine today, the pink buds show in some apple trees. The plum trees a cloud of white. Arm seems better today than yesterday. Weeder a cherry tree on the road to P.O. the ground was white with cherry blossoms. "Ten thousand saw I at a glance" The wind had drifted them into the wagon nets like snow. The work of these little sinners, the purple finches. Saw two white crowned sparrows this morning, hopping along side by side in my garden. I am always on the lookout for them between the 12th and the 15th of this month and here they are on time. Have only seen these two. The white throats still here and in song. 14 Clearing this morning and warmer but wind still in N. The pesky finches still snipping the cherry blossoms. Many trees on the opposite shore outlined by their incipient yellow green foliage. Several loose flocks of jays yesterday and today, going north, as many as 50 in a band probably migrating from the south; have not seen or heard a jay here this winter. A lovely May day at last, barring the wind. In the p.m. walk up through the Gordon field by the little brook to where I have a look into the sheet in meadow of Dr Gills place under the woods; then down through West Street and over to the old Cedar Lane. My turtle dove is on her job, she eyes me a moment as I pause near her only her bright eye distinguishes her slender brown neck from a stick. Presently the flutters off on to the ground on the other side and tries to lure me away by the old confidence game of figuring lameness and paralysis. no new thing today, but the ever new May day and the mist of green of the tender foliage in the woods and trees. I should be a farm boy again now at home on the old farm, spreading manner or knocking the dried last falls droppings of the cows and listing for the first barn swallow and to the call of the high-holes. 15 Again clear, but cold, a N. wind off a snow bank. The high holes still calling and drumming all about us. In the early morning I hear the male calling and drumming on the metal roof of the tool house, or on the ridge board. His drum is unlike that of the other wood peckers, it is so much more rapid; it is a stream of blows, so that the sound is like that of a vibrator. I am quite sure the pair will decide, or have decided to nest in the cavity left by a decayed branch in the little maple near the summer house. 17 Clear, lovely day with cool wind from N. At last we set out to enter the body of my poor wife. Julian, C.B. and I start at 9 meet the undertaker with his hearse at the gate of the cemetery in K. a slow easy drive to Tongore. Reach there about 11, and I look into the open grave of her who I expected would look into my open grave. Five feet deep into an old glacier hill - the bottom into 2 feet of sand, the upper part gravel and drift. Is it a grim joke to say I never looked into a healthier grave, the drainage perfect. I hope mine will be as perfect. In the rear of her father and mother instead of beside them as I had expected. The services are soon completed and I hear the dry sandy shovel full of earth fall upon the coffin of her who was my wife for nearly sixty years, a beautiful spot a beautiful view. I could see the school house where I began my career 63 years ago and many farm houses of those whose children came to school to me. We drive up to the school and C.B. and I and Mr Chase go in, as large a school as I had, 35 or 40 pupil but half of them or more foreign born, not the bright clear rosey faces I looked upon. The little school man was very gracious; she knew of me but did not know I had preceeded her in that school by more than 60 years, no legend of me in the place it seems, though I later called upon a woman there whose father was one of the trustees who hired me and whom I remembered well, as a slim young woman older than I was. I told the staring children that I had been a teacher there 63 years ago, but that I did not see a face there that I saw them. They all looked very solemn over my attempted joke. Then we drove a mile to the farm where Wrich North, my wife and father was born and spent his youth, a rough, sorry, dilapidated place. The old house gone, but part of the old barn remaining. Here I saw the fog end of the North family - a grandson of able north - ragged, dirty one eyed snag toothed and with the mouth of an idiot. But he was not idiotic, though of inferior mentally - I should say. He thought he had heard of me, but was not sure, My wife and his father were cousins a great change for the worse had come over all the Tongore country - the homes had all lost their look of thrift and privacy and comfort - The homes I knew all had attractive door yards, roses, lilacs, maples and other shade and shrubbery, now they stand stripped and glaring with and forbidding public air. The school house yard was as bare as the middle of the highway. The great Ashokan dam or lake has been like a blight upon all this section. We drove back across the dam and had our lunch in the edge of the woods by Temples pond; reached home at 4 p.m. 18 Cloudy day, with light rain. A sleepless night. 19 A lovely day and warmer, apple trees beginning to bloom, a cape May warbler here in the plum trees and a black throated blue. Three male ruby throats in the barberry bushes under the windows an unusual sight, never saw it before. Birds appear fatigued they perch 7 or 8 minutes at a time; the blossom of the burberry seem to afford them much food as it dose the big queen bumble bees with which they hum all day. One ruby throat here a yellow cap, the pollen of some flower, probably willows. The birds are there till sundown. High holes still calling and drumming about the place, call many times per minute. That call is worn threat bare. They have decided to nest here and why not shut up? Why repeat that call ten thousand times? Why? but that he is wound up to go so long and hence must keep us till he runs down. The female does not seem to heed him at all. Rose breasted grosbeak here in song this morning. 19 Clear lovely morning, a little cooler, after our first warm night. Expect Vassar girls today and Prof De Loach in p.m. 40 Vassar girls came and I walked with them to S.S. all fine girls. De Loach came over at 12 with Hud and brought me back. In p.m. Prof. Shadock came and with the girls following me around an apple tree took a moving picture. 20 Lovely warm day, with a veil of haze in the air, another cape May warbler near the house a black throated blue, under my window. Mch hummers still here. That Jappanees Barberry under our window has a wonderful attraction for birds and bees. Some of the warbler and the hummer on there hourly and many large queen bumble bees. Saw a male hummer chasing away the bees. At 11 a.m. we start for a drive to the Ashokan dam, very warm. Reach Temples pond at 1 p.m. eat our lunch there. A pair of wood peckers have a next and young in the dry limb of a near by tree and worry and complain a good deal over our presence. Think it the yellow bellied, though it may be the three told, the note entirely new to me. The birds refuse to go near the tree that holds their nest and after half an hour of scolding on surrounding trees disappear. We drive on across the lake and dam and up to the bridge with big arch - a delightful drive. John B. at the wheel part of the way with De Loach by his side, instructing him. He drives well. We turn back at 3 1/2 and reach home at 5.15 a glorious day. De Loach leaves on 8 p.m. train. Maple leaves more than half grown. The height of the apple bloom, new saw fruit trees bloom so full. The terminal end of the apple twigs have 6 blossom, the other buds 3, 4 and 5 blossom, a swell of apple bloom on the air. 21 Cooler and partly overcast. Poor sleep last night. Warblers and hummers still in berry bushes. One white crowned sparrow yesterday. In the woods near the road saw large patches of ground purple with the fringed polygala, apple trees, cherry trees, plums and pear and peach trees all blooming together this year. Large peach orchards pink with bloom. Roosevelt and his army of 250,000 turned down by the government. The precious traditions of the army must not be violated! The govt. fiddley while Rome is burning and the Hems flourish. Still see troops of blue jays going northward, considering the numbers I see, the numbers in proportion that I do not see must be very great. What does it all mean. 22 Light rain in night and during the day. Cool, fire in study. Only walk to station today, a good sleep last night, arm slowly mending, but still painful - neuralgia - I think. Total of wife's funeral expenses $200 - stone yet to get. Grosbeak in song this morning. 23 Rain all night. Thick and stagnant this morning, no wind, mild. Julian brings me 4 yellow perch caught in Black Pond last night. He slept under the pine trees in the woods - saw an enormous black bear trying to swallow a shiner fast in his net. Hummers still hovering over and among over barberry bushes. Apple bloom dropping. Clearing in p.m. Walk but little spend an hour in summer house after supper. Two tanagers on the plowed ground in the vineyard. How they take the eye, many grosbeak, see 6 pass and hear 2 others in song. Their black and white and rose color also takes the eye. 24 Bad night, but little sleep, much colder this morning and after an hour of sunshine, overcast. Bay breasted warblers here. Thoughts of the war still engross all others. How many times a day do I say "to hell with the Prussian Hems" Thoughts of my poor wife also are not long absent from my mind. For 40 years I have been glad when she was away, or I was away from her, but to be separated by death is a far different matter. "The valley and the shadow" what gloom in its black depths! 26 Lovely warm clear day, much company. New Paltz normal girls 30, a club from Kingstone and a lot of high school girls. Dr Fisher and wife and sister from American musician of Nat. History N.Y. Prof Shattuck and wife and girls from P. I see them all and have a fairly good time. Hud drives me over to SS. 27 Overcast and slow rain in p.m. 28 Cold and wet. I suffer much with my arm. 29 Cold and wet. 30 Still cold and wet; prevent me going to wifes grave in olive. 31 Fine day, drive to P. with Julian and Peterson in p.m. June 1st Light rain disagreeable. Warblers in ground again, get better sleep last night. Still much pain. Took drive out of sling two days ago. Strength improves, but pain worse, weather against me. 2 Still cloudy, murkey and abominable; air currents stagnant and foul. season very late, apple bloom just off the trees. Lilacs just out. The coldest, darkest May for over 30 years. The most wretched May I ever passed. The only good I got out of it was notes on the "Spring Berd Procession," part of it written, hope to make a fine paper, many warblers detained here by the cold for many days. Some die from hunger. 3 Came to Yama Farms Inn last night with Mrs Sarre and Mr Seaman. Bright lovely warm day today - had a pretty good sleep at the hut. The masseur thinks he can cure my arm. 4 Still lovely June days; the best sleep yet last night. 5 Warm but threatens rain, a heavy shower in p.m. affects my arm. This is Registration day. Pretty good sleep. 6 Cloud and sun, warm, drive to E. Arm stronger but still painful. 7 Shower last night, but got good sleep, cloudy with spirts of rain today - muggy. Tree toads calling. Signs of my old trouble today; rapid pulse and general discomfort. Took an enema at 11, ate but little dinner. Took another enema at 3. both with good results. Pulse slowed down - walked to Honk falls at 5. The dead part of 2 years ago lived again now at 5 1/2 pulse seems normal, but much pain in arm all day. Stagnant air, oppressive, ample bowel movements all the week I thought must eat less. Old lameness in muscles under my left breast, may be intercostal neuralgia. Reading Fabre on the cicada and grasshopper, wonderful book. 8 A warm showery day. I leave Yama Farms in p.m. Arm stronger but still painful. Take train to K. where Julian meets me at 5.15 Reach home 6 1/2 C.B. surprised but glad to have me back. I am glad to be here again. Yama, no place for me, simple common food hard to get there. I sit on my porch and see the maple trees slowly clothe themselves with verdun before me and J say "what an agitated and troublesome world the leaves must think they are born into," never a moment of rest raffled and swayed and tossed by the wind at all hours, furiously tone and lashed at others the host of tender leaves driven together like the waves upon the beach making shipwreck of the whole tree-top seem imminent, hail, tempest, tornado wrecking their vengeance upon them and yet in most cases suffering no visible injury; the wind dies down and they fall into their places and spread their green palms to the air and sink and are as ready to clap them in gladness as ever they were. The [ir] flexible yielding character of the leaves and of the branches that hold their saves them. Their clashing is like the clashing of a girl ringlets and of a willows prudent bougles. When the autumn comes and the leaves are ripe for their fall, rarely is one seen to be seriously torn or deformed by the period of storm and stress it has passed through. 9, 10, 11 Warm muggy days, no motion in nature, the day has no pulse. Leaves of the trees hang motionless most of the time - all nature nods clouds without form, a blight here and there upon the maple trees, river like glass. Leaves move a little in middle of day, seamless days with vapor lining. I try in vain to describe them. Arm troubles me a good deal but gains a little. Olive Hinman comes today, for two days. 13 Start for Gloversville at 10:25. Fair day and warm. Talbots meets us at Albany. Reach G. at 4 p.m. 14 Damp, cloudy day. Start for Speculator at 6 a.m. Reach there 42 miles before nine. After breakfast drive to Pasew - 12 miles; raining. Clearing in p.m. C.B. and I cruise on the lake, others fish. Eat lunch on an isolet, when we see a wild ducks nest with only 5 eggs; feathered with down from her own breast, no birds. Drive back to G. after dark. 15, 16, 17 At G. cold and rainy part of the time. C.B. leaves on 16th for P.B. Arm gaining, but troublesome. On Sunday the 17, a long country drive, uncomfortable much of the time, an old man with crippled arm, better stay at home. 18 Leave for home at 6, a fair hot day. Reach home at 12 1/2. 19 Cloudy and cooler; tries to rain. The weather is just the same victim of habit that we are. The rain habit is now strong upon it and has been for over two months, no matter where the wind is it rains, a fairly good sleep last night. No grape bloom yet. How hard for us to get out of a net! How hard for the weather also. If it gets out for a day or two, it slips back in again. In dry weather it is the same. To break the drought spell is very difficult. Bright and warm in p.m. Go to P with J. 20 Clear and warm this a.m. more life in nature, a pair of cedar bird, tearing a new orioles nest to pieces for material never saw the like before. Leaves rustle and bows way this morning. 82 in shade. Write in a.m. Loaf about in p.m. 21 Clear and a little cooler a fair night sleep. C.B. did not return. Leaves rustle a little this morning. June at its best. C.B. comes at 4 1/2 p.m. A walk over back in p.m. but without results saw the emotion I felt as I passed along a waving rye field which was the main bread grain my father grew nearly all over bread was made from home grown rye and how good it was. In Sept and early Oct father would say to us boys "now you must thresh some rye today. I am going to mill tomorrow and we will have some bread from the new rye flower." Curtis and I often threshed it a few fushels, mending harvest apples out in the new barn as we paused in our labor and looking out through the big barn doors into sunlet fields and hills. Oh, what happy days, all unknown to us then. 22 Still bright and clear and hot. Ideal June weather. 23 Fine warm day near 80 each day, a sweet little quaker girl from P. Nora Waul charming, comes even without a hand bag. Did not even have a tooth brush, comes on a sudden impulse from Phila. She wins over our hearts by her simplicity and genuineness. Well read too, a Swarthmore college girl, says thee and they and those so prettily. Knows the birds well, has written and printed things about them, a fine face, clear cut regular, with sweet expression. On Sunday we go and pick a set of wild s. berries and C.B. makes a s. berry shortcake - delicious. 25 Warm and bright. Our quaker guest leaves us today. I recall a line of a poem of Brownlee Brown of long ago. "Our girlish graceful guest grew on us like the tender star increasing in the West" Mr Chase and his 6 S. school girls come and we walk to Slabsides, and back. 26 A bright hot day again. Walk a little in p.m. Write in a.m. 27 A bad night - a three hour thunder shower, incessant flashes and continuous roll of thunder and down pour of rain, a hell of a night only 2 hours sleep. Clearing and hot this morning. The sky still dirty after all last night washing. Good mess of peas today. Arm improving, but still painful at times. 28 Bright and warm again. Better sleep last nigh, but no work in me today. Col. Payne is buried today. Peace to his memory. 30 Fine warm day. Go to the Roofs. They meet us at K. Reach there at 4 p.m. The old sweetness and charm of the place comes over me again, cool. July 1st Fine warm day, fish for 2 hours in a.m. take 9 trout, enough. Lame arm does not embarrass much, a restful place. The soft murmur of the stream fills all the vale. It is like audible selwel, Frank a sumptuous, very human creature, should be bearing babies these years of her mature womanhood. Mr R. feeble, begins to totter, but puts up a brave fight. 2 A heavy rain in the early morning hours. Leave at 8 1/2 for Big Indian; roads very rough and muddy. Reach home on 12:25 train; hot. 3 Still hot and partly overcast, air currents sluggish as usual. 4 A cool enjoyable day. We make ready to go to W.C.L. Mr Van B. calls in evening. 5 As perfect a day as ever came down out of heaven, just the right temperature, clear with a few indolent innocent clouds floating across the blue sky, at 10 Julian arrives in his car and we are off for Woodchuck Lodge. Go by way of the Sawkill on a detour a nail gives us a flat tire at 11. on the Sawkill. We reach our lunch place by the road side in Shandaken at 1. Reach W.C.L. at 3. How green and fresh the country looks, a world of grass and daises and butterflies and orange hawkweed. J. starts back at 5 p.m. 6 Our first day at W.C.L. a calm bright warm summer day, up to this time (noon) perfect. The silence, the breath of outlook, the sweet grazay odors the repose of the landscape - how welcome it all is after the noise. The shut in view and the state and unprofitable Riverby. Three sick months there have nearly spoiled the place for me. Here I breath again the air of youth and drink water of purity. One song sparrow repeats his 5 songs one after the other from the old plum tree across the road. A pair of blue birds are attractive to their young in new tree stub on porch. In Frank C's meadow I hear one bobolink singing continuously - a song so different from the bobolink song of my youth. Have watched all morning for the wood chuck that are devouring my garden; have seen only one head peeping over the wall and it was too quick for me. The dryer upland meadows are orange with hawkweed, others white and yellow with daises and butter crops, a meadow smell fills all the air. 7 Warm, quiet hazy day. But little motion in nature (at this point a chuck poked his head over the wall in front of me and in a few seconds was a dead chuck.) Few birds here this year, though robins are abundant and I have seen several cuckoos, all day I hear a s. tanager singing up in the woods above me. But no warblers or views or thrushes yet. Cuckoos still call - and rain is sure to come. - That caressing re-assuring wing gesture of the blue bird seems peculiar to it. How pretty it is accompanied by that soft affectionate warbler addressed to his mates! so many birds have little way and manner of their own. The flicker bows and bows to his mate and calls to her in a coaxing re-assuring tone, peculiarly his own, while the courtship of robins and sparrows seems attended with a certain violence as if they sought to carry the female by storm, of the bobolink the same as true. "Touch me and I am yours" the female seems to say and away she goes with her black and shite suitor in hot pursuit. I have never seen any wooing of the cuckoos, nor of meadow larks nor of the orioles. - A good looking boy 15 or 16 has just passed with a tin pod in his hand said he was going berrying. S. berries not yet at their height. - Saw the boy later over to John's rolling and smoking cigarettes. I spoke to him about the vicious habit. When at night he came by I asked him how many berries he got, "I did not go" he replied. I wanted to say - "no, the cigarette took the ambition all out of you - you locked the time away," which was true, a boy like that should have a strong hand laid upon him. The state should protect itself from such degenerates. 8 Eleanor and Harriett came last night. Partly cloudy this morning with mere wind - S.W. all the woods above me show the silver side of their leaves. Feel much better than when I came. 9 Light rain, cool. Profitless days to me. Both mental and physical lethargy. 10 Slow rain most of the night. Raining this morning, a gloomy day - rained a little all day. 11 Still raining from E. chilly, an overdose of wet and cold, no cheer or comfort in nature, a fire in the Franklin part of the time. Arm very troublesome, negative days in ones life. The only pleasure I have is in abusing the weather. 15 Rain nearly every day, fair today. Mr Ray from Montreal; a landscape gardener of the right sort; a fine fellow - glad he came. He made an excellent impression. We keep him to dinner and all the p.m. Will come again later of Scotish decent. Loves the men and books I do. Shower at 6 16 Fair day with much sunshine. Mr Whitehead and his friends - and the men from village - five fellows. John Shea comes at 4. Hand and arm mending. 17 Cloudy, calm, mild. Timothy grass blooming. Sleep yet much disturbed, especially in latter part of the night. Cuckoo still calls, rain probable. Drive to Edens in p.m. E and M. look well. E. looks better than last year, a fine garden while he takes pride in showing. Teases me on our approaching end - a good joke to him. "Time will soon fetch us" he says and he has loudly, streaks of light rain on the way. 18 Still cloudy from S.W. warmer, no sunshine today and no rain yet, only on bright day in a week. The whole weather system gone bad. Hand better, but arm unusually troublesome. One wood thrush singing in the woods above us last week, the only one I ever heard here, a single male bird probably. Cuckoos call every day. If I have to follow the method of the doctors I would shoot them, to ensure fair weather. The symptom for the cause. 19 Cloud and sun, with light showers here and there. John Shea leaves at noon; sorry to see him go. New car came last night, the best of its kind. When will my arm allow me to drive it? What friends I have got! 20 Clear, warm, still - the first of its kind in many weeks. I should say fair, weather had come to stay were it not for the persistent calling of the cuckoo. The tide of meadow grass is now at its height and the meadow bloom sents the air, now the hay makers will strike, but not as we did in my youth, with our scythes, but with machine. I am back in the old barn this a.m. and wondering if any thoughts will come my way. - Later - had good luck. In p.m. ran my car for first time since the accident. An ideal summer day. 21 Warmiest at night we have had. Warm and partly cloudy this morning. - All our weekly and monthly publications have more and more the characteristics of the street and the mart, and less and less the savor of things of the home and fireside The subjects treated are semi-political or semi-sociological, or semi-economic - less and less are they related to the disinterested subjects out of which our real culture springs - literature, art, nature and c. The outlook, for instance one might read on the train or in the station while he is waiting for his train, but certainly not in his study, or in the fields under a tree or in his summer camp. Who cares any more who signs the articles in the Atlantic - they are all of the same flavorless character, able but not literature. 22 Clear, calm, hot. July is getting hold of herself. Cuckoos still calling, 88 degrees in p.m. 23 Dense heavy fog this morning, a light shower last night at 4. Cuckoos calling more than even this morning. Very hot again. 24 Still hot, with light showers 92 degrees. 25 Hot, 88, air loaded with moisture; write in barn find 5 wats in orchard. Cedar bird, red eyed vireo, gold finch, chippie and king bird. How scared the cedar bird looked - stood up straight and stiff as a pollen with depressed crest and plumage, but made no sound. Harriett and Eleanor found the nests of cedar bird and good finch - my eye had missed them, another nest the identity of which is yet to be settled. 26 Hot with fog clouds from S.W. a white vapor fills all the air, saturating it to the limit. When litter puffs of air strike the meadow now, they carry away clouds of white smoke, the pollen of the blooming timothy, 78 at 7 1/2 a.m. a song sparrow up the road this morning sang over and over something like this "hip, hip, hip Peterson Ursa" with the accent of clear voiced cultivated woman. Cuckoos calling long and loud again this morning. 27 Still hot and muggy atmosphere like a saturated spong, yet only light sprinkles of rain. Up in the orchard this morning in bush camp, just new under the old pinnock apple tree near it. Too hot inside, just now an oven bird came in the branches over me and in a very inquisitive manner looked me over from all points and then disappeared. That soft betering motion of the hind part of her body was very pronounced. The war news depresses me - the collapse of Russia and the success of the German submarine blockade. The squabbling and delays at Washington are also depressing and disgusting. 28 A change to cooler and clearer air at last swept clear of its vapors, feels dryer wind N.W. no such change in months. Poor sleep lately. Oh to again live in a world free from the agony and suspense of war! Shall I ever see that day? I fear not the thought of it comes ever in hourly like an eclipse of the sun. It darkens everything. - I hear the indigo bunting, singing. Singing in a remote field all the morning. He is perched on the top of some tree, the mute unlistening fields all about him, a bit of topaz amid the green and he sings as if all the world was listening. What is he singing to? His brooding little brown mate on her nest in a low bush way hear him. Does it cheer and comfort her? We are humans when we ask this question, she broods on just the same when he stops singing. 29 Cloudy, with sprinkles of rain, cool. The cuckoo is right so far. The fair weather signs do not last. "Come to me, spiddle de [spiddle de] weet" sings my song sparrow, quite a shower at 4 and 5 much thunder. C.B. and I walk down to the village and back for the Times. Tires me less than it does her. I do it easily. Rest at the lake, clearing at sun down. 30 Grew warm very fast last night at 3 a.m. the warm currents began to puff in my face. This morning bright and hot. 31 Upto 92 at one. Windy in a.m. absolutely calm in p.m. and all night over hottest day yet at 11. The Indigo bunting was singing his song 5 times per minute and had been doing so for hours. Aug 1st Perfect calm continues as does the heat. Haymakers can hardly endure it, cuckoo calling this morning. A junco nest in a mossy bank over in the Deacon woods, 4 eggs she keeps her place when I am within 5 feet of her, at 9 1/2 mercury at 92. Yesterday p.m. sat in my camp and read most of Wordsworths sonnets not all of them are great but several of them are. What a contrast to the sonnets of G.E. Woodburg just sent me by a friend - so much more concrete and real. Woodburgs sonnets are of gossamer, his lines glint a little now and then, but they carry no burden of thought or emotion; to me his world has no reality; he takes me into a frail fanciful region that suggest dreamland. In both his prose and verse Woodburg stands withdrawn from the common universal, the realm of power, and subower himself in a feeling insubstantial region. His love poem have no blood and no intellectual content. Invariably I find that a man who does not see the greatness of Whitman has no elements of greatness himself. 2d Hot, hot, 92 to 96, with light slow shower in the p.m. and a change to cooler, mercury dropped 20 degrees in an hour or two. Every morning in my walk I call upon the junco on her nest in the little worsy bank at the threshhole of the beech woods. I see her white beak land her black shining eyes then in the small cavity, partly screened by various wild green growths. That spot seems a little different from any other. That bit of wild feathered life appeals to the imagination. I linger about, I put up some poles and brush toward off the graying cows. I sit a long time on a rock near by partly to enjoy the cool breeze and partly to be near the junco. I see the male occasionally lingering near. How interesting that he should seem to understand what keeps his mate then. This is doubtless their second brood. I fear some fox or skunk or coon or red squirrel will find her out. In the early winter or spring may be she and her broods and mate will come to me on the Hudson. 3 Bright and cool. I sit here under my apple tree with my sweater on. Air clear as spring water, but the cuckoo is calling. 4 Cool bright lovely day. Eden comes up from the train with John C. at 10 1/2. Looks and is very well. It is his 77th birthday. Health seems returning to him in his old age. Thirty years or more ago, his hold upon his life seemed very slight and precarious. The doctors told him he was near his end. It did not disturb him at all. "I shall not die till my time comes" was always his reply. He is now talkative and jolly, I greatly enjoy his visit. We walk over home in the p.m. He sees now what a fool he was to cut down the pasture lot woods. The old home I know looked good to him. Every height and mountain peak around the horizon recalls his fox hunting. It is one of his staple subjects of talk. Before his famous hound "old wilder" he shot 240 odd foxes. This was his greatest haved. I remember him well - a day of a fine breed, with a very musical bay. We drove him to Grand Gorge for 4:43 train. Took 1 1/2 gr calomel last night. (fever) 5th Fine and cool. Miss Cheuch come up to dinner. In p.m. we drive to Grand Gorge. Callers from the Lake, kill 2 chucks today, one of them as black as a cat, arm gaining but mind barren. 6 Fine and warmer. Kill 2 chucks this morning. Eye seems to be improving. I sit here under the apple tree and try to start my mind going by reading Emersons "Compensation." The air is full of the fragrance of new moon hay. - Balfour does not say out and out that he believes in absolute and unchanging beauty, but he says we must believe that somewhere and for some being then shines an unchanging splendor of beauty of which in nature and in art, we see each of us from our own stand point only passing shame and stray reflections and c" p 66. F.B. Is this unchanging splendor of beauty, beauty of form, of color of some, or what? Or is it mere beauty of thought. To me it is only words. Absolute beauty is as unthinkable as absolute joy, or hunger or fear, or shame, no human emotion can be absolute. 7 Start for West Park in car - all four of us, a hot day. We reach Tongore church at 12 1/2 and take our lunch under the trees behind it - the church I attended 63 years ago. I visit my wifes grave in the cemetery, a low growth of rag weed covers it. We drive on through Tongore to Stone Ridge, and then to Kingston via the old Lucas Turnpike. Reach home at 4. Ada and her friends in "the nest." 8 At W.P. see Julian and call on the Van B's. I enjoy the day. 9 Cloudy; start back at 8. Detour to Woodstock and then around the Ashokan dam. Lunch at the high arch bridge. Go through the Shandakan notch to Lexington a rough road. Reach home at 5 1/2, in a shower. 10 Cool dry clear. 11 Clear, cool, callers, Mrs Childs comes at 5. Missing: Aug 13, 1917 (1011 A) about August days 12 Lovely day. Judge Talbot and wife and Mr and Mrs Parsons come in p.m. Glad to see them. 13 Warm 80 degrees on the porch. In p.m. drive out to Grand Gorge. Brain works poorly these days. 14 Cloudy, Mrs C. leaves on early train. Some interesting callers in p.m. from Mrs Shepards. Two extra fine 11 years old boys. [See other sheet] 15 Cloudy. Light shower in p.m. a small red weasel up on the hill by the road side intent on crossing the pasture lot barn, but springs back as he sees me. His boldness and activity in such a contrast to that of the chipmonk. He thrush his head and neck out and eyes me intently many times. He appears first at this opening in the wall and then at that and surveys me at different angles. He carries on a hurried investigation of this strange animal and then as hurriedly turns on his tracks and disappears. The other days a chipmonk at the same Aug 14 The Methodist minister in the village this morning asked me if I believed in God; he had been told that Edison and I were infidels or agnostics He was very cordial and expressed great admiration for my writings. I made some hasty reply as I was in a hurry and recall that [I said] I did not believe in a personal god or a personal devil, if I believed in the first I must believe in the second. I should have said something like this "Probably not in your god - not in any being who can be described in terms of man - who sees, hears, feels, loves, had plans, governs, makes, takes sides, demands worship, obedience, and c and c, - a vastly magnified man, I do not believe in Christianity [explanation] - as an explanation of the universe and our relation to it, it is childish. It is good practical religion, so is Christian science, so is elementary tribal or racial religion for the people who wanted it. I do not believe in immortality, or another world as commonly understood. The religion of our fathers with its miracles, its son of God, its scheme of salvation, its heaven and hell and c is out worn and is impossible to the thinking men of our day. Ethics, religion, the rule of right, must have a scientific basis, as they have. The Christian virtues and aspirations must rest on a solid foundation of natural truth or they fall. (But why beat this old rotten and dusty carpet. Let us walk on the ground or on the bare boards.) Aug 14 There is nothing in the universe that cares anything for us as individuals, but individuals only our fellow men have a personal interest in us. To God, as represented by nature, we do not count, nature never sends her message to us "with personal regards." Her messages are blunt "yea" "yea" and "nay" "nay" our well being is second through the cooperation of a vast complex of physical forces and our own inherent powers of adaptation, but not one atom of matter or force takes sides for or against us. The total scheme of things is on our side, but this total scheme of things, will crush or destroy us as men, the moment we antagonize it or get in its way. barway, sat motionless several minutes and eyed me and then turned and went back. Killed a wood chuck this a.m. with his mouth filled with dry grass and stubble to carry in his hole, my bullet was like a stroke of lightning; he dropped and never moved. The young cedar birds in the orchard are about ready to leave the nest. When I approach they stand and stretch their necks up in the same scared way their parents do about the nest, with their beaks pointing upward and feathers depressed. Today I am 5ft 6 1/2 inches in height and weigh about 128lbs, lightly dressed. 16 We drive to Hobart and have dinner with Eden and Mag. They are as well as I have seen them in many years, a warm day with showers in p.m. and a heavy shower at night. 17 Foggy, muggy and partly cloudy this morning. Clearing before noon. Young cedar birds just out the nest one of them came on the porch this morning. - The lightning is so quick, the thunder is so slow! The thunder often sounds like a gigantic gun of ten pins in an empty chamber over head. How slowly and aimlessly the big ball, roll about. Is this noise all the reverberation of the first crash? I suppose so. - President Wilsons words are nearly always equal to the occasion. How rare the men and president of whom this can be said! 18 Rouland and Mr Reed and wife come over from Onteora, I return with them. 19, 20, 21 At Roulands - a good time. Garland was by, looks sick, very lame, but full of interesting talk, a lovable man accomplished in many ways, a fine talker and reader and sings well - a delightful family. 22 Return home. Mr Elwer and wife, bring me, a fine fellow and an enthusiastic wife. His hobby is astronomy - a high house indeed. He makes me want to telescope like his. Reach home at 12, a cool fine day. 23 Warm, threatens rain, a party from Racine in auto. 24 Rained nearly all night with thunder. Ground full of water this morning. Warm with signs of more rain. 3 chucks today, and another hit. In p.m. walk down to the Shepard fields, air loaded with moisture, "Mrs Durkie" has ceased to sing. 25 Clear and cool. Climb to top of old clump in forenoon. Clara, Harriet, Eleanor and I not over fatigued by the trip, 3 or 4 years since I was there. Do the climb easier than I could have done it one year ago. Hear much steadier than last year, no birds, no wild life of any kind same wood chucks in sheep pasture on our return. 26 Clear, windy, much cooler. Wind and cold spoiled my sleep last night. Saw one barn swallow yesterday. Fewer crows here this year than in previous years, my gold finches left their nest 2 days ago. 27 Clear and cool in a.m. warming up in p.m. A record day here yesterday, over 40 people and 5 cars, many pedestrians from the village. Leutn Nightingale of the navy among them. Dr Day from Sidney and his wife and friends here. Dr Crump and wife and son here. Mrs Shepards friends and relatives. Dr Snew and wife, Dr Russell and wife and daughter and c. 28 Warm fine day, a car load of people from Hamden, Ada comes on p.m. train. 29 Rain last night, heavy with thunder, cloudy this morning. 30 More rain. Doubt if we get off today. 31 Clear and cool. We are off at 9 for Port Byron, a fine run to Sidney, which we reach at 1 1/2 p.m. Dr Day and family glad to see us. Sept 1st Raining in early morning we get off at 8 1/2. Dr Day and family go with us in their big car to Burlington Flats, a very bad and fearfully muddy dirt road for 12 miles. Eleanor drives my car and handles id splendidly. The Days leave us here and we push on over good state road for Witco All goes well and we are in Syracuse by 5 p.m. and would have reached Port Byron at 6, had we not had two puncture. Finally get through about 7 p.m. 2 Sunday in P.B. Stopping with the Tannars - old friends and school mates of C.B. an interesting family, very genuine people. In p.m. Mr T. takes us in his motor boat on the Canal to Cayuga lake, a long sail. 2 In P.B. walk on the Drumlin and meet 4 soldiers out on a holiday; fine boys from Pa. belong to regular army. 3 Fine day. Drive to Auburn slop with Dr Hitchcock, old friends of C.B. a beautiful city - call at Mr Seward house and meet Col, Seward looks like his father. House full of many interesting things. 4 Off on return trip at 9. Clear and fine south along Owasco Lake for Ithaca, a lovely farming country. Every farm with its history and associations for some one, but we see only farm buildings and smooth fertile fields. Reach Ithaca at noon; leave at one, off for Owego, good roads and a succession of fine landscapes and well kept farms, all state roads except 7 miles. Reach Owego in due time, and press in for Binghamton, good roads, no delays; average about 20 miles per hour; go over the long hill and are again in the valley of the Susquehanna. This is the route father and mother used to take when they drove to P. to see their friends - 150 miles occupying about 3 days. I think of them hourly, jogging along about 4 or 5 miles per hour, over rough roads while we spin along at about 20 miles per hour over Macadam roads - Otego, Unadilla, Bainbridge, Afton, Binghamton - how there news haunted my imagination as I heard them in my youth. Father and mother made the last trip by train in 1854 and Olly Ann and Walker went with them. I was teaching school in Olive, and when I came back in October, they had done to Pa. The first train of cars Olly Ann ever saw, they saw near Binghamton. They were on a hill probably the big hill, and looked across a valley and saw the train. Their trip took about 3 weeks; they had much visiting to do. I make our trip 212 miles each way, - the distance the same by the two routes. We used nearly 30 gals of gas. There were about 20 extra mile, driving about P.B. and Auburn. 6 Raining in morning, clearing in p.m. We reach home about 4 p.m. glad to be back. Sept 7 Fine, cool day. 8 Raining again this morning, began in the night, ground constantly full of water. Three young women in a Hudson car from Madison Wis, call. Fine young women two of them teachers in state of Washington. 10 Cold and windy. C.B. Mrs J and I go after preferment. 11 Our first frost - froze came, cucumbers, tomatoes and other garden vegetables. Bright and cold all day. 12 Another killing frost. Bright and calm today. 60 years ago today I was married, alas! alas! 13 Warmer, clear and lovely. Ada leaves this morning, a goodly lump of christian sceince. However childish and absurd the philosophy of christian science is. It is one of the best practical religion. Good christian scientist are such before they call themselves by that name. It is a matter of temperament and disposition. The same is probably true of Methodist, Baptists, Episcopalians and c. Each joins the sect to which his disposition is the most responsive, none of them are essentially changed in character, but only in belief and practice. They keep the rules of their sect and defend its doctrines. The church organizes and directs their thoughts and feelings. Ada was always a vague, undefined C.S. now the pattern is fully brought out. Her sister C.B. can never become one. Her intellect is too dominant and her disposition too crusty. 14 Perfect Sept days, calm clear genial near 80 degrees. How I enjoy them, many callers. 15 Still bright but cooler, a few clouds with irregular wind. - When I casually open Whitmans. "Leaves of Grass" after the book has been long closed to me It is like coming suddenly upon the ocean after years of absence from it. I have been reading the verses in the magazine, or in the vol. of some recent poet, and opening. W. is like coming from an enameled both room to the ocean beach. Such large free ways such elemental force and simplicity, - such freedom from the subtle and the over refined, such fundamental statements and absence of elaboration, such magnitude and at times such absolute justness of phrasing! Emerson in his journals, may well speak of it Alleghany lift and sweep. It is like the forest primeval like the great plains, like the mountains peaks, yet steeped in humanity and brotherly love. It is refined as the sky is refined as the great lakes are refined, as the rains and the dews are refined. It is not culture, or poetry, or art as we commonly use the terms. It is something greater and better. 16 Partly cloudy, cool. Julian and John came last night at 5 1/2. So glad to see them. We have a fine day together and they depart at 2 1/2. John McGrigor and Eva and Chester Lane and Hatty and her two children come in auto at 1. We have an enjoyable day together. 17 Bright and warmer a lovely morning. Educators from Albany here. (Mr and Mrs Abrams and c) 18 Lovely day, one week and 2 days without rain. Write in morning and do chores in p.m. 19 Clear and warm. Drive to the village in morning, which ruffles my temper and spirts my day. I often wish I had never seen a Ford car and any other. All such things create wants which we never knew before. Life so simpler and more satisfying without them. 21 Fine day. De Loach comes this p.m. 22 Mr Roy from Montreal comes this a.m. a lovely day. 23 Very enjoyable days. Clear and cool. 24 De Loach left yesterday. We pack up and at 3 p.m. bid farewell to dear old Woodchuck and start for home. Mr Roy driving the car. Reach home without delay at 7 1/2 p.m. 25 Clear and warm, glad to be back home. 26 Bright and cool and dry, no rain for 2 weeks. - The waste and litter of the great out-of-doors taking such pretty shape and enclosing such pearls - a birds nest, a birds rest is always a surprise and a delight especially when placed upon the ground. Oct 15 A cool dry fall so far, but no frost here since our return from W.C.L. On Sept 29th I went to N.Y. to join Mr Ford. On the 30th we motored to Greenport to meet Edison, but E. was at sea on his job. We motored back to Port Jefferson and passed the night. On Oct 1st we crossed to Bridgeport and then motored to Boston. The 2d we passed in B. In p.m. De Loach and I in the ford car motored to Concord where we passed the night. Weather bright and cool. We went to Emersons grave and into his house, where I sat in his study for my photo On the 3rd we started for N.Y. Left the car at Bridgeport and took train for N.Y. Spent Thursday in N.Y. passing the night at Dr Johnson, where C.B. was staying. Friday the 4th came back to West Park. Have been here since, writing a little and over hauling. MSS. Cough letting up. Weather cool and dry. C.B. came back for week. End on Friday the 12th. She leaves this a.m. for N.Y. Raining a little today. Toliage very brilliant. My cold began suddenly in a fit of sneezing in Sept 26 - the result of auto intoxication only a slight fever one night but coughing and blowing has persisted up to this time - nearly over now, a thorough house - clearing at once, checked it, and a dose of 1 1/2 grs of calomel, a good deal of phlegen, but only slight indisposition a few times. Eat and sleep well; gained 3 lbs with Mr Ford. No nature notes this fall. 23 Still alone here, keep well and write a little each a.m. or revise ness, only light rains past week. Leaves falling fast walk on a carpet of gold each morning as I go to P.O. woven by the wind from the maples and elms. Leaves half off, a severe frost 3 nights ago, frost nightily ever since - cold for the season. Began taking an enema daily [on] since Saturday, with marked improvement and a fine drive yesterday with Hud and his wife around through Cetreville and Lloyd, by Avchmerely Pond, and Esopus home. - A 2 hour drive through [the] a landscape of gilded bronze and gold. Bright and mild partly cloudy today and still cool for Oct. 24 Rain nearly all day from N.E. heavy at times, much needed; fills up the wells and cisterns, strips the leaves off the trees. I am in doors nearly all day, write a little very lonely. Oh, the falling leaves, they move me. The house is like a tomb. Felt her loss afresh when I went to the kitchen door and found the leaves clustered there as if waiting for something, they were waiting for her broom. For over 40 years it had not failed them and now they lay there dulled and discouraged, oh, the unswept stones and entry way - what a tale they tell. I never could have believed I should miss her so much. Yet I do not want her back, but if I could only know she was well and happy somewhere in the land of the living. Over 40 years we two sat here and saw our days go by, saw the leaves come and go and the seasons change, now they come and go for her no more, the dust in her house, and the leaves at her door are undisturbed. What do I mourn for? Why this loneliness? Oh, I suffer it is for my vanished days for my life buried with her. She was apart of my youth, and my manhood, of all I did and thought and though a discord in my life, I mourn her just the same. Oct 31 In N.Y. since 28, over to E. Orange with Binder on the 30. Back today. Rain yesterday. Nov 1st Bright sharp weather. Out to Floral Park to the Childs. 2 Drive to Flower Field with Mr Childs, sharp and clear, a good time. 3 Back to N.Y. today and then to Cos Cob with C.B. to visit Sheas. 4 At C.C. Fine sharp days. To Bigelows in p.m. 5 Back to N.Y. 6 Home today. Fine day; drive up to E. to vote for the women. 7, 8, 9, 10 At W.P. weather clear, dry, sharp. To S.S. on 10th with the Audubon society from Kingston High School. 11, 12, 13 At W.P. still clear and cold. Write a little. 14 Drive to Middletown in p.m. 47 miles at Mrs Canfields. 15 At M. a pleasant time. 16 Drive back this a.m. The Sheas come at 4 1/2. Cloudy. 17 Still bright, dry and sharp, a remarkable Nov. so far. Clear sharp days from the north since Oct 30th no wind and no clouds, till yesterday. Feeling pretty well, but do not get much work done. 18 The Sheas here, clear, mild. 19 Colder, clear. Extra well. 20 Colder. Snow flakes in the air. 21 Frosty nights. 22 Rain and cold. 23 Clearing: to P. in p.m. 24 Cloudy, chilly, snow flurries. So eager for war news that I go to P.O. before breakfast. British victories in France mightily good reading. - A new path now from my study to the nest. My path to the house faded out. I kept it open for nearly 40 years. Alas, alas, no more as I pass up the drive in the morning I often see a reflection of my own farm in the kitchen window and it fairly startles me. So often has she came to that window and called to me! 21 - 11 1/2 a.m. two flocks of geese going south, so high they are only faintly etched on the clouds, two very large flock and shaped, so high I cannot hear their "hook," which Hud hears. 26 Cold and clear; down to 20. Write on the Germans. 27 Colder, down to 15. Still after the Germans. Saw and split wood in p.m. The Canada sparrow here some days ago, a feeling of snow in the air. 28 Our first white wash of snow this morning. Darkly cloudy, more snow coming probably, am giving the Germans a little rest, but am not done with the wretches yet, am off to Edens this p.m. 29 At Edens. E. looks well - good color and in good flesh, eats and sleeps well, but is getting more and more deaf and his sight eye of little values, says also his head is confused, gets the wrong word sometimes. He does his chores and usual. Mag well and the same cheerful and thrifty and helpful woman she always has been. A skim of snow on the ground. The wooded nets, have the old winter look so familiar to me in my youth, a good dinner. Willie and his wife there. Pretty cold. 30 Cloudy and cold. Walk over to Willies in morning. Back to dinner. Daul, Burroughs, the son of Eden there, 70 years of age, has a Burroughs look. Eva and John McGrigor call in p.m. Arrives in the morning. Call on Mrs Mitchel and Mr Scott. John and Blauch over to dinner. Leave on 4:20 train for home. Dec 1 At home. Pretty cold. Olive Hinman here, Mrs Webster from N.Y. in p.m. 2 Fair day, cold. Write in study. 3 Fair, cold, 24 degrees. Work in study, finish letter to N.Y. Times. 4 Cloudy, milder, a strike in p.m. Black ducks on the river finish. Is nature cruel? 5 Clear sharp, a great message from president Wilson. It will ring around the world. He is a leader of his country - focuses their thoughts and hopes on a high plane, not men rhetoric - his words are blows; they convince, no other of the allied countries has such a spokesman. I fear Roosevelt in his place would divide the country more than he would unite it. I fear so, he is so violent and partizan. In those days we must forget that we are either democrats or republicans and only remember that we are Americans. 6 Clear, sharp, down to 25 degrees. The great thing about Wilson is that he grows. Few men in political life grow under the pressure of men conditions or new demands. Wilson has grown as the occasion has demanded. He is now the foremost man in the Allied nations, his word lead all others. All his utterances have high literary value, without posing at all as literature. They aretoo serious and earnest for that. To call them literature is almost to detract from them. Yet Lincolns Gettysburg address was literature, so is [the] Pauls letter to the Corinthians.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1916-1917 (November - March)
Text: [XLVIII] Diary from Nov 27, 1916 to March 23d, 19 17 1917 28. Go down to see Mrs. B. Find her about the same - lies there in her bed looking very thin, but does not complain much. Julian and his family go with me in big car. Fine day. 29. Mild. I write each day in study on nature Love. 30. Steady rain all night, much needed. Clearing today. Go up to J's to dinner, and walk home. Send 2 bird papers to Harpers. Dec 1. Fine mild calm day. Wonderful weather, still writing. 2d. Lovely day. Go...
Show more[XLVIII] Diary from Nov 27, 1916 to March 23d, 19 17 1917 28. Go down to see Mrs. B. Find her about the same - lies there in her bed looking very thin, but does not complain much. Julian and his family go with me in big car. Fine day. 29. Mild. I write each day in study on nature Love. 30. Steady rain all night, much needed. Clearing today. Go up to J's to dinner, and walk home. Send 2 bird papers to Harpers. Dec 1. Fine mild calm day. Wonderful weather, still writing. 2d. Lovely day. Go to P. to see Mrs. B. unchanged though color is better 3d. Another bright quiet lovely day. Feel good. The Russels emulsion seems to give me a very smooth fating as if it oiled all my machinery, must rest from my writing for a few days. Have written 9 essays since May, 3 on birds, one for youths companion, one for the art world called "The Good Devils" 2 on Nature love, and one called The Natural providence and one called The Price of Development, or Biology and War or Development and War. (Which?) 8. A fine mild week - like October. Write in study each a.m. Down to P. on Wednesday to see Mrs. B. keeps about the same. In bed all the time a lovely day yesterday. Walk down by the river in p.m. and up through the Payne place, and home, no wild life at all. Today cloudy in a.m. clearing in p.m. Freezes a little each night. Feel pretty well, weigh 134. House very lonely. Send paper to Art World today, on nature, a good deal pestered by demands of friends and strangers. 9. Mild, cloudy, light rain in p.m. Go down in car with J. and P. to see Mrs. B. slowly failing I fear. I can not keep the thought of her out of my mind. 10. Bright calm day but sharp. Write in a.m. up to J's for dinner. Walk home. Still moonlight nights. 11. Clear, calm sharp; froze hard last night. Feel well. 12. Heavy wet snow all day. 13. Clearing colder. Go to P. to see Mrs. B. - no better. 14. Clear, sharp, down to 16 this morning. Expect to bring Mrs. B. home today. 15. Mrs. B. home yesterday; stood the trip well. 16. Snow all day, 6 inches. 17. Cold, windy, snow drifting. 18. Down to near zero this morning. Mrs. B. holds her own a rime on all the trees this morning; falls like glittering star dust as wind sters. Clear cold day. 19. Overcast; threatens more snow. Write in study. 22. Rain and snow. 24. Clear and cold, snow and ice. 25. Xmas. Cloudy in morning, cold. Walk to Slabsides, enjoy the walk, Partridge tracks made while snow was soft. Clearing and colder in p.m. Dine with C.B. on roast duck, Mrs. B. comes down to dinner, and eats well. But really no stronger, undoubtedly her last xmas, though I suspect she does not think so. 26. Clear, still cold. River full of floating ice, my walk yesterday helped my dizzynes, must walk every day, use my legs more and my brain less. 27. Storm, keen winter days. 30. Down to 4, a glaze of ice everywhere, a bright keen day. - The sound of an ox in the winter woods - how I love to hear it. It suggests heroic warmth. Mrs. B. keeps feeble. - It is the modern exciting spirit without wellowness or ripeness or atmosphere driving at the hard literal truth or fact in the matter, - the spirit of business efficiency of an industrial economic age, that would value the sky only for the bluing in it. 31. Sunday, mild, pleasant day. 1917 Jany 1. Mild day. Write a little and poke ground. Mrs. B. about the same. 2, 3, 4. Calm, mild overcast days with moon at night. River like a masses with large fields of floating ice. 5. A little frost last night. Raining from S. at 9. 6. Rain and fog all day yesterday. Colder but clear and lovely today and not too much wind. I see this juncos and Canada tree sparrows running over the hard snow pecking at the weeds, and I think over what a wide belt of the country, East, West, South there, brave little birds are running over the snow pecking at the weeds and apparently with cheerful hearts. What millions of them the country must hold at this time. Every day, or every hour some of them somewhere are caught by hawks or cats, though they are on their guard every moment. In my boyhood we used to call the junco "the black chipping bird". They used to nest on the old farms and do yet. The tree sparrow I did not know. my friend Hamilton Matic was buried on the 3d, I should have gone to the funeral, I miss him from the world. I saw him on the 16th of Nov, at the academy meeting. He write me that he [expect] was happy in the prospect of being as well as ever again. Alas! alas! He was a lovable and helpful man, not one of the original men, but a very serviceable man in a literary age. I doubt if his books will last, but his friends will not forget him. He did not touch nature directly but through books, he sustained first hand relations with very few things, which is true of most of us. He show in some of his editorials in the outlook, and how he did shine as toast master at a club or other public dinner; never saw his equal. And now the eternal darkness and stillness surrounds him. Peace to his ashes. 12. End of the mild weather, a cold wave - near zero. 13. Cold, but cloudy, still writing in C.B's home this p.m. two days on account of the cold. Mrs. B. about the same. 14. Rained hard all night and still raining, warm, snow nearly gone. Winter does not hold his grip. Writing on E's journals. The hideous win with talk of peace. Still fills all the horizon. 18. Mild week so far, no snow. Down to 20 some nights. Smooth ice on river. To P. yesterday. Weight 134. 26. Even mild winter weather since my last entry. Snow ending in rain. Still well, still writing. Finishing on essay on Environs journals 29. Clear sharp fine winter weather continues. Keep well, a flurry of snow now and then. Mrs. B. slowly failing. About done with writing on Emersons journals and have written over 20,000 words, good, bad and indifferent. - My thoughts are born faster than I can care for them and set them up in the world. - Not a fresh word or idea in S's writing. They seem as if they might have lain in pickle in some academic closet for generations, correct, scholarly, logical, but dead, dead, (Jan, 1917) 31. Every week come letters asking my views on this or that subject. Last week came a letter from Perary Grant asking me if I thought a belief in immortally necessary to a useful and efficient life, another from [a] N.Y. clergyman asking my idea of God. From Brooklyn Eagle Jany 28. What was the last thing that happened to you in your childhood? What the most important lesson learned on your youth? A request from Dr. John Finley to come to Albany on my birthday. Canadian Camp Fire Club war letter for their next dinner. 31. Fine day, thawing. Heavy thunder and rain at night. Feb 1. Cloudy, misty, calm a big flock of red - pols in vineyard, keep pretty well, no apparent change in Mrs. B. 9. Snow and rain and cold and warm, since my last entry. I work along on Emerson and his journals and enjoy it. Keep pretty well, but sleep broken, a good deal. Wife slowly failing we think on the 7th. C.B. Hud and I took our first sleigh ride around the back road to Esopus and home. Ice on river 8 or 9 inches. Ice boating has been good. Down to 4 above this morning. Bright and cold today 11. Bright sharp day - down to 4 above this morning. Still at work on the Emerson journals paper. 12. Bright and cold - down to - 8. Write in study. 13. Colder - down to 10 and 12 below this morning. Clear calm. Write in study on E's journal. Wife sleeps most of the day, talks but little nourishment. The metabolism of the body almost at a stand still, complexion very sallow, "come soothing death, in mercy come quickly." 14. Hazy milder, up to 14. Mrs. B. seems better today at least not so torpid. Bowels and kidneys move. - Wilsons speech before the senate in Jany, was from its elevation of thought, and the source from which it emanated like a message written upon the sky which all the world could read and which all the world will in turn read and heed, novels so full of memory and prophecy fulfill themselves, they work on mens imagination. Is this dream and universal peace and justice, ever to be realized? not unless such things as the president said, are said by men in positions to command attentions and win respect. 19. Leave at noon with Mr. Ford on his private car for one Southern trip. Julian with us to go to N.Y. I am well but leave Mrs. B. reluctantly. She hardly realizes that I am off, though she gave her consent some days ago, yet she asked me how long I would be gone. I stood by her bed side some moments gazing upon her emaciated face, yellow with jaundice and wondered if I would ever see it again, not believing that I would, I rested my face on hers a moment and said "Good by" "Good by dear." she said, and we parted probably for the last time - over 60 years had I known her and been her husband 59 1/2 years. I can no longer feel the acute grief that I felt a few months ago, nature well not keep up that strain. She is almost the same and dead to me now. Every hour she is in my mind and I would weep if I could. How pitiful it all is. Oh, if she could only be spared the suffering - if she could only go to sleep and not wake up! We reach N.Y. at 3 p.m. I stay on the car, at 9 1/2 p.m. our train is off. Cloudy and cold. 20. I look out of my window this morning at 7 1/2 and see we are south of the Potomac - fox red soil, black slender pears, scrub oak, a wild, neglected unkempt look in the landscape, muddy streams, poor farm houses. We pass Richmond before noon, raining in p.m. a heavy thunder shower, standing water in the fields and woods, warmer. In mid afternoon hear blue birds and the little piping frogs - very spring like. The smell of fertilizer in the air all the way to Charleston. Piles of it in bags at the stations ready for the cotton planting. Reach Charleston about midnight. 21d. Bright and clear. We spend the day in C. Go aboard the boat at noon, a beautiful yacht, - a dream of elegance and luxury my room 12*12, and sumptuously fitted up, joins the room of Mr. and Mrs. Ford, too fine for a Slabsider like me. In p.m. we go in the launch out to the German steamer sunk a few weeks ago - a huge work a day iron steamer lying more than waste deep in the water. It looked German, coarse, dirty, ugly, 400 feet long, sank by the crew no doubt under orders from home. At 5 p.m. we drive about the city, rather disappointing to me, common place antiquated but without the dignity of age, chops, wooden buildings predominating, narrow streets a lovely day, like April at home. We pass the night on the boat. 22. An ideal morning. Clear, soft, calm. I see Fort Sumpter low in the distance sea-ward, our supplies all come aboard - big fat turkeys, poultry, lamb, vegetables e.t.c. e.t.c. - too much by more than half, at 10 a.m., we hoist anchor and slowly move away, our captain quite a young man, a new Englander, very quiet and modest, looks like the real thing, 30 men in all in the crew. Six of us with 2 children and a nurse. All day on a blue placid sea, calm as the Hudson River, though one feels the slow pulse of the sea under all, 10 knots an hour. I walk and sit and read upon deck - ideal in every particular, not a flaw in anything, except at table where my appetite is too good and the food too rich and abundant. But I am on my guard, a little warbler, the red poll I think comes aboard and hangs about the yacht for a long time, apparently very hungry, a trop of gulls hover over our wake and storm all day. What grace, what ease, what mastery of flight. Oh, if he could do things in words with the same grace and ease that gulls fly! that were literature. There is even a hint of literature in his symmetrical figures in which the sailors coil their ropes on the deck - a sort of double 8. Thinking of literature, I thought of a new adjective that fitted the look of the sea in the p.m. - the rocky - faced sea. It has probably never been used. It had the rock face that the masons like to put on their stone. It is not very good. 23. Off shore from St. Augustine. Clear, calm and warmer, perfect, no motion to disturb a baby. I had rather a bad night from indigestion, ate stuff at supper - tomatoes and lettuce - that I should not have eaten. Trouble to urinate. Better this morning and hope to profit by the lesson. I must not take any acid thing in the p.m. and must eat less of other things. Now at 11 1/2 the sky is clear, the sea sparkles, the boat glides smoothly along and all is well - all is perfect. We had the news news by wireless at midnight. The air is full of news, if you only have the tools to pick it out, I shall never cease to marvel at it all. Mr. Ford had a message from Edsel at Detroit this morning via Miami. - In the middle of a still blue shield all day, sailing, sailing and never getting off the magic shield, it journeys with us 24. Still a bright sun and smooth seas, summer warmth. Put on my light gray suit this morning. Slept without any cover most of the night. The sea disturbs my inner economics, though so calm. But yesterday p.m. and last night the boat rolled a good deal, a satin sea this morning, the vast silk surface undulating gently over the deep breathing of the old man of the sea. The Fla, shore quite near, at 9 we pass Palm Beach and get a glimpse of the great hotels and the real roofs rising above the green of buildings in the town. We see motor cars rushing along on the level road above the beach, no birds, no sea gulls this morning. Yesterday a pretty sight was two porpoises racing with one boat only a few feet away; we could look down upon their backs as they ran like hands side and side easily keeping up with us (12 miles an hour) and so far as I could see, not moving a fin. The subtle and powerful muscular propelling effort of the whole body could not be seen. I fancied their ears lain back like a racing dogs. They followed us an hour or more; now on one side of the ship and then on the other, evidently in high glee that they could keep up with us. What jolly sportive creatures they are - the school boys of the sea. As I looked down upon them their heads and snouts suggested these of pigs. Several times they turned at right angles and dived under the boat and raced on the other side - just to show us what stunts they were capable of, our wireless man has caught no news from the air this morning. This operator by the way, is a superior looking young man - a fine massive head and face. He had chamberlin's "Foundations (1917) Feb, 25? a yacht club) Come off to see us in Benedicts boat. The "commandere" a character, 83, large means, wide experience through travel and business, full of anecdotes gets people by the ears at once and holds on till you are tired, a good story teller, but a little too complacent and confident. Plants himself in fruit of Mr. Ford and envelops him like an octopus, we sit about and listen amused but finally board, as we want to go ashore. At last we are off. Foresters cars meet us and we are soon at his grand place at "Lemon" (Why is lemon less dignified as the name of P.O. than Orange? Large picturesque house and Garage of coral rock with orange and grape fruit groves and scores of coconuts trees on the marge of the bay. One of the finest places I ever saw - ideal in many ways. The grass is like May. I smell it and feel like eating it. F. has 7 children all young ranging from 2 to 19 - 6 boys and one girl the youngest a beautiful family, a happy home. in the Orange grove we see 2 robins and many red poll warblers a hard frost or freeze (28 degrees) a few weeks ago, wrought havoc with vegetation here, killing all the pine apples, many kinds of plants and vines, browning the leaves of all the coconut palms and of a low orchard like tree of which I did not learn the name, but orange and grape fruit trees unharmed, after dinner we drive 6 or 7 miles to coconut grove and enjoy it much, a big place by Deering, shows much money and little task. Miami a large fine town (20,000) at 7 we are back in the yacht, a warm night and poor sleep for me, heart very irregular. Feel like going home, so it the climate or what is it, that makes my heart so unsteady - a hop-skip and jump action. Probably it is the unstable equilibrium of the sea, working on my stomach e.t.c. 26. Still clear and hot, but more wind. I feel good and strong and look so, but heart still capricious. I am cutting down on my eating and taking a little strychnine - 2 tablets a day. Sea so rough that the trip ashore and the excursion with the Firestones up the canal into the Everglades is abandoned. Will start in p.m. for Key West. Every night between 8 and 9 our wireless man picks the news out of the air with his wire net. Think of it! over our heads here in the dark air darts and shoots all the important news of the day and no one the wiser except as it is revealed by his instrument, a net work of pulsing lines over head, news of the great war of world calamities of doings in distant continues e.t.c, which our senses are too dull to apprehend, all about us these news vibrations go and come and cross and recross each other and we know it not. What magic, what spirits are here! Mr.__ sets there in his little room on the upper deck, with the receivers in his ears, and writes as the messages from the heavens are conveyed to him. Such things reveal to us how much more fine and marvelous nature is - the coarse common nature about us - than we had dreamed. If we could reach its real interior and interpret it would then be any room for spirit? Would not matter and spirit be seen to be one? tail unless the fox or some other enemy has hold of it. But to keep your tail and your independence too, that is the trick. Feb 26, at sea. 25. At anchor off Miami very quiet and warm. We go in launch into Miami. Mr. and Mrs. Firestone meet us with 2 cars and take us to their place 4 miles out to dinner, a place of great beauty, very large picturesque stone house with very in front and orange groves at the back, see 2 robins on the ground in the orange grove, a hard frost a week or two ago, killed all the pine appear and all the leaves of the coconut palms and of several other kinds of trees. Oranges and grape fruit escaped after dinner we take a long drive about the semi tropical country, very novel and interesting. 27? 26. Off for Key West today, a warm clear day, "Commondon" Benedicts yacht leading us down the coast. 28? 27. At Key West, a large town 20,000 people, island 7 miles long and 3 wide. We stay 2 days, drive about the town, take on oil and water, a conspicuous feature, the 2 tall wireless towers much of our news picked out of the air at sea, came from these towers. 28. Clear, East wind still, at 10 we are off for Havana, a choppy sea, I lie on my bed most of the way, as also the others - not sick, but head in a whirl, at 8. p.m. we enter Havana Harbor and anchor in the still waters of the fine spacious harbor. Mch 1st. At Havana, warm but not hot. We go ashore and drive about. 2d. Friday. We are off on a 50 mile drive inland to see some large sugar plantations. A large superb road for 20 or more miles the road is arched by huge Spanish Laurel trees. Their branches interlock over head making regular green gothic arches. Mr. Ford and 3 planters (American) and I in a Packard car, a prominent feature of the landscape, the scattered Royal palms, their plums streaming back or waving in the wind like the head gear of Indian chiefs no country home or farm in our sense; thatched windowless huts here and there with open door. The dwellings of the better class in villages toeing on the streets, no glass in even the best houses, windows with iron grating and blinds; how low, only one story and always with a colonade front and ornamental, no pretty creeks or streams, plenty of broken limestone everywhere in the fields often a serious obstruction to cultivation. In one section a stone wall on each side the road built of these shapeless limestone, gray with the weather, no woods, no crops, but sugar cane and an occasional field of corn, in the car now, no orange groves, no orchards of any kind. The fields where they were not under the plow, had a rough unkempt look - low bushes, weeds and tufts coarse dry grass. Nocks of boat tailed grackles, here and there and now and then a king bird and a shrill and a mocking bird, no crows, but buzzars very common and a few red poll warblers, also I saw one ring walk plover, now and then a yellow butterfly. The limestone rock here is cream colored and soft - not blue and hard like ours. It is of much later date when the rock builders had less time and poorer material. In the p.m. we visited the large plantation of senior Polayo at Rosario by far the finest I ever saw. It [was] is indeed a truly imperial plantation, of 13,000 acres of the best sugar lands level and stretching away on either hand as far as the eye could see. The mills were on a scale to match - very clean and orderly and pleasing to look upon from the outside. The output is over 1,200 bags for about 3 months. The puday house of the owner was one of the best I have seen, and his Spanish hospitality was perfect. We had refreshments of orange juice, rolls, guava paste e.t.c. The garden behind the house was a tropical thicket of several acres, a dense green retreat of all kinds of tropical or semi-tropical trees and vines. The cinnamon tree was among them. It was an ideal spot when one wanted to linger and dream. The owner of the plantation had turned down an offer of 4 million dollars for the place. He was a Spaniard over 60 iron gray and spends his time between Cuba and Spain. He did not speak a word of English, nobody in Cuba, but Americans does. His great dignity and country was very pleasing. In the mill, the cane was coming in by car loads, or train loads at one end and going out in big sacks of sugar (325lbs) at the other - only 2 or 3 hours from the cane to the sugar. (In mathematics 2*2 make four, but in human life, or in the world of living things, two and two often make 3 or 5, add two men to two men and you may have the power of only three men or may have the power of 5 or 6, according to your standard. Life is incommensurable.) 3. Warm day, all day aboard the boat resting. At night we go over to the city and do errands and poke about. I stand on a street corner 15 minutes and count 50 motor cars going by - all of them Fords. By day I have seen a few other make of cars. The paper here said they hoped Mr. Ford would not be run over during his visit by one of his own cars. 4. Sunday. Ate some roast duck yesterday and had a bad night. Mr. Ford and his friends go on a 100 mile trip into the country, but I do not feel equal to the trip, shall loaf here today, and quell the rebellion inside me. A hot day, the hottest yet, with some rain. 5. Cooler, wind in N. with clouds and light showers. I am better and enjoy the day reading and loafing, no word from home we left Key W. 6. The Ford party did not return till this morning at 5, muddy tired and dissheveled. Cloudy and still cooler from N. I had a good night. The papaya seems to be doing me good - if I can only get enough of it. Not a gull in this harbor since we came. 7. Bright hot day. Ford and his friends off again. I stay here and read and muse. Go over to town in a.m. and send telegram home. In p.m. at 3 as I sit alone on the upper deck reading an editorial in N.Y. Evening Post on Mr. Howells 80th birthday, a telegram comes from C.B. saying my wife died peacefully yesterday - a blow I have been daily looking for and which I thought I was prepared for. Here in this peaceful harbor on this calm summer day with the big ship going and coming about me, came this sad news, a long chapter in my life nearly 60 years, ended, I am too much crushed to write about it now. 8. Poor sleep, something is wrong physically as well as mentally. Write to C.B. and to Julian, telegraph to C.B. "shall I come home?" The Ford party all off 50 miles into the country to visit the Rosario plantation of [sorghum], Pelayo. I have no heart to go with them, but rather crave a little solitude on the nearby hills at 11 a.m. the launch puts me ashore on the N.E. side and I walk up on the ridge overlooking the sea. Even nature in her harsher aspects in the tropics sooths and heals. I stand and loiter long on the breeze ridge and look North upon the great blue crescent of the sea. I have but one thought and am glad to be alone with it on the hills. I walk and stroll 1 1/2 hours and do not mind the heat (above 80) But little wild life, a long tailed native black bird, a slim brown warbler (?) on the ground here and there, long slender swift footed salamanders darting about, a few swallow in the air buzzards soaring, a mocker or two, some large yellow flowers or low shrubs like our yellow gerardia, with pleasing medicated odor, two white sails far off at sea, good state roads, grass grown, pass a chicken farm, and some dairy cows, two or three vivid green patches of something like Hungarian grass, some plowed fields of dark rich looking soil, are recently sown with corn. The launch comes for me and I am on the yacht at one, a quiet p.m. with my sad and homesick thoughts. At 5 wash myself out twice with good results, my beloved papaya a failure I fear must cut it out. 9. Bright and warm, a better sleep but how I am living in the past! How I go over and over my last days with her. One cannot forestall the pain that the death of near and dear ones is bound to bring. When the fear becomes the reality, how naked we stand. I had anticipated these days over and over and felt secure, fore warned I was, but I could not be forearmed. In my old age this bereavement falls upon me and I am less able to meet it than I would have been years ago. Then life had more future, now it is so nearly all in the past tense. Without C.B. and Julian and his children what would I do! Go to the city once today to get N.Y. papers. Walk an hour or more on the deck and sit there alone in the p.m. Finished reading the life of Emerson with long sad thoughts. How much since we have been in this harbor have I lived with Emerson and Carlyle, through this Cabots life of him and through his English traits. How these two men do come home to me! Cabot omits two incidents in E's life known to me - his presence at the Dr. Holme's 70th birthday breakfast at the Hotel Brunswick in Boston in Dec 1879, when I saw him and spoke with him and with Holmes and Whitter. He took no part except to eat his breakfast with the rest of us, but he looked as serene and god like as ever. The other incident is E's visit to Baltimore and Washington in Dec. (I think) 1871, when he lectured, Walt Whitman and I went over to Baltimore and met him and heard the lecture. It was then that E. said "I have your wake Robin on my table, capital title, capital title," but said nothing about the contents. I heard him also in W. on manners I think. I met him or waylaid him at the B and O station and carried his satchel into the train and got a little talk from him. It was then that he said on my naming Whitman, that he wished Ws friends would quarrel a little more with him about his poetry. He said also that Agisso was his teacher rather than Darwin He went back to B. for another lecture and I sent him my "notes on W.W and a letter, but got no reply. 10. Bright, calm and warm again a repetition of yesterday but on deck at 7. Have my walk in the fresh morning air soft tufts of clouds in the sky drifting from the East clouds here so far softer lighter, more cottony than ours, no solid walls of clouds, or heavy massive cloud canopies or form strata of clouds so far, as I walk the deck I look off yearningly toward the green and brown hills where I walked with my sorrow, on the 8th I left something of myself on those hills. I lived on that solitude one hour of intensified life, no other point in the horizon so attracts me now. Thoughts of my poor lost one consecrate those hills. Oh, if she could only know how my heart went out to her that day! Mch 11. Leave Havana harbor at 4 a.m. I get up and in the dim light have a last view of it. The days of my live passed here and its longest and most important chapter closed. The thought of the death of my poor wife colored every home since the news came on the 7th. As soon as we pass Morro Castle the vessel began to roll and continued to roll badly all the way to Key West. I look to my bed as did all of us. Before we were over I had to pay tribute to old Neptune. Reach Key West in p.m. Hot. 12. Off for Ft Myers in p.m. Smooth seas. 13. In the island studded bay of the chabooshebutchie 18 miles below Ft. Myers, at 10 a.m. take the power boat for F.M. In two hours we are afloat again and headed for Tampa 25 miles away. Bright coolish day. The gulf of Mexico stinks. The two nights we have been upon it its breath has been an offense in my nostrils. I guess the drainage from the southern state and the great N.W. corrupts it, no salt sea smell at all, so far. We see many Pelicans each day, a grotesque looking bird, almost comical. But when he dives for a fish and is within 25 feet of the water he is suddenly transformed. With his bill pointing straight down and his wings nearly closed, he looks like the spear point of Jove, hurled into the sea. We are shot over the water at the speed of 20 miles per hour. It is exhilerating - a good automobile gait. Reach the town in one hour. Edison not there. Spend the day at the Ford house and walk an poke about. Mr. F. and I walk to town and back; hot 80 degrees. Start back to yacht at 4. 14. Up to Ft. Myers again this morning with one gray horned boat. Spend day there very pleasantly and walk to town, a hot day. Leave at 5. and on aboard yacht at 6. At dark we hoist anchor and are off for Tampa, smooth seas. Have good view of the southern cross, near the horison. 15. Wake up in Tampa Bay, a fog, some envelops us. At six we run a ground on a sand shoal. In Tampa decide to take train for home, on account of the impending R.R. strike. Leave T. at 9 p.m. Mr. Mayo and I. 16. Wake up in Jacksonville, a fairly good night, at 9 a.m. my train is off for Washington, very warm, at noon we are near Savanna. Steadily and very perceptably we run into cooler air. In p.m. very pleasantly cool. 17. Wake up at Richmond, Va. At 9 1/2 we are at Washington an hour late. It is raining I see the dome of the capital - the face of an old and dear friend. What memories it awakens! Ten years my best years were passed in sight of this dome. Our train is late in leaving and we are one hour late at N.Y. no reaching home today. At 5. I get train for Poughkeepsie and am at the Morgan house at 7 1/2 18. Clearing and colder. Julian comes down in his car and meet me at the ferry. Reach home at 8 1/2, very sad, but very glad to be in a haven of rest once more. C.B. glad to see me. 19. Very cold and windy, down to 15 degrees. Ice solid on river, but robins and song sparrows here. 20. Moderated a little. Tap the trees, so glad to be here again. 21. Fine sap day, wind N. Boil sap in p.m. 22. Clear, fine sap day, sugar off in p.m. with Julians family and some little girls here, a real sugar maple picnic. Plenty of snow near the house, streaks and dabs of old snow here and there in the landscape. Boat goes through the ice, up and down. 23. Boil sap again. Wind in S.W. Prospects of rain. John comes down and we boil sap in p.m. Phoebe bird here. Rain at night
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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: 1915 - 1916 (July - May)
Text: [XLVI] Diary From July 1st, 1915 to May 5, 1916 July 1st to 8 - Ill at C.B's. Weather wet. 8. Start for the Sewards at Sachem Head by the sea. C.B. accompanies me; warm with rain threatening. Parter meets me at boat in N.Y. Take train for New Haven at 1:5. Rain. The Sewards meet in at station with their auto. Reach Sachems Head after 4. Stand the journey well, a lovely home and lovely people.They make us more than welcome. Stay till the 17th and gain finely, sleep comes back the 2d night...
Show more[XLVI] Diary From July 1st, 1915 to May 5, 1916 July 1st to 8 - Ill at C.B's. Weather wet. 8. Start for the Sewards at Sachem Head by the sea. C.B. accompanies me; warm with rain threatening. Parter meets me at boat in N.Y. Take train for New Haven at 1:5. Rain. The Sewards meet in at station with their auto. Reach Sachems Head after 4. Stand the journey well, a lovely home and lovely people.They make us more than welcome. Stay till the 17th and gain finely, sleep comes back the 2d night. Sleep well and eat well during the stay. Some long auto rides. One to Middletown and back by way of Saybrook 72 miles. Very tranquil summer days, warm, but not hot. I read and dream and loiter about on the great granite rock upon which the house stands. One resident song sparrow interests me every hour. He evidently has a nest near with a brooding mate. He sings at least 2000 times each day. He hustles away every song male sparrow that visits the rock. He has 6 or 7 different songs which he repeats, that differ from each other as much as our songs or poems differ from each other. He was real company for me. C.B. very kind and helpful and every one she meets takes to her. We visit the Sheas at Brantford and they visit us. The Seward household an ideal one; shall never forget their kindness. 17. Return to West Park today, a hot day - the hottest so far. 18. Lovely day and cooler. Feel well on the way to recovery. Slept well last night, appetite good. 19. Start for Roxbury today. Julian driving the car, a safe and pleasant run; reach R. about 2 p.m. Country very green from the copious rains. Farmers delayed with their haying; grass good. Wood chuck Lodge looks good, garden fine, telephone peas just coming. Shower at 6. [19] 20. Julian returns home this morning. His white hat stands out as he makes his way down across the green fields. I grieve to see him go. We drive down to train at 5. to meet Mildred, a fine day but cool, a visit from 30 clergyman in camp by Mrs. Shepards lake. 21. Poor sleep last night, but feel good today, little or no palpitation. Shot 5 chucks since Monday. Cloudy today and spirts of rain at noon. Cool. 22. Cloudy yesterday - mere company no bore like the literary bore. Lovely today, warm, great iridiscent clouds floating about the sky, not sure what cause the should take. The smell of blooming clover on the air from our front lawn. Telephone peas ready yesterday. Few birds in song. Bill berries just ripening. Farmers backward with their haying. The country very sweet. S. berries yet linger in the orchard. Hear the migrating call of the bobolink in Caswells meadow. Strength returning, but heart still unsteady after meals and often at night. Can it be that these on the scenes of my youth? More robins here than last year. 25. A week at W.C.L. Much rain, strength slowly returning, no work yet. 28. Rain yesterday. Partly cloudy today. Drive to Hobart to dinner at Edens. C.B, Mildred and Katharine go with me and picnic up by the little falls. Willies family at dinner to celebrate his 75th birthday which comes Aug 4. Eden looks well - much better than last year, works most of the time with his chickens and garden. Drive home in a brisk shower coming up the hill. 29. Bright, warm lovely day. Loaf about all day. 30. Warm, fair and still - good hay day. 31. Fine still, hot day with a spirt of rain at noon. Aug 1st. Fine still hot day, many callers today, Sunday. We walk up to "Scotland." I am a little stronger each day, saw a gray fox early this morning pass up the wall between us and Caswell followed by a mob of cawing crows. The crow is the typical alarmist. 2. Cloudy and warm, a slow drizzling rain in the night. 3. Cold, rain from East, rain all day, fire in the Franklin stove; dismal. 4. Still cold and raining from N.E. autumnal. 5. Mist and cloud this morning. Clearing at 10. Afternoon lovely and warm. Drive down to village, attend ball game at 3. An ideal afternoon. 6. Cloud and murk again this a.m. Cold, but oh, so green and fresh the country. 10. Mr. Ford comes this morning, well and jolly as ever; stays till 2 p.m. when Endertin takes him in his Runabout to Albany. We take Miss Haviland home, she came on the 6th. 13. Pietro comes to sculp and model me again. Weather rainy. 21. Posing for P. since the 14th. Drive to Hobart today to see Mrs. B. Cloudy. Rain at night. 22. Powerful rain, floods in many parts of country. Warm. Eden and Mag well. 25. Warm, more rain. Clearing at noon. Some callers. Fast recovering my health. 24. Clear this morning and warm. Drive back home. In p.m. Ida Tarbell comes, a brisk shower while we are in the village, a down pour later. Raining when we go to bed. 25. Clearing this morning and cooler. The ground like an oversaturated sponge, am done posing for P. a great relief. I walk briskly now with but little shortage of breathe. 27. Very cool. Go down to lake to lunch. 28. Down to Mrs. Shepards to lunch. Fine day, but cool. 29. Mrs. B. come in p.m. from Hobart. A light rain all night. 30. Slow cold rain all forenoon [day]. Write in camp in p.m. Rain stops in p.m. We walk up to Scotland. 31. Rain nearly all night. Cold. Clearing this morning. J.T. leaves this morning. The end of the wet months. Sept 1st. Fine day. Go to lunch to Mrs. Keatons - lunch in big but with the more tribe, a fine time. 2d. Fine day. Julian and his friends come at noon. A pleasant surprise. Go to the pagent rehearsal in p.m. Johnson and Mrs. Van Amen c0me at 4:24. 3. Day of the pagent, a perfect day, a fine affair, a great picture. The nature seem the best of all. I am deeply moved, Johnson says it is a great honor to me. Before the pagent we lunch with the Shepards in the big tent. The day is hot, a gala day indeed. 4. Cloudy. The pagent again for moving pictures. J. and Mrs. Van A. go in the morning. 6. A cool and wet Sept. 11. Drive over to the Colgate at Onteora. Spend Sunday there with the Edisons. Mr. E. in good health and spirits. Dr. Findley and Ex-governor Glynn on Sunday, also Mrs. Custer. 13. Drive home today. A fine trip 20. Start for Gloversville - drive through Schoharie Co. fine views and a fine country after we reach Middleburg. Bright day and very warm. Poor roads through Schoharie till [w] reach M. Enjoy the drive rest and eat lunch under a tree well toward the country line - a fine wide view. Reach G. at 4. 21. Rest and loaf at the Talbots to a nature club at night. 22. Mr. Parsons and wife drive us to their old orchard camp. Enjoy it greatly. The big open fire and the lean to kindle the camp fever in me. 23. Cool and clear. The Talbots drive us North into the Aderondack to Lake Pleasant and Lake Piseco. See uncle David stronger again, he is 83, an attractive character, gentle and shy and self-deprecating. Drive home by moonlight. 25. Clearing and fine by 11 a.m. Drive home via Cooperstown and Oneonta, start at 10, at C. by one, leave there at 3, at Oneonta at 4, and home at 6 1/2, a fine drive, state road most of the way, 119 miles. The Talbots come with us to Oneonta, 26. Not very tired after my long drive. Oct 1st. Feel nearly well. 2. Rain and cloud. 3. Misty and cold. 4. Fine day, drive over to Edens to dinner. He looks better and is better than in years. 5. Cloud and mist and [to] rain, a heavy shower at 10 1/2. John and Eva come at noon. Clearing in p.m. and warmer. 6. Leave W.C.L. at 10 1/2 for home. Cloudy and cool with some mist, a good drive; reach home at 4 1/2 p.m. Mrs. B. well as usual, good to be back again. 7. Cloudy and cool. C.B. in bed. 8. Rain last night, cloudy and misty this morning. Sleep extra well, but not much snap in me. From 8th to 19, was at home but dull and depresses - grapes? or postern? Fine weather, no frost to hurt lima beans or corn till about 20th. 19. Go to N.Y. Cool fine weather, stop at Mrs. Evans and Dr J. C.B. in N.Y. Weather cool and fair. 21. Go to Riverside to visit Irving Bucheller, a good visit of 4 days. Fine hospitality, a large fine house and grounds, am well cared for, much better than when I left home - depression and langour gone. Meet 100 people at reception on Saturday the 23d. Hamlin Garland comes and stays two days, not looking well, a killing frost on 23 and 24. Dr. Curtis of Columbia comes and we go fishing in the harbor on Sunday. 24. Bright sharp day, an auto ride in p.m. around the Todd place. 25. Drive to N.Y. with Mrs. B. Then in p.m. to Peconie. Wm Winter and son on train. Reach Fish House at 7. 26. At Peconie. Fine weather - feel the old charm of the place. Winter an interesting and attractive man - very subdued and gentle, good talker, full of remmiscences of old Saturday Press days and of Henry Clapp. We live almost entirely in the past. But his theatre people not of much interest to me. We talk of everybody but Whitman, whom W. did not like. 27 and 28. At P. gather clams and scallops, thrive well, weather perfect. 29. We leave Rowlands this morning at 6.40. Reach N.Y. at 10, and I get home at 2:5 p.m. 4 1/2 lbs to the good. 30. Fine day; feel well. Mr. and Mrs. White, the doctor's old friends come at 2. 31. Lovely day; we drive on the new road, and I call on Col, Payne. Nov 1. Fine warm day. Mrs. Moore and Prof Boynton of Chicago university come at 10. Like them both. Drive to S.S. in p.m. 2. Lovely morning. Good omen for woman suffrage and the new state constitution, I hope. 3. Fine day; the women lost. Feel well, and writing these days. 4. Mild, partly cloudy, a long walk up the river in p.m. to the Pratt dock. 5. A little rain last night. colder this morning, and windy in p.m. The long broad chalk line on the river, a hundred feet or more out from shore, made up of foam and which usually appears on such windy days. It is quite permanent and the physics if it I do not understand. 6. Fine day. Dr. Fisher and wife from American museum. Like them both much. 7. Fine day, but sharp, Vassar teachers and pupil at Slabsides. Miss Thorp, Longfellows granddaughter, cleans out my closet and tiden things up there, a large hearty girl, very plain. 8. Clear, sharp. Write each day now, feel well and eager for work. 9. Light rain last night. Bright and still and mild this morning. 16. Dry North so far. Writing lately with something like my old time enjoyment and success. Rowland come in p.m. 17. Sharp, bright dry day. R. and Hud go hunting. I go over to Slabsides to camp with R. a few days. R. returns at 4. with 2 woodcock. 18. Bright fine day. R. and H. off again hunting all day. I stay at S.S. and write. Light rain at night. 19. Come over home today in the rain. 20. R. off hunting again. Mrs Child come in p.m. 21. R. off for home in p.m. Fine day. 22. Sharp and bright. Writing each day. Off to P. in p.m. Call on Miss Balard. 23. Dry fine sharp days. 24. Cloudy and calm, frosty a white wash of snow last night. 25. Thanksgiving, cloudy and foggy morning; clearing and fine. 26. Indian summer days, frosty but calm and lovely. 27. The third of the Indian summer days. Mr. Ford were to me to go on Peace mission with him and his party, very doubtful, walk a mile or more each p.m. 28. Clear, calm and lovely. In p.m. we drive up to Port Ewen and return. (Mrs. B, C.B. and I) 29. Warmer, raining this morning. Clearing in p.m. Write in my study. 30. Clear and cooler. Lovely day. Dec 1st. Bright and cool. Writing in study - fairly well except a slight cold in my head. 2. Bright and cool. Telegram from Mr. Ford asking me to N.Y. Walk to J's in p.m. 3. Bright and cool - 4 or 5 degrees of frost. Write in a.m. Go to N.Y. in p.m. Mr. Fords quarters crowded - he hides away from the crowd. Do not see him till 9 p.m. 4. Bright and cold. See Mr. and Mrs. F. from 10 a.m. till 2 p.m. Go to the steamer with them, Mr. Fords heart is bigger than his head. A great crowd at the steamer. F. is sanguine and happy. He might as well try to Haven Spring as try to hasten peace now, I told him as much. Leave for home at 2.10. 5. Cold night - down to 20. Bright and cold today. 6. Dry and cold. Mr. Olmsted came on 10 a.m. train, an ex clergyman born in St Lawrence Co, when his father was a farmer and deer hunter; lives near Minneapolis on a farm, a bird lover - has great admiration for my books and owes me a great debt, he says 54 years old, a fine type of man I liked him. How many fine men there are in the world. Hud walks him over to S.S. 7. Dry dully day. Write in the study. Go to P. in p.m. 8. Snow this morning till near 10. 1/2 inch. The Talbots come at 4 1/2, meet them in my car. Glad to see them; he is a judge a man from the farm about 51, one of my truest friends. 9. We walk to S.S. many tracks on the snow; siskins in the birches. Bright and chilly. The Talbots leave on 2 p.m. train. 10. Cold windy night, down to 18 this morning. Clear and cold today 11. Fair cold - down to 20. Write in study, Miss Haviland comes at 2 p.m. 12. Fair cold - down to 10. Clear sharp day. 13. Began snowing before daylight. Snowed all day, very heavy in p.m. and at night. Work in study. 14. A big old fashioned snow storm nearly 2 ft of snow. From the house to study leg deep - leg deep over to Dr. B's - takes the wind out of me to force my way through, it snow heavy. Will take Hud all day to shovel us out - too deep and heavy for snow plow; no passenger train yet this morning on H.R.R. no such fall of snow since March 1888, very dry since Sept. River on east shore clogged with snow. 15. Roads being broken out, but I dare not try to walk to P.O. Bright cold. 16. Bright and cold, Hud has got us nearly shoveled out. Keep cool and write each day. 17. Cloudy and warm, a mist of rain today. 18. Raining steadily - rained all night, snow settling and soft at the bottom. Dr.'s children came last night. I sleep well these nights - think the clam broth a great help, have it every night for supper. Oh, the war! the war! how it still haunts me! 19. Snow half gone, cooler. Getting ready to start for W. Stay at "The nest" at night. 20. Clear, cool. Take train at 8. Mr. Pratt meets us in N.Y. Take 12:8 train. Reach the Hamilton in W. at 6. 21. Bright sharp day, no snow here. Drive about all day looking up places. At last go to De Soto Inn on Vermont Ave. 22. Fine day. Write in morning Drive in Ford car in p.m. 23. Fine sharp day, down to 24. Work in morning, drive to Great Falls in p.m. 24. Mild. Work in morning, drive in p.m. about town and call on the Van B's on Mrs. Johns. 25. Mild, soft day. Work in morning. Go to major Saxton to dinner, a very pleasant day. The major 86 and hale and hearty, still in Govt. Employ. 26. Rain last night and change to cold. Very windy and cold this this morning - a flurry of snow in the night. Bright and sharp in p.m. I call on Miss Hummer. 1916 Jany 1. Bright day, sharp. Go to Dr. Bakers to dinner. De Loach comes at night. Sunday 2. A fine mild day. Go to Bakers in p.m. to reception, meet many nice people. M 3. Mild fine day. De Loach and I Tuesday the 4th W 5 T 6 F 7 S 8 S 9 drive in p.m. Mrs. B. 80th birthday. T 4. Colder, fine day. In p.m. leave De Soto Inn and go to Pastens on 23d St. an old friend of mine of 50 years ago, a fine house and a hospitable family. W 5. Warm as April. Write in morning, drive in car in p.m. T 6. Rain in night, clearing, colder. The night so warm I slept with only a sheet over me and windows open - too warm. (A sign of my approaching illness) 7. A dull chill at 6 p.m. followed by fever. 8. A return of my old trouble - bowels, clogged again. Take 1 1/4 gr calomel. Dr. Parker at 5 p.m. puts me to bed, temperature 101 2/5. 9. A thorough washing out, but fever returns every p.m. and ranges from 99 to 101, day after day appetite and sleep poor. Dr P. makes thorough examination, heart, lungs, urine, blood and finds nothing wrong - sees no reason why I should be ill. He comes daily till 15th. Temp, a trifle lower - does not get above 100 - only on in p.m. Mrs. B. suffering from shingles. W 19. We conclude to start for Experiment Ga. Leave in 4 1/2 p.m. Fever still on, a safe trip to Experiment. T 20. Reach Atlants at noon. De Loach meets us; reach Experiment at 1.40 p.m. make ourselves believe we are better. But there hangs the fever - low. T 21. No change for the better. Call Dr. Warren and am put through a course of drugs. S 22. Not much change. Walk out a little and drive in car. Weather warm 74 degrees. S 23. Weather warm 74 degrees. M 24. No better, Mrs. B has bad cold. T 25. Mrs. B. has grippe, call Dr. Thomas; her temperature 104 very shaky and despondent. I write to D.B. and tell her what to do if I do not come back W 26. Mrs B. better; no temp, but bad cough. I forgot to say that I coughed and raised a great deal of phlegm from the first and also blew masses of it from my nose, abdominal muscles got so sore I could not cough. S 29. Ride in car in p.m. and get pretty tired. Sunday 30. Feel better at 2 a.m. had 3 or 4 movements, without apparent cause; and two more in the morning, nature cleaning house I guess, slept better. Fever did not return in p.m. M 31. No temperature yet; but heart very unsteady. Feb 1st. Have concluded to go to N.Y. to enter Sanitarium. De Loach and I start at 9 a good run to. 2. N.Y. through rain, sleet and snow. Reach N.Y. at 2 p.m. C.B. meets us and takes me to Dr. Karts Sanitarium 777 Park Ave, a fine place. 3. Doing well here; the food delicate and good. Sleep better, no temperature; face better. 4. Cold and clear; gaining. De Loach leaves for home today. What a faithful and helpful friend! I left Mrs. B. over the grippe, but suffering from the shingles, and from spells of coughing. She urged me to come here, a wise move I think. Dr. Kast very attentive, and an expert in his line now at 4 p.m. I begin to feel quite normal. Two movements today, C.B. a great comfort - spends nearly half the time here. Feb 22. Have been at Dr. Kasts sanitarium up to this time slowly picking up - the best of care and the best of the simpler foods. Appetite grew steadily and sleep improved nightly. C.B. here helping me on copy of "Under the apple trees." Finished it and sent it off about the middle. Lost in weight a letter each day till this job was finished - then about the 15th began slowly to gain - 2 or 3 [onuses] per day, was down to 125 1/4 Feb 15. The tide turned about that time and now weigh 127 1/4 a few callers each day many flowers, Mr and Mrs Ford on 21st and 22nd. Weather very cold and stormy most of the time. On this day 22d Miss Hovey Roof comes and takes me to Lakewood, a bright mild day. C.B. goes back to West Park. 23. At the Roofs at Lakewood a large fine house with every comfort and many luxuries. I am in clover - think I can spend rest of month here very contentedly, most hospitable people .Mild and spring like today. Mrs B. gaining in Ga. "Far up the hill farm, a heather dips its wing in the bellony grain breeze" The Yuraks in Siberia, sell believe that after long use your inavierate chattle acquire a soul, which after death can follow that of their owner and serve him once more in the spirit world, "a sermon on the Genesis." P 82. Mch 1st. Have been at the Roofs since the 22d gaining steadily in weight and strength - have gained 4 1/2 lbs. We drive an hour or so nearly every p.m. Yesterday we drove to Spring Lake and Pt Pleasant and I had a view of the Atlantic again. I do no writing save letter writing, but read a good deal - have had a good deal of pleasure in [Mand] Havilands, (English) "a summer on the genesis," a new world and vividly described. Miss Haviland is indeed a very clever writer and a bird enthusiast. She has one fault - a woman fault - she puts everything in - cannot select and a bridge. Her fat volume cut down 1/3 would be greatly improved. But I owe her many pleasant hours. Then I have read the war books. Lowes Dickensons "Appearances" and dipped into many other books, and read 3 daily morning papers, and two evening papers. A fine beginning of spring - clear and crisp, no snow on the ground - roads getting dusty. I sleep well and probably eat too much. Mrs. B. slowly gaining. at Experiment, a finer winter climate here than its latitude would seem to warrant, - seems nearly as mild as Washington and more salubrious. But in such a home as I am in any climate would look fair. Mch 1st. A bright cold day; still at the Roofs gaining fast. 7. Left the Roofs today for N.Y. a snow storm and cold. Throne finely at the Roofs - an ideal home and ideal family. Weighed 131 1/4 - gained 5 lbs there. Mr. Pratt delivers me into the hands of the princess Lwoff - Parlaghy, the Hungarian portrait painter. She fairly makes a prisoner of me - captures me, but only her art captivates me. 15. Here I am still with the princess, portrait nearly finished - a great success - hope to see it done tomorrow. The princess as emotional and whim- sical as a child - cried yesterday like a little girl because she thought I was hurrying her to finish the work. I calmed her, Markham and I as we would a child. And then she made rapid progress. Weather very cold and stormy all the time I have been in N.Y. Yesterday p.m. went to the Winter testimonial at the Century Theatre, sat in the Box with Winter, Smater Roof Mallville Stone and 2 others. Roof impresses me as a very superior man, and very likable. The show did not interest me. Markhams poem - a tribute to Winter - the best thing there was. I left at 4 1/2. Mrs. B. still in Ga. and I fear is not making much progress, toward recovery - some spinal trouble is feared. Rain and sleet this a.m. - The idolaters are just as truly religious as the Christians or any other sect are. What they worship and pray to is an idea which their idol represents to them. The Christian's God is an idea which is symbolized more or less by the man Jesus Christ. Christ is represented by the cross. This is the Christian idol. The heathen with his idol is just as near the truth. All people and tribes make their own gods and make them largely in their own images - all religions are a kind of idolatry and I respect them all alike. 17. Cold, cold, snowed all day on Wednesday, deep at West Park 3 inches here. Clear and cold and windy yesterday and today. Princess says the portrait will be finished today. I shall go home tomorrow. I have gained much strength here and a pound or two in weight. The last few days have had more digestive disturbance than last week. Something wrong in my food. Will spring ever come? No word from Mrs. B. for a week. Am trusting that no news is good news. De Loach in Braiden town Fla. 18. Home to W.P. this p.m. Cold. Glad to get back. 19. Snow deep - over 2 feet. But it looks good here. The river vast plain of snow, like mid winter, a little milder today. The Dr. and her family well. I enjoy being amid them. [Tell] Feel pretty well, stronger each day. Julian comes down in p.m. very glad to see him. Hud and his wife well. 20. A letter from Dr. De Loach of Atlanta to the Dr. says Mrs. B. has angina pectoris. It is shocking news, but I doubt its truth as does C.B. I pray she may not have to suffer this agony. More snow at night. 21. Milder, snow light. Bright and warm; thaws. Looks spring like. 22. Snowing again. Every rainstorm foretold by the weather man in W. turns out to be a snow storm. This is the 27th snow storm this winter. Storm from N.E. Another letter from Ga. De Loach still thinks Mrs. B. has angina Had a bad night Saturday, and in pain Sunday, but still went out riding. A song sparrow today in a brush hop below the study uttering its scolding note - poor thing. 23. Snowed all day yesterday - 3 or 4 inches. Clear and cold this morning - down to 10 or 12. Jany in March. But we had April in Jany. March has been a rugged winter month- have not seen many such in my life. I am feeling pretty well - but irregular heart action more or less every day, strength gaining - sleep not as good as it was in N.Y. A robin here yesterday. Mrs. B. not gaining much - am much disturbed about her. A day of great brilliancy and stillness. thawing in p.m. not a speck in the sky. We came back from Ga. One year ago today. Roads dry and dusty there. Two feet of snow now. 24. Clear cold, near zero early this a.m. But milder and thawing in p.m. 25. Clear, milder, a robin full song this morning - brave bird! Sap weather seems near. A Canada tree sparrow here this morning. Rather poor sleep last night. - Good sap weather in p.m. Hud and I tapped 11 trees. Sap runs fast - getting slushy on the road. 26. Ideal sap day. Clear, calm crisp. In p.m. boil sap and enjoy the day greatly. C.B. and her children come out and sit around the boiling place; have 2 gts of syrup. 27. Still warm, but with South wind that checks the sap. Syrup off at dusk and have 2 gts. Phoebe bird today. Snow going fast. 28. Still bright and warm, did not freeze last night; wind shifted. Sap starts off briskly this morning. Many bird voices in the air. A chipmonk up near Allens. John Barrus saw one Sunday on our wood pile. Patches of bare ground begin to appear. How eagerly the robins hunt them over. News from Mrs. B. still discouraging. De Loach thinks she is as well as she ever will be. I am well these days, eat well, sleep well, and walk well, while she, poor woman suffers more or less every day. 30. Bright warm day, snow melting very fast water runs a torrent down the road past Julians house. Poor sap day, no frost in ground. 31. Clear lovely day, wind North. Froze a little last night. Snow only in streaks here and there. Ice solid on river flocked with the old snow. I sit here boiling sap. Sparrow songs all about me. Robins calling and running over the bare ground. Phoebe looking about [much] the porch, a high hole calls below me near the river, not a musical sound, but oh, such a pleasant one to me! Blue birds warbling and calling everywhere - the plaintive note of the female and the happy eager note of the male. Through Starlings go by - a new form against the blue - more of our birds make just the same figure sweeping down the hill with half closed wings they suggest arrow heads. How the old days when I helped boil sap in the home sugar bush and looked off over the scriped fields through the lucid air come back to me. I was happy than I am happy now - except when thoughts of my poor suffering wife cross my mind. 31. Ice broke up in river about noon - a broad open law of water stretching across the river appeared about noon, and the whole [beds] of ice began to move down. April 1. Bright lovely day - only a little frost last night, snow nearly all gone. Sap run nearly over - get 5 or 6 pails full today which I boil down after 4 p.m. sitting there by the boiling pan in my chair with eyes closed. I call up the scenes that were before me when I boiled sap in the home sugar bush long ago. There was no broad shining river in front of me then, mottled with little and big masses of floating ice, but long farm and valley and mountain vistas stripped with snow - the side hill fields near at hand with a belt of soiled and dwindling snow banks the meadows and pastures below me brown and white and to the south in the far distance interlocking ranges of wooded mountains, the memorable tall rough coated maples with their glistering tin buckets, standing amid the lesser growth of barch and birch trees making up the scene immediately about me. The voice of robins, blue birds, song sparrows nut hatches crows are heard as they are here. Hen's cackle about the barn, geese are noisy in the spring run, while the cows stand about the stable doors licking themselves or looking longingly toward the brown fields. I hear no railway trains or whistles - no sounds from the passing world. How I can call it all up again as I sit here beside my little streaming sap pan. The same feeling is in the air, the same sky and clouds over head, but now I am 79, there I was not 17, - a stretch of more than 60 years between these days and this, yet I am keenly enjoying these days and this sap boiling - largely I suppose because the past does so mingle with it all and color it. That robin and phoebe that I hear are the identical birds I heard in the old sap bush - that song sparrow touches the same chords in my heart. From our old sap bush I used to look across the valley, two or three miles in an air line to the farm of sewer older on the broad slopes of the Batavia mountain. His sugar camp was in the month of woods that cover all its upper portions. At night we used to see his camp fire many times when we were boiling sap in the early part of the night, how I looked across to his bush and saw his speck of light shining out through the miles of darkness. Seamer boiled sap there during many March and April days. His farm was the only one that stood tilted up on the mountain side giving us a full view. In spring we could see his plow at work turning over the sod; in summer we could see his hay making and hay gathering, and his grain harvesting. I was never in his house, nor ever saw his wife and children but I shall never forget him. He was a tall slender small - eyed man - a good farmer, a good citizen and neighbor and a man of some education. When I was a clerk in the Treasury Dept in 1866 and 7. I was called from my desk one day in the office by the head of the room, Mr. Kennedy and I looked up and saw them before me Somer Older, I had not seen him since my boyhood. Had I beheld my great grandfather I could not have been more astonished, I certainly was glad to see him. How kindly the past looked out of his small blue eyes! He called at other times and came to my house on 1st St. E. Capital Hill. He had parted with his farm and was traveling on some business or other I never saw him later in life, nearly 40 years ago, while in the old school Baptist burying ground, I came upon a storn marked Somer Older. I passed long before it. Apl 2d. Bright day - a little cooler no sap today. Do not remember so many birds in the spring as now; stay swarm every where - robins, blue-birds juncos, song sparrows - probably 3 or 4 times as many as usual, many chipmonk in evidence also. And the ground mice - what a holiday and gold day they have had under the deep snow. Their roads and tunnels and nests are everywhere in grassy fields, uncovered by the vanishing snow, never before saw signs of so many meadow mice. Their little settlements and villages on the surface of the ground under the snow are seen everywhere. What a picnick they have had! Free from danger with two feet of snow above them. They seem to leave eaten the grass. The little folk seem to have had a festival all winter under the snow. In the p.m. walked over to the woods. Birds, birds everywhere. Heard the wood frogs just beginning to croak in a pool in the woods. On one pool where there were only a few holes in the ice, saw a number of frogs. (sylocticus) dart away, my first considerable walk April 3. My 79th birthday. A mild lovely day; froze a little last night, and sap starts off briskly this morning. I am feeling very well - legs alone not quite up to par in strength. I sleep well and eat well, weigh 138 and am gaining. - We have a maple sugar picnick in p.m. Julian and his family, Peterson and his, Hud and his and Mrs. Searing. We eat lockjaw from the snow in the sap pan. One snow bank yet near the well affords us the clean snow - a good time. I eat of the lockjaw very sparingly though it tastes as good as ever! Ice all disappeared from the river. How I relish these fine April days! Good news from Mrs. B. 5. Start for N.Y. with C.B. to be present at the reception given by the Princess Parlaghy at her house 109 E. 39th St. to her friends and mine who wish to see her portrait of me. Spend the p.m. and evening there shaking hands with friends and strangers, nearly a hundred people came. All prefers to like the portrait. 6. Attend reception again in p.m. nearly as many more people come. At night go to Dr. Kasts to dinner. Stay at the Sanitarium. 7. Roosevelt and Bacon come to see the portrait at one. The Col. is fully satisfied with it. He is fairly bursting with energy and good cheer. Talks his way through others people's talk like a snowplow going through a snow bank. A miracle of vitality and power both in body and mind. We return home in p.m. 8. A driving storm of rain and snow from N.E. all day and all night. 9. 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground nearly gone by night, clearing. 10. Mild day. Mrs. B. in charge and Mrs. Johnson, comes on evening train; looks much better and is stronger that I expected to see her, walks up stairs by taking my arm. Julian brings her over in his car. 11. Fine day, Mrs. B. resting and doing well; very thin, but not much pain. 12. Clearing, windy, milder. Mrs. B. doing well. Drove my car yesterday p.m. from Julians down home. Sap weather over here. 13. Overcast still. Toads began to sing on the 11th. Walk up to new stone bridge in p.m. and back, sleep in study the past few nights. 14. Slow rain; air opaque and misty. Fine sleep last night. Peterson brings me some suckers. Battle of Verdon still raging. I believe the hellish Germans will finally take it. Clearing and cooler in p.m. - Evidence everywhere of an unusual number of field mice under the snow the past winter and equal evidence that they were hard put for food. Along the walls I see where they barked the poison ivy - the white stems of the stripped vines are very noticeable. At the foot of the old cemetery. I see where they have barked a thick growth of young locusts - nearly every one, scores in all, have been stripped up from one to two feet from the ground. I see where they have peeled small seemachs, and young ash trees and wild cherry trees, under the hill near my study where the snow drifter in my deep, they ate the bark off dry pear tree limbs. 15. Clear, cooler, strong wind. Waves on the river show their white teeth. 17. Hud and I mend Slabsides roof. 18. Windy day with little rain, cold. 19. Bright day and cool and windy. Plant peas, onions, carrots, beets, spinach and radishes today, a drying day, growing warmer. Looks as if we might break with Germany on the sub-marine issue hope we will and that war will follow. It might be our good luck to share in the honor and glory of helping the Allies crush this pirate of the seas and desperado of the land. Two eggs in the robins nest in my summer house. 20. An ideal April day, still slightly veiled moist, mild. I walk over through the Gordon fields up the little brook past the gravel pit, loitering here and there, standing a minute or two observing a hermit thrush only 20ft from me - he eyed me and I eyed him - then I sit a long time in the dim sunshine behind the stone wall and enjoy the sweet solitude of sheet in fields. I hear my first Cheswick, seen my first ruby crowned knight and fairly bask in the spirit of April. I see her glance in the full, clear happy streams, in the greening patches in the meadows and hear her voice in the calls and songs of the mating birds. I see where the meadow mice have eaten the bark of young chestnut trees a foot or more above the ground. I see a robins nest in process of construction with great flakes of white horse hair woven into it and another new nest with strips of white tissue paper woven in. Why does the robin seem to delight in using such telltale material? A correspondent write me that a robin nesting near his house used the fragments of white paper be put out, but declined all fragments of colored paper, saw a robin with a touch of albinism - white quells in its tail and many white feathers on its rump as if flew it suggested a rose breasted grosbeak. An hour walk hand in hand with April 21. A heavy blanket of clouds in deep folds and wrinkles covers the sky and drifts rapidly from the S.E. a striking and peculiar effect, the cloud lines so firm and continues and the whole drapery of the heavens so massive and flowing. Began to rain at 10. with thunder. 22. Mild day. Drive out with Mrs. B. in p.m. 23. Cloudy and chilly, walk up to J's by river path in p.m. 25. Third day of cloud and chill. Drive to H. with Mrs. B. and Mrs Van B. Mild in p.m. 26. Still overcast from N. Mild at midday. Hud plowing the vineyards. Very languid and dull these days, legs tired without cause so far as I can see. First brown derasker this morning in song on maple by the gate. Walk through the swamp in Gordons lot beyond Smith's; through turtle or land tortoises, a dump of pussy willows in bloom, humming with bees and shedding their butter - sweet fragrance on the air, no sign of the woodcock I was looking for; first tent caterpillars just hatched or weaving their tent before they had eaten - leaf buds just opening; in the vineyard below the house a scrap between a robin and a pair of blue birds - find the secret of it to be that both have preempted the same post - the robin building a nest on top and the blue birds occupying a downeys hole 18 inches below. Then was much "jawing" on both sides and some tentative sparring. Clearing in p.m. and warm; drive Mrs. B. and Miss Van B. up to Port Ewen. Enjoy the drive, a flock of cedar birds daily feeding on rotten or frozen apples in Smith's garden. They set in an apple tree near by and apparently take turns in visiting the pet that holds the apples; they eat the spongy pulp. 27. Still cloudy with spits of rain and chilly, wind East. No real warmth yet this spring. 8 robins nests on my place that I know of. The development of the eggs in birds seem retarded by the cold as much as the birds are retarded. A rabbit again lives under my study floor. In the winter C.B. fed him sweet apples. I saw him last night near dusk skipping about the study. I occasionally hear him under the floor at night or early morning. - In the p.m. walk down by Gordons and Suleys ponds. In S.S. pond saw a muskrat come ashore and gather up a mouthful of dry leaves, take to the water again, swim down the pond and then dive for his hole, which led to his nest in the bank above the water hill. By what slight of hand he exported to keep these leaves dry I could not imagine. Probably he knew they would dry out in his nest. On a steep bank above a little creek on the North side of the road I saw a long apron of redish yellow soil showing conspicuously on the dark surface of the ground, and starting from a point just under the path to a spring. On examination I concluded that a pair of Kingfishers were excavating a hole there for a nest, I must keep an eye upon it. Back home along the river through Gordons woods, clouds of hepaticas, white, purple, lavender - in bloom here and there, anemones also. I noticed that the musk rat in swimming appears to scull himself along with his tail - at least his tail has a twisting undulating motion. It does not passively drag behind. 28. Still cloud and chill and light rains from N.E. this the 6th day of dark wet chilly weather, a little sunshine on two afternoons. 30. Clearing. Drive to H. in p.m. 31. Sunday; a perfect day and warm. John Shea and Pietro and Klean and others come in p.m. by motor from N.Y. a fine time with them. Miss Owing from P.and Mr. Pierce come also. I told them I had just received a telegram from Mr. Ford saying he had seen two bobolinks and it cost me 40 cents. Shea said he supposed I was glad he did not see a flock of bobolinks. The telegram was forwarded from Roxbury, Shea drove his car to Greenich that night or the next morning wired, he arrived at one a.m. safely but said he saw no bobolinks May 1st. Lovely warm day with a soft haze, make more garden in forenoon. Drive Mrs. B. and C.B. to Wester Park in p.m. Poor sleep last night. Slept on the porch. Kingfisher finished her hole Saturday and I think began laying on Sunday. 2. Cloudy this a.m. Clearing and cooler in p.m. no rain. Wrote 7 letters this a.m. and made a bird house out of an old hollow cherry limb this p.m. The wren here today. 4. Brisk thunder shower last night. Clearing and cooler today. Spend forenoon at S.S. Oriole and cat bird here today. Cherry trees and plum trees in bloom. Shed blow in the wood, first bumble bees. 5. Cloudy, misty this morning and cool, no frost for some weeks and no warmth. Peas up in garden. Maple by the road just shaking out its tassels. Pear trees just ready to bloom. Crab apple showing the pink. On the eve of a break with Germany - hope it will come ,and that war wlill follow, and that all the other neutral natives will join in. Then make a finish of the Hems.
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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: 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: 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: 1910-1911 (March - April)
Text: From March 23d, 1910 to April 15, 1911 1910 March 23. Bright day without frost. Wind North. Sap has stopped running, I am well and write a little each day, but am sudden than I ought to be, Mrs. B in P. My days seem to grow more and more lovely. - How the knowing faculties of man have come to the front during the last 100 years! Time was when his religious faculties or emotions led all the rest and his artistic powers went hand in hand with them. But now it is his understanding or scientific...
Show moreFrom March 23d, 1910 to April 15, 1911 1910 March 23. Bright day without frost. Wind North. Sap has stopped running, I am well and write a little each day, but am sudden than I ought to be, Mrs. B in P. My days seem to grow more and more lovely. - How the knowing faculties of man have come to the front during the last 100 years! Time was when his religious faculties or emotions led all the rest and his artistic powers went hand in hand with them. But now it is his understanding or scientific faculties. Now his desire above all else is to know things as they are in and of themselves. He is less religious, less artistic her supersticious; his conditions take a back seat; his exact knowledge leads. The change has its unhandsome side. Life is in many ways less attractive. We have less veneration, less humility less virtue than our fathers. Large loving picturesque personalities are becoming rarer and rarer both in private and in public life. I sometimes think we cannot believe the things our fathers did because we are not men enough. We lack the heroic strain. What is to be the end of all this? Is art, poetry, literature, religion to die? Is this to be the inevitable result of the evolution of the race? If so something better must come. 23. P.m. walk to Slabsides see the butterflies on the road, the mourning cloak and a red species. The little tarns by the road side alive with wood frogs, clucking and mating in a lively manner. 24. Warm, calm, smoky. Go to Kingston at 10 a.m. The first song of the toad at night and one solitary peeper over near the states. 25. Much warmer, no fire in my study this morning. A moist warm fragrant March morning like April. The long drawn call of the high hole this morning. This is too good to last. But nearly all of March has been fine and free from storms. The best sap season I can remember. 25. p.m. Warmest day of the season. Near 80 in some places. 70 on the N. end of our house at 3 p.m. with ice and snow a few feet away. Spend day at S.S. with Kingston girls, two of them from Tongare where I began my career 56 years ago. One of the girls had attended school at my old school house. I could not learn as any traditions of me lingered there yet. 26. Cooler and clear. Many peepers and toads last night. Heavy masses of snow and ice still in the woods near S.S. Elm birds and soft maple birds swelling rapidly and the grass is greening, a wonderful March so far. 27. Another ideal March day. All sun and sky. Spend it in P. with Mr. B. Go to hear Bishop Berry, a good methodist sermon, but pretty poor stuff to me, no logic or science in it, and not much eloquence but well suited to a Methodist congregation. In p.m. we go to the cemetery and visit Myrn Benton's grave. For nearly 8 years he had lain there and I had never looked upon the spot. It was with real emotion that I looked upon the grave of this dear friend of my younger and happier days. I had known and corresponded with him from 1862 till his death in Nov 1902. How fond I was of him. 28. A little cooler, but nearly clear. In p.m. much smoke and haze. Days that make one homesick for his youth and the old farm. At night how the pipers pipe and the toads trill planted telephone peas this p.m. Today is the funeral day. of Abby Ganoung - Wrech Martin Abbey, over 80 years old, I knew her as a girl. The last of the family I think except Gib, the youngest boy, peace to her ashes. 29. The matchless weather continues, breaks all records, clear still, hot, river like glass, elms beginning to bloom. The field veronica in vineyard in bloom for several days. Catkins of hazel and alder and poplar out. Fox sparrow here yesterdday, Bush sparrow this morning. The season a month ahead of time. Weather like southern Cula. Will Aprill square the account? 30. Smoky, still hot - Go to H. in p.m. to meet C.B. a lively walk over the hill and along still solitary wood trails. The best of the spring days. Found a lot that suited C.B. if it can be bought. 31. Still smoky and calm but cooler, partly cloudy, getting dry. Vegetative developing very rapidly. Colts foot in bloom in H. on the 29th a slow sprinkle of rain late in the day. 1910 April 1st. Clearing, cooler, a lovely day at S.S. Calm, warm in p.m. arbutus blood root, hepatica dicentra in bloom. Bees working on soft maples. Sit a long time on Julian's rock and broad over the landscape. Hud and Ed raking the lawn. 2d. Ah, one year ago today! Clear calm, cool this morning. River like glass, air full of haze a light frost last night, never saw 4 weeks of such weather in March before. Phenomenal, almost alarming. Has the castle gone to Heaven and taken us all with it? No rain or storm in a month, almost unbroken sunshine with days of summer heat 70 to 80. 3. Another ideal spring day. My 73rd birthday, spend it in P, cool but delightful. Warmer in p.m. Sit a long time on College hill and gaze on the prospect. Health good, sleep and eat well. Only a little dizziness at times. Not writing any these days, never do when spring comes. The outside world is too lovely. 4. Overcast with light rain in morning. Sprinkles a little all day. Fog in p.m. Return to W.P. 5. Clearing, a hot day, nearly 80, spend it at S.S. alone. Calm and hot and delicious. 6. The delicious days continue warmer than May. Air moist hazy. The willows are fountains of tender green. Maples thick with bursting buds. A thin cloud of bloom in the elms. Apple trees have leaves the size of chipmunks ears. - Corn planting time accounting to the old farm sign. A delightful walk about Highland in p.m. looking for a place for C.B. Every place looked inviting in such warmth and sunshine. 7. Thunder at night and a little rain, laid the dust. Cooler this morning and cloudy. Bushed the peas and hoed in the garden, cleaned out strawberry bed. 8. Cooler. Go to Milton and then to Highland to look at places for C.B. April 1910 9. Sprinkles of rain nearly all day. Cool, 30 Vassar girls at S.S. and 8 St. Faiths girls. Go to P. at night. 10. Clear, cool, windy. Go to see the Hermance place in p.m. Give it up. 11. Cloudy, with sprinkles of rain all day. Cool, a visit from Tom Smith. Mrs. B. comes house today, been away 3 months. Maples shaking out their tassels. Magnolia in bloom in P. since the 7th. 12. Clear, cool. Go to S.S. in p.m. [Ursa] and Betty with me, plant peas e.t.c. The children very happy and curious about things. Betty finds the Trillium in bloom. Some dizziness yesterday and today but feel strong and full of action. 13. Clear, cold, down to 28 degrees this morning, quite a freeze. Plum and cherry trees have been trying to bloom the past week a few blossom open now, many trees across the river faintly sketched by their new foliage. In Va. two days ago the goat kite at an elevation of 2300 ft found the temperature 107 below zero, no wonder we are having frosts (Doubtful) - The blossom must fall before the fruit can appear. 14. A little frost last night followed by a lovely day, getting warm in p.m. At S.S. with some Saugerties friends. 15. Hazy, warm, almost hot at S.S. More D. friends come. Home at night. The ruby crown in song at S.S, a little arbutus left and cherry trees and plum trees in full bloom 16. Cloudy, cooler, sprinkles of rain, maples yellow with bloom. First columbine yesterday. 17. Cloudy, cool, rain a little in p.m. 18. An ideal rain at last, all last night and nearly all day. Slow and gentle from the S.E. getting warmer. The first rain to speak of for 7 weeks. Dizzy again the past 3 or 4 days. 19. Rain again today at intervals, cool. The snow of the cherry blossoms is white upon the grass. 20. Clear, cool. Go to S.S, a good day there alone. Home to dinner and back there at night - The solitude is sweet to me. Rover with me. 21. Partly cloudy, not so well as yesterday. A walk in the woods and to Brookman's swamps. violets blooming. The woods very sweet, to Riverby in p.m. 22. An ideal day, calm, clear warm, at S.S. in forenoon, writing a little and dreaming a good deal. How I enjoy the wonderful spring. Blue birds with young, a robins nest in lower fruit house with 4 eggs, all the maples yellow with bloom, pear trees white, my early peas are finger high. Feel well today, Julian gone to speak at. 23. Fine warm day, over 30. Vassar girls (At Wake Robin Club) at S.S. Overcast in p.m. 24. Cloudy from the South, a bad pain in my left leg the past two night. 25. A sleepless night from nemetis in left thigh. Rain. 26. In terrible agony all night. Pain lets up in morning. 26. Clearing and warm. Start for Middletown Sanitarium in p.m. Not much pain. C. comes down at night. 27. Pain came one at 1 or 2 a.m. A bad day. Treatment brings no relief. C at night. 28. Severe pain and sleepless nights. C spends the evening with me. 29. Warm, much pain no sleep. C. comes again. 30. Another bad night and day too. Go up to Hospital at 5. Stay till 9; forget my pain, a fair day. May 1st Sunday, a little sleep last night. Go up to hospital at 10, stay till 7 1/2 p.m. My last Sunday with C. in her room. A telegram calling her to Minneapoles. 2. A warm fine day. Pain still severe, but lets up a little, a little sleep.Mr. B. and Mrs. Sarre call in auto. I ride to Goshen with them. Go up to Hospital at 5, stay till 7 1/2. C. packing up, a forlom sight, heart breaking. 3d. Go to station to see C. off on 11 a.m. train, go as far as Goshen with her. Pain in leg severe at times, never again expect to see C. in M. Go up to Canfields at night. 4. Some sleep last night but night yet, cool. 5. As C's pain letting up, sleep 5 or 6 hours, appetite good, cool bright day. 6 and 7. at C's slowly mending. Go to Sanitarium daily for treatment. 8. Go up to D. Caufields, raining slowly all day. 9. Raining, home today; very little pain today, glad to be home. The world very green and fresh. Ed in bad way. Three doctors today; fear he will die. We are of the stomach. C. to reach Seattle on Saturday night. 10. Bright day. Ed, a little better, not much pain in my leg today, but heart sad and farlom, John and Dessy and Olly and art are here to see Ed. 11. One year ago today, we reached Honolulu. Cool and partly overcast, not very cheerful this morning. Leg not so free from pain The home people return this morning. 12. To S.S. in p.m. with Hud and Julian. Enjoy the time. Cool, walk home. 13. A frost last night - spend day at S.S. and get dinner for Hud. Julian and Chant. Have a good time. Cool, bright in forenoon. Overcast in p.m. Write to C.B. 14. Cool, cool, stay at home today. Ed better, Chant came Wednesday. Leg pretty well today, one of my good days. Work in garden in p.m. New girl left yesterday no good. 15. Still cold, a white frost last night, cloudy this morning. The cold we should have had in March and April is on us now. 16. Light frost again last night. A clear lovely day, growing warmer, spend it at S.S, writing and working in garden. 17. Clear, warm, South wind, spend it again at S.S. with Julian and Hud, writing a little and working in garden, not quite well. 18. A slow rain from S.W. very timely. Long letter from C.B. yesterday. Go to K. in p.m. 19. A clear lovely day, windy but warm. No effect of the comets tail which we passed through last night, an ideal May day, spend it over my M. S.S. in forenoon; read and hoe in harden in p.m. with long, long thoughts and many misgivings. 20. Clear and delightful, quite warm. It takes but half a minute to roil up a spring, but it may take it an hour to settle and clear itself. Mrs. B. comes here while I am writing with her broom and dustcloth and sour looks and harsh words and roils me up in a few seconds, so that my whole morning may be spoiled at least vitiated 21. Rain last night, pretty heavy, warmer, clearing at noon. Write to C.B. Vassar women come in. Wagon take me to S.S. Hot. 22. Overcast, a still warm gray day, more Vassar women, a pleasant day at S.S. 23. Go to Warwick, stay till Wednesday morning, a very pleasant time, but Orange Co. brings up long pensive thoughts. Fine warm weather, with showers at night. 25. To N.Y. today to the Rowlands. 26. At the R's, write to C.B. 27. At the R's, poor sleep. Leg not quite well yet. 28. To Orange to the Edisons, a warm fine day. See the comet for the first time at night. 29. An auto ride of 68 miles, warm fine day. 30. Back to N.Y. Go to Harrises.(Miss Peek niece) and stay all night; a pleasant time. 31. Home today at 2 p.m. all are well. Cool overcast with little rain - letters from C.B. June 1st. Cold and cloudy. Letter from C.B. Mrs. B. goes to P. 2d. Cold and cloudy, a fire in my study. Write to C.B. Health improving; nearly well. 3. Cold cloudy. 4. Clear, cold, go to Roxburg today, Chant meets me at 4 1/2. Find Curtis about as last year groans and sighs rather more like all men as they reach old age. See the sun shade the pasture and meadow as in the old days. Now the shadow of the hill reaches the pasture lolbars, now it is by the old Pennyroyal rock on the big hill; now it is at the Tusen the road, now at the Deacon woods June 1910 5. Clear in morning. Bobolinks in the meadow. Clouds up and begins raining at noon; rain all p.m. and night; cold. 6. Clearing; bright day and warmer. I walk about the fields and roads and shoot woodchucks, sit a long time on my rock. 7. Shower in the night with hard wind. Rain squalls from N.W. all day, cold. 8. Clearing, fine day and warmer. Sit a long time over the hill behind the rocks, reading and watching for woodchucks. Walk and dream in p.m. 9. Warmer, letter from C.B., fine day. Leave home at 8 1/2. Curtis walks down the deacon road with me to the through, seems much as father did at his age. Thinks he may get another woman, poor fellow. See Judge Clearwater on K; reach home at 2 by boat. Domestic atmosphere, cloudy and stormy. 10. Rained all night; raining today, cool, letter from C.B. 11. Rain, rain, cold, rained heavy all night. 12,13,14. At home. 15. To Littleton, a warm day a fine ride through mass. 16. The Sanderson's take me to Boston in Auto, a cloudy cool day, with light rain in p.m. Stop in Arlington to see Trowbridge, very glad to see him, quite unchanged since two years ago. In B. Call on my publishers, meet Sedgewick, new editor and Atlantic, he seems all right, was very enthusiastic over John Muir's, Ms. J. his first summer on the Sierra's, wants to print, part of it in Atlantic. Boston made me sad - over 8 years since I had been there. With what emotion I looked up to the window in Hastings' Hall where Julian and Howard lived so long! 17. Rain all night and all day cold. Our trip to Tophet does not come off, a walk in p.m. but rain drives us home. In evening many people from the town come in and I talk and talk. 18. Sun is out this morning, I take 8 o'clock train for home. A warm ride; reach home at 5 p.m. 19. Warm bright day. 20. To N.Y. to Roosevelt wedding. Hot, a fine crowd at the Church and reception. Meet the expresident; looks very brown and hardy, the same vigorous vital, hearty man as ever. 21. Hot, go to N. Haven in p.m. and entertained by Prof Phelps and his wife. Find 3 letters from C.B.Very glad to get them. Lonnsbury in to dinner, meet J.J. Hill, who is also on for an honorary degree and many others at President Hadley's house. 22. Put on the cap and gown at 9. and join the procession according to program and sit on platform on greathall and receive my degree of Dr. of Letters. Then to dinner at 1 p.m. Then to N.Y. [at] on 3.50 train and to Sherry's for Roosevelt. dinner at 7. A fine affair but hot, hot in my heavy swallowtail. R. speaks over 1/2 hour, I leave before speeches are all over. Henry Walterson makes a characteristics speech, a pretty strong man. Peary speaks well, but not very wisely at the last. Home to Dr. Johnsons at 12. 23. Go to Victor phonograph laboratory and make second of my voice not a success. Home in p.m. much done up for want of sleep; hot. 24. Hot. To S.S in p.m. 25. Miss Barbour and Miss Crawford come today to stay at S.S for the summer. Better than being here alone 26. Cooler, an ideal June day. 27. Cooler, an ideal June day at S.S. 28. Getting warmer, sleep well. 29. Warm, go to P. with note to C.B. 30. Hot hazy, still. July 1. Hot, hazy still. July 2. Very hot, hot hazy still. July 3. Very hot, hot hazy still. Go over home each morning for supplies e.t.c. 4. Warm, fine. Letter from C.B. Spend the day [home] at S.S. Julian working in swamp. 5. Cooler, fine day, getting dry. 6. Cool fine day, go to Oyster Bay. Reach at 6, Roosevelt were cordial, looks fine, full of his African hunt, two politicians there from Indiana, rather talk with me about birds, then with them about politics. 7. Fine cool day. Leave Sagamore Hill at 8 1/2. Go to Floral Park to Childs till p.m. Home at night. 8. Hot day, go to Port Ewen in p.m. to attend suit of Demeron against A. Martin. D. wins 9. Very hot, go in shade, go to P, letter from C.B. 10. Hottest yet; 94 on N. end of house. Spend night at S.S. Health good, a light shower at 5. 11. Cooler, fair. 12. Cooler, fair. 13. Warmer, write to C.B. 14. Warmer, Start for Roxburg on 6 a.m. train. Walk up from station. Find all well as usual. Haying well under way. 15. Warm, loaf about, write to C.B. 16. Warm, loop about, rain in p.m. 17. Cool, bright. [Letter from C.B.] Write a little. Read Darwin's Voyage round the World, my third reading. First time on general grounds, 2d time for natural history points; This time for the Geology, the book is a storehouse of natural and Biological science. 18. Cool, partly cloudy day. Letters from C.B. 19. Cool, fair day. 20. Cool fair day Mrs. J. comes. 21. 22. Fine shower in p.m. 23. Calm, warm hazy day. Tranquil mid summer days. 24. Hot, calm, hazy, trying to write in the old house. - I think the reason why as we grow older, time seems to go so fast; is that we are more and more self observable we live more and more in memory and take less and less note of time. In youth we live in articitiation and the days drag themselves along slowly. When we watch the clock, the time moves slowly, waiting for the train is tiresome business, but if we are absorbed in a book or with a friend, the time is gone before we know it. The past three months have sped by swiftly, because I have lived so much in the past. 25. Hot, hot, Miss Doolittle comes, a tragedy at West Park, Demeron shot dead by Slydell. 26. Showers South of us last night, much cooler today. 27. Warmer again. Write a little. 28. A terrific thunder storm last night. Two of them, one at 8 and one with more rain at 12, about 1 1/2 inch of water much needed. A worse electric storm I never saw, a flaming whip lush was cutting the air all about us and swapping over our heads like exploding bone shells. The air was shattered and the sky on fire every 2 or 3 seconds for nearly 1/2 hour. Still warm and fresh this morning. 29. Clear, still cool. The valley filled with fog this morning, an ideal summer day. Letter from C.B. at night that sends me to bed with cold feet. 30. Poor sleep - 3 hours, a little rain at 5 this morning, now at 8 clear and warmer, a song sparrow singing this morning 6 times a minute with the regularity of clock work, nearly all birds repeat their songs with the regularity of machinery. A red eyed this morning repeating his 2 or 3 notes with intervals of a little over a second 40 or 50 times a minute. On the Old Clumps Thursday heard the Hermit at 5 repeating his strain 10 times a minute with the same regularity. 31. Fine day. Write to C.B. plan for her future. Aug 1st. Fine day. Dr. Cartright died suddenly yesterday. I knew him as a schoolboy - 4 years my senior. Pete Tracy comes to clear up the cellar. 2. Getting warmer, a brief but brisk shower in p.m. 3. Warm fine day. Go down to the lake. Light showers at night. 4. Hot day, with brief showers from S.W. much sunshine also. Am writing these days each forenoon - on Emotion, men and animals etc. Quite contented amid these old scenes. Frequent letters from C.B. Dr. J. comes the 3rd. 5th. Clearing, cold; wind bowls about the house like autumn. De Loach comes in p.m. 6. Overcast. Walk about with De Loach. Glad to have him here - probably my most ardent admirer, a gentle, intelligent, very companionable man. We go to grandfathers old place in morning. In p.m. go to the Chase Ledges. De L. takes many photos. 7. Partly clear, cool. We go to the Old Clump in forenoon. De L. leaves at 5 p.m. I shall miss him much. 8. Fair day, warmer. 9. Cool day. 10. Cloudy, light rain from 8. 11. Clearing, light shower at noon. Heavy rains at West Park. 12. Bright cool day, poor sleep the last few nights. Roam the hills and woods this a.m. 13. Clear, lovely day, warmer. 14. Fine warm day, Prof. McMeyer comes and starts the portrait. 15. Hot day, set for my picture. 16. Mild, partly cloudy. 17. Cool, partly cloudy, am sitting for my portrait these days to McMeyer of Yale, I rather enjoy it; because I like the artist. 18. Cool and dry and cloudy, sit for the girls from the village. 19. Rain last night, nearly all night; hard at times, but fear springs are not affected. No goldfinches nests this year and no young to be heard. See plenty of birds, what is0 the cause? Later have seen two young goldfinches. 20, 21, 22, 23. Dry cool days, poor sleep. 23. Go down to Suters to dinner a pleasant day. 24. Go to Winnisook Club, a warm day. 25. At W, go down to High falls a warm day. 26. Back home, cooler, clearing. Mr. Browne comes at night. Very glad to see him. Cold night, a light frost. 27. Cool clear. Walk with Mr. B. many callers. Hellen Gould e.t.c. 28. An ideal day, warmer. Mr. B. much used up, my asthma. 29. Warmer pety cloudy, Mr. B. better. Sept 1. Leave for West Park. Mr. B. and I reach home at 12.15. To Slabsides in p.m. 2. Stay at S.S. with Mrs. B. and her friends. 3. To West Point, raining. 4. At West Point at Dentons. 5. Home again, Slabsides Co. gone 6. [Miss Beals the] To Milton to see lot for C.B. Like it much. 7. Miss Beals, the photographer here. 8. Mr. B. and I at S.S. 9. Olive Hinman and Mrs. Moran come. Cool fine weather. 10. Mr. King of Cal. comes. 11. Drive to Milton with Miss H. to see lot. Fine day. 12. At S.S. Pleasant days. 13. Leave for Asbury Park, warm. Take boat from P. 14. Reach A.P. at noon, stop on 2d Ave, near beach, at Grand Central Hotel. The old sea breaking upon the shore as usual. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Bright windy days, by the sea, eat well, sleep well, but am lonely and not much interested. 21. Leave A.P for N.Y. Reach there at 3. Stop at Murray Hill Hotel, Mr. Brown there. 22. In N.Y. make the boat trip around the city in p.m. Mr. B, wife and Miss Hinman. The best way to see the hideousness of N.Y. a great city that exists solely for business, not one building in it that one would care to look at twice. 23. Run about with Mr. B. and to meet Emily and the children in p.m. 24. Home in p.m. Raining a little. Julian off in his boat this morning for East Hampton. 25. Warm, with dashes of rain. (Wat C.B erased; C.B. is too highly seasoned too peppery at times. 26. Warm, partly cloudy, Poultney Bigelow stops at noon. 27. Light rain muggy. Writing a little for C.L. 28. Thunder shower at 3 a.m. Clearing by 9, a lovely day. Walk to S.S. The white throats are here, the woodbine aquires burns in the heart of the cedars and on the gray rocks and the asters make [gay] the roadsides, an ideal Sept day. Grass very green. Robins, blue birds and chippies sportive in the vineyard apparently playing pranks upon each other, all very hilarious, the holiday of the birds. 29. Fine day, mild. Write all p.m. on winter. 30. Fine mild day, mostly clear. The freligh at S.S. Oct 1st. Cloudy, mild, birds very sportive in vineyard. Feel well today, hope to finish peeper on winter. 2d. Mild pleasant day. 3. Good day, mild, Finish and send off winter piece. 4. Warmer, partly cloudy from S.W. old A. pretty strong sleep and eat well, no frost yet. 5. Fine day, go to P. 6. Go over to Slabsides to stay a few days, cool. 7. Fine day with little rain. Writing at S.S. 8. Fine day, Company at S. Walk to Old mill. 9. Still, mild, overcast day. Blue sky in the West full day. The first blue sky that appeared above the earth, think of it. There must have been a time when the vapors above the earth opened and let the blue sky shine through for the first time. The primal bad spell of weather was clearing up. 10. Lovely day, clear, mild, sleep on the porch at S.S. 11. Clear, warm, quiet. Chant and Emma here at Ed's Katy dids in full. chorus as in Sept. 12. Stay at S.S. till noon, growing colder. 13. Clear, our first frost last night - cut tomato vines back from the river and corn. Go to Newburg to see place for C.B. Do not think it will do, a clear chilly day. 14. Warmer again with clouds and S.W. wind, no frost last night. - Yesterday in P. I was introduced to several men as the friend of Mr. Roosevelt, my sole title to notice was that I was a friend of Mr. R. Oh, my muse, go away back and sit down. 15. Calm, mild, cloudy day 34 Vassar girls at S.S. 16. Clearing, warm, dry, dry. Tree crickets still purring at night. 17. Clear, calm golden, an ideal Oct day, cool, but not frosty. Lima beans not yet nipped. Hud is husking corn, and Julian I hope starting home in his motor boat from East Hampton. 18. Warm, dry, calm, golden Oct days. 19. The same continued. Have written 4 short articles since Sept 25, 3 gone to Country Life. 20. Calm, warm, hazy with light rain, leaves calmly falling one by one. Warm in p.m. - The enormous variations among human beings is one great secret of human progress. 21. Clearing, very warm. Marlboro people at S.S [is where Ed is time keeper.] 22. Cloudy, threatening rain. Began raining at 9. 10. New Paltz teachers at S.S. and 11 Vassar girls. 23. Clearing, cooler, spend day at S.S. Julian returns from his trip to East Hampton on the 21st p.m. Had a good trip. 24. Clear, a light frost. River Placid. Go to Roxburg this p.m. 25. At R. Cool dry weather. Curtis unchanged. The boys are well along in repairing old house. 26,27. At home; spend much of time at old house. Dig out a chipmunk. 28. Colder, snow squalls, cut poles for porch. Home in p.m. 29. To West Point to see football game. Bright, but windy and pretty chilly. 30. At Denton's walk and drive; home at night. 31. Fine day; warmer. Nov 1st. Dry, fine day, warmer. 2d. Go to New Paltz to see New aqueduct, her Sanborn takes me in his auto along the line to the dam in Olive. See many old familiar scenes, especially in Tangare, but all much changed. 3. Home today, cold rain from North. 4. Two days and nights of cold rain and heavy wind from N. Storm came in on the Coast off the sea. Ground well soaked. 5th. Rain and wind over; still cloudy with signs of clearing. 6. Mild, bright day. Writing a little, drawing a good deal. John Jr. walks all about the room, a big strong handsome boy. 7. Bright, cool day, a chill in the air as of snow. 8. Our first snow, nearly 2 inches in forenoon clearing in p.m. Election day, vote the Republican ticket on account of Roosevelt but feel defeat in my bones. He has made his first grand political mistake I think, he should have kept quiet and let the defeat which was bound to come fall upon the "Old Grand" how it falls upon him. 9. Bright, cool, snow melting. The Republican Party has suffered a bad knock out; serves three eight. But the Democrats will be sure to make a mess of it if they come into power. The Democrats are fools and the Republicans are hogs. 10. Cool windy days. Have a sore throat, a cold. 11. Bright and cool, at S.S. today. Throat better. 12. At S.S. with Miss H. and Miss P. Cool day. Walk over to Riverby. 13. Cool bright day. Two Vassar girls come to S.S. 14. Company gone, good, write letters. 15. Cool and windy. Feel well. 16. Cool and windy, at work again. 17. Bright dry, cool day. Letter from C.B. at work. 18. Bright, sharp windy days. Writing on the Hawaiian trip but not making much of it. 19. Clear and sharp and windy. Health fairly good, but bowels and sluggish 20. Coldest night yet; down to 25, clear and sharp. 21 and 22. Sharp days, writing on the Hawaiian trip. 23. Clear and fine. Start for home on early train. Reach Curtsies at 11. All well, some snow on the ground. A foot of snow in the woods on the nuts. We dig out chipmunk in p.m. Chipmunk is not in some snow in the orchard. 24. Partly cloudy, chilly. go out to Eden's, all well there. Eden looks best for many years, a thanksgiving dinner. Ort and Olly, John and Dessy, Willie and his family, May Jane and Mariahs, girl and her husband a fine dinner and a pleasant day. 25. Snowing this morning but thawing. Return to W.P. been raining here. 26. Partly cloudy, mild all well here. 28. Go to N.Y.at 12.15. put up at Nutt art Club, a fine place raining. 29. Colder, not much rain. Go to meet Paultney Bigelow and hear the new soprano. 30. To the north Twain memorial meeting in Carnegie Hall. Hear Choal Walterson, Twitchel Cable, Cannon Clark. Cannon did best, a man I dislike and expected little from Champ Clark, a disappointment. I think I could have done better than any of them if I could have spoken at all. Howells presided in his usual happy way. Dec 1st. Up to the Teachers College to see Olive Hinman, not well. Have been eating too much. At home I am not well enough fed in N.Y. I am too well fed. 2d. A poor night; Head bad today at night - go to see the Blue-bird with Miss Barbour and her friend Mrs. Freeman but leave at 10, not much impressed by the play. 3. Feeling bad today and must home in p.m. Some fever my old chills and fever from constipation. 4. A night of agony, chills and fever, but temperature only 100 this morning. 5. A bad night but less pain in limbs. Pretty cold, only a little fever. Appetite a little better. Have cleaned myself out thoroughly. 6. Pretty good sleep last night no fever or chill. Feel much better. Temperature 98. An old fashioned snow storm sets this morning from N.E. storm coming up from Texas, Mercury down to 14. Writing in my study this morning. Looks like a severe winter. 7. Snow not much. Fever returns at night. Take 1/4gr of Calomel every 1 1/2 hours for 2 hours - 1gr in all. 8. Cold, feel very stumpy today. Keep quiet all day, appetite improved. 9. Feel better, no fever yet, walk to P.O, write some letters in study. 10. Coldest yet down to 8. Feel much better. Fine sleep last night. Think I am about well. No fever or pain. Clear, calm, cold day. Roads dusty. 11. Cold, snowy, cold very steady and pretty severe this month so far. 12. Down to 7, a skin of snow, about well again, a shadow of my old dizziness this morning. Eat and sleep well. 13. Cold, dry. 14. To Kingston today to the Sydell trial. 15. To Saugerties last night; with the Frelighs. Back to the trial this morning. To Julian's at night, cold. 16. Another day at the trial, a nervous strain for me to sit there and hear the testimony S. has made, the about comes. He will get off. A jury trial is usually a trial of pretty heads against men with brains. The brains of pretty are molded and shaped by the live brains of the attorneys. 17. Cold. Do not go to the trial, spent last night with Mrs. B. in P. Go to N.Y. in p.m. zero weather. 18. In. N.Y. at the R's, Sydell is acquitted, yet I hold him at least morally responsible for the death of Demeron. Had he stayed in the house, and not come out with his gum there would have been no blood shed. Damn the man with the gun! 19. Warmer, a day in N.Y. 20. Snow squalls. Feel pretty well. 21 and 22. In N.Y. 23. Return to Poughkeepsie in p.m. 24. Cold, only a skin of snow. Go up to W.P. all well. 25. In P. a bright mild day. 26. Xmas dinner at Boyers. Go to W.P. in morning. 27. To Kingston to Dr. Norwoods for electric treatment, mild day. 28, 29. To K. in p.m. 30. Rain yesterday and last night - mild, growing colder today. Looks as if we were going to California next week by the 4th. 1911 Jany 1. Raining and freezing in P. 2. Raining, warmer, go up home. 3. Still raining, warm. 4. Clearing, cold wave. 5. A skin of snow. We start for Calia. at 11.00 Julian comes down. Cold. 6. Reach Chicago at 1 p.m. Mr. Bush meets us. Jane Adams and Hamlin Garland at dinner. Go to the Cliff Dwellers with Garland. 7. All day in C on the 90. Lunch at Garlands, Mr. and Mrs. Bush very kind to us. Leave on South Tr at 8 p.m., mild. 8. Wake up in Missouri. All day in Kansas, no snow. The Tawny hills of Kansas all day in our eyes. Vast stretches of corn fields, with the empty shucks rattling in the wind. 9. Wake up in new Mexico. Red soil with miniature canyons surry where the mountain, all mountains of erosion horizontal strata, the plains and valleys dotted with scrub pines (pension pines?) no cultivation to speak of before Alberkerk. Snow on the mountains, remnants of banks in valleys. Clear skies, a few crows, one mag pie. - The hundreds of miniature canyons one sees in N.W. and Arizona. All Through N.N. and Arizona nature is leading up to the gravel canyon - making sketches and studies and preparing for her masterpiece. It is as if the G.C was scattered on fragments all over these state at last. Nature gathers these fragments together into one stupendous whole and we have the G.C. the Alhambree of the gods of Erosion Nature is dreaming of canyons all across the continent; the idea takes complete possession of her till she becomes almost a monomaniac on the subject. Her genius for canyons, slowly develops as you approach N.M. Canyons in miniature at first. The gods of erosion are getting their hand in huge camien cap, the mesus or in the valleys. Lists of architraves of colourdes of amphitheaters of esplanades of vast buttress and everywhere. N.W. and Arizona had a terrible attack of volcanic mines in recent geologic time. Their surfaces are roughened all over with volcanic eruptions - Warty with volcanic scoria - A world in the making or in unmaking? The earth must have been terribly sick sometimes in N.W. and A the way she has erupted and exceeded and exfoliated (a distant view here of carved and isolated sell rocks of the foot of a mountain that suggests a lot of gigantic brick buildings. How much it all looks!) a terrible volcanic rash or black [exceeds]. 3 1/2 p.m. Vast red palisades on our right - many miles at one place, a solid row of red gothic cathedrals is suggested. The banks or walls of the dry streams exactly copy in forms and color the faces of the cliffs (just passed Thoreau) Now a succession of vast isolated cathedrals in ruins. Spares and buttresses gone. Continental divide just here amid the red palisades. Near Wingate Gray rocks a mutilated hand 10. Reached Williams last night, one can side tracked, stop till morning. Rained all night. Leave W. at 8 for Grand C. Raining heavily all day. Canyon full of fog, no view at all. 11. Clearing, cold, windy, sun lights up. Canyon by 8 1/2. Walk down to Bright Angel Trail with Mrs. B. See the tourists go down on their mules. In p.m. drive to Hope point, a finer day one could not wish for. The view overpowering, McDonald, editor of Toronto Globe and his wife with us. The Divine Abyss include, The book of Revelations written in the red carboniferous sand stored such order, such tranquility, such strength, such a well swept house of the gods! I find I have not exaggerated its beauty of sublimity and unearthliness in my Century article. No words can measure up to the reality, where C.B. wept Mrs. B was mildly interested. In the shadows the red and sandstone glowed as if from internal heat. 12. Another fine day, warmer. Drive to O'Neil's point. In p.m. walk along ruin of canyon with Miss Craig, an old Vassar friend, a very pleasant walk with much talk. At night bid goodbye to her and to the McDonalds. Hope to see them all again at La Jolla. 13. Fine day, walk along brink of canyon East in forenoon and get some new paint about the reason of its temple forms. In p.m. drive again to Hope point, day perfect. Gaze long and long upon the incredible spectacle. At 7 1/2 p.m. leave for Daggett to see Mary Beal. 14. Reach D. at 9. Walk up to the Van Dyke road and find Mary in her tent, she runs out to meet me; looks brown and good the best I have ever seen her. Certainly much improved. Spend the day with her. Walk on the desert in p.m. among the green wood bushes. Start a sack rabbit and one owl. 15. Raining a little. Drive to Calico at 11. a strange and savage country, all volcanic, stones and rocks of all Colors. Eat our lunch in one of the abandoned and dilapidated buildings as the rain slowly drips from the caves. Then walk up the canyon, Mr. Clifton with us, a fine young man, a level unlike anything I ever laid before, unforgettable. Leave for Pasadena tomorrow. 16. Off for Pasadena at 9, a bright lovely day, cool, reach P at 2. Very sad as I walk up the street amid the scenes I know so well during these happy spring days of nearly 2 years ago. The great high dark wall of the Sierra Madre - how it moves me. Find no one at Mr. Browne's and I am sudden than ever. Go to Mrs. Atkinson, find her at home and I am cheered up. a rare woman. Arrange to go there when Mrs. B. comes. Return to Brownes and find him, stay there all night, a good time. 17. Mrs. B. comes at 2 and Mr. Vroman takes us in his auto to La Manda Park, the place sent Mrs. B. a lovely day. A telegram to Browne from C.B. that she is coming on the 19th I am happy. 18. Lovely day, full of anticipation. An auto ride about P. 19. Fine day. Hear C.B.'s voice over the telephone from Los Angeles after a silence of 9 months. Browne meets her and at 3 they are at La Manda Park. I meet them on the walk and throw up my hat. "Is that you have to throw?" says C.B. How glad. I am to see her. How incredible seem the 9 months of her absence! She looks much better than when we left in the spring. 20. We go to Los Angeles with Vrooman, a happy day. Muir and Col Sellere and his wife called last night. 21. Cloudy and misty C.B. and I go to Pasadena to market and walk back, 5 miles, what a brief happy walk! 22. Fine clear day. Go out to dinner. How quietly I sleep on my porch. 23. Fine warm day. C.B. and I go to market again such a gleeful samter. At this moment 2 1/2 p.m. she is sleeping here on my bed in the open air while I write. 1911 Feb 3d. Raining again today, since my last entry it has rained 4/5 of the time, but I have been happy. We have walked and motored during the fair days and been busy and cheerful indoors when it rained - have dictated many letters to C.B. and seen many people. No real work yet and no new material to make work, my only reading Osborn's "Age of Mammals". - A work to study more than a book to be read. If these happy days could only continue. Five or six inches of rain since we came. - You may take a man's head and face and repeat them live for live in the clay or marble on painting and the result may nor look like that man at all. The expression is not independent of lives, but the look of the eye - how can lives encompass it! 5. Fine day, go to Los A. with C.B. to meet Mr. Hill, like him much. 6, 7, 8. Fine days at Mrs. Atkinson's 9. Fine day come to La Jolla, stop with the MacDonald's and have a good time. Colder weather. 10,11,12. At MacDonald's, drive to the Torry pines on the 10th. Fine day. 13. Rain C.B. comes at night meet her at San Diego. 14. In our new quarters, the Wisteria cottage of the Scripps, an ideal spots, partly cloudy. 15 and 16. Bright days at the Wisteria Club Solidad - all of us, a reception in social hall. 17. A lovely day without a cloud. Drive to Paint Lonia a wonderful view of the finest I ever saw. 18. An ideal day. To the Scripps ranch in auto 7 of us. 14 miles away, a very pleasant day, come home in 30 minutes, too fast. 19. Some cloud and wind. On the beach with C.B. in morning. In Library in p.m. a red letter day. 20. Bright day, under the weather from my old trouble, a bilious attack. Take 1gr Calomel last night. Dull and tired today. Keep quiet. C.B. and Mrs. McDonald go to Mexico. 21. Lovely day; feel much better, a walk in p.m. with Miss Craig. 22. Lovely day - all sun and sky. Feel fine. Part of the p.m. on beach with C.B. Then at Wistaria . 23. Leave La Jolla today in p.m. Reach La Manda Park at 9 p.m. 24. Mr. Childs calls. 25. Start for Riverside at 2.45; Lunch at the Green Hotel with Mr. Coast. Reach R. at 5 1/2. 26. Fine day at R. C.B. and I take a walk in morning, a long auto ride in p.m. 1911 27. Raining again, a great day at the Missouri Inn Peace Conference e.t.c. Jordan principle speaker pours out a steady torrent for 1 1/2 hours against war, MacDonald throws "hot bricks" as he says, - A ferny eloquent speech. Fairbanks in the evening - a great flourish of platitudes, - wind and noise only. 28. Raining still. Mch 1st. Clearing, we walk up Rubidoux in morning, a wonderful view - quite worthwhile. Return to La Manda Park in p.m. 2d. Cloudy, threatening. Go to Los Angeles in p.m. to see my old school mate of 60 years ago. Anna Gould Hough. Find her not so much changed as I had feared, 83 years old, but I could see the school girl of my boyhood. Looks less like the Gould's and more like the Mours. We talked almost entirely of our school days. What an opening of the book of the past all was! March 3. Began raining in the night. Raining now all forenoon. I am up on my porch trying to get to work, a flock of 15 quail feeding about the ground before me. 5. Rain all day, Dr. Hastings calls. 6. Clearing, sunshine in p.m. see the MacDonald's again. Write in a.m. 7. Cloudy again and rain is near. Rain all p.m. 8. Still raining, but not so chilly. Go to P. for electric light bath. 9. Rain, rain, write on "How they did it." 10. Rain lits up C.B. goes to Pasadena and takes a a room on N. Enalia Ave. I go to town in p.m. with Ms. for her type. Showers in p.m. 11. Coldest night of the season, snow on the tops of Mt. Wilson. Sun shines this morning, but showers are promised. - A lovely afternoon. 12. Perfect morning, clear, calm. Oh, the mountains this morning! Now they call, no motion in nature today. I still hear the "wash" roaring from the heavy rains. 13. Clear, calm, much warmer, as I sit here and write I hear the "high hole" calling precisely as at home, wick, wick wick, wick, a song sparrow sings near me a song so much like the home song sparrow that I could easily believe it was the same. The chatter and giggle and tee-hie of the house finches all about me, many of their notes like those of English Sparrow; the same equality - the same busy bodies. A hummer comes to the roof over me and to the sides of the house for spiders webs and lichens, while the rat colored brown thrashes is digging in the garden with his long looked beak. This beak is a regular pick ax. He runs as swift as a squirrel. His song I do not know. 14. Clear, warm, calm, a great day on Mt. Low. Browne, his daughter Susie, C.B. Mrs. B. and I a wonderful day, ideal. Reached snow a foot deep on North sides of Mts and got our feet wet - I set the pace too fast for all of them, not tired at night or today. Mrs. B. stayed at Alpine Tavern while four of us climbed to San Gabriel Mt. 4 or 5 miles, 2 1/2 hours. 15. Same as yesterday, only warmer. I am at Mrs. Atkinson's writing. The pines are shedding their pollen, a little puff of brown smoke goes out from the pine branches as a blue joy alights upon them, mocking birds building nest in date palm. Rains appear to be over at last. 16. Day of wonderful beauty, warm as June. Spend morning at La Manda Park and p.m. with C.B. Mrs. B. goes driving with the Yates, a slight cold, which I am going on, a pearl in its shell last night. 17. Still clear and warme. The pearl again in its shell this morning. Again at La Manda Park. 18. Cloudy day, C.B. at Vramans. Receive teachers of P. at La Manda Park. 19. Still cloudy, a high fog as they say here. Again at La M. P. - I cannot write about the birds till they have entered into my life. I cannot write of anything well till I have lived it. 20. Cloudy, work at L.M.P. 21. Sprinkles of rain. Dine with Roosevelt at Flemings and hear his lecture at night - a big crowd, R. rather slow and heavy. 22d. A glimpse of the pearl this morning. Do not go to L.M.P to write. Dr. Newkerk takes us out in p.m. 23. Bright lovely day, go to L.M.P. Walk back with C.B. - I sit here and try to put the call of the quail into word, but can not. Bird songs and calls leave no lingual or labice quality; they are all from the throat. Man alone modifies and stamps these throat sounds with the lips and tongue - hence human speech. 14. Another lovely day, walk with C.B. in mornign, then to L.M.P. In p.m. reception at Mrs. A's, meet many people, Muir and R.W. Trine there, Manilla again sings for us. 25. Perfect day, C.B. off today. for good and all - goes to San Francisco to meet the Hills, then North, probably I shall never again see her in Pasadena, I walk with her to train at 6 1/2 a.m. a very winsome woman and very helpful to me. 26. Cloudy this morning, a high fog? Go to L.M.P. for 2 hours. In p.m. to Scripps to dinner, meet a lot of people, my thoughts far away much of the time. 27. Sun, sky and cloud this morning. Warmer, down to L.M.P. 28. Go to Mt. Nelson with Miss. Craig, Miss. James, Miss Moar and Miss Roberts. 29. Two glorious days. Mt. Wilson all that is claimed for it. Come down today by new toll road - 9miles in 3 hours. To Mrs. Grinnells at night. 30. Fog this morning, which left at 9. Down to L.M.P. 31. Cloudy, misty. Go to the asphalt lake with Dr. N. and Prof Bebbs, a cemetery of extinct animals, very interesting The ostrich farm in p.m. Glad to have a near view of these two legged prints - almost brainless like a survival from geologic time. 1911 April 1st. Go to Los Angeles to dinner, a fine dinner and fine company. Call on my old school mate Anne Gould (Mrs. Hough) 2. Cloudy. To L.M.P. In p.m. on an auto trip with the Richardsons. 3. Still misty with fog on the Mts. My 74 birthday. I am very well and mind and body feel as strong as they did ten years ago. I sleep well and eat well and my interest in things does not flog. My second birth day spent in Cal. Down to L.M.P. at my desk on the balcony. Dinner at Mrs. A. 4. Cloudy, not very well. Some fever last night, a strenuous day. Take 1gr of calomel at night 5. Feel better; head clear. The calomel does the business. The good news that C.B. has left the Halls is a tonic. 300 school children comes to S.S. to sing us off, all bear flowers, a very pleasant send off. Dr. Newkirk takes us in his auto to Cal. Gillers. The poor sufferer no better, shall never see him again. Our train leaves at 10 1/2. I leave with long, long thoughts, may never see Pasadena again. At 3.15 stop 2 minutes at Daggett, see Mary Beal, she looks fine, leave her some orange. 6. A good sleep last night. In Arizona, at Winslow in morning. The Arizona Landscape looks as if it had been lawn out with an ox, roughly blocked out, such lines as these [zigzag]. Cool and cloudy. - Did you ever not the protective coloration of the Indian adobe houses in New Mexico? 1911 April 6. Literature is always truth plus a man and a play of personality added to a play of mind. Every true writer gives us his truth. The truth of Arnold or Goothe will not be that of MacAuley or Hugh, the truth of Emerson will not be that of a more prosy and matter of fact writer like Whipple or Tuckerman, a great writer does not give us greater truths but greater power to see truth - his truth April 7. In another climate. Frost this morning in Colorado, now at 2 in mid Kansas, warmer and partly cloudy. Endless green wheat fields and alfalfa fields. Rarely a home like looking farm house. Train on time. Slept well last night on train. All day in Kansas again. 8. Wake up in Ills. cloudy. Farmers preparing corn land. Reach Chicago at 11. C.B. and Sadie meet us. Stay till 3, when we take train for P. [Reach P at.] 9. Strike snow at Buffalo. Light snow on ground all the way to P. which place we reach at 6 1/2 p.m. 10. Up to Riverby this morning, Julian and family well and glad to see me, a clear sharp day from North. Snow all gone and mud in its place. Glad to be back, but how strange it all seems. Have I been dreaming for three months? 11. Clear and sharp; froze some last night; sleep in my study. Write letters in forenoon and go to S.S. in p.m. Shall not be able to get into the spirit of the old scenes for some days probably. Peepers and wood frogs vocal s solitary Hermit. thrush in the woods.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1909-1910 (July - March)
Text: From July 17th, 1989 to March 22d, 1910 July 17. Off to Roxbury this morning, much cooler after the light shower of yesterday. Reach home at 11. Ann in bed, looks thin and pale. Curtis about as he was last xmas. He has ceased all work, even milking. Ann sets up part of the time. 18. Ed and Eliza come this morning a series of light but brisk showers in p.m. Rain in the night also. 19. Cold, cloudy, windy. Sun comes out in mid forenoon. A day like so many I have seen here in my boyhood. The...
Show moreFrom July 17th, 1989 to March 22d, 1910 July 17. Off to Roxbury this morning, much cooler after the light shower of yesterday. Reach home at 11. Ann in bed, looks thin and pale. Curtis about as he was last xmas. He has ceased all work, even milking. Ann sets up part of the time. 18. Ed and Eliza come this morning a series of light but brisk showers in p.m. Rain in the night also. 19. Cold, cloudy, windy. Sun comes out in mid forenoon. A day like so many I have seen here in my boyhood. The wind buffeting the trees the cloud shadows rushing over the ground from the North. Three woodchucks fall to my rifle today; fine yesterday and day before. 20. Clear, cool, promises a good hay - day. I am sadden than I ought to be. Eat and sleep well and walk well. Read and write up by the open window in my room. 21. Clear, calm, cool; an ideal hay day. Johnny with his machine has just started in the old meadow below the wagon house, chart. Ed and the hired man are mowing with their scythes. Curtis sets on the wall with his pipe. I pause on my return from a walk over the hill, and sit by him and we talk a little of old times. Eliza, Ed's wife goes along with her baby in its carriage. I sit up here by the open window and look out upon the familiar scene, but with ups whose lids are beginning to feel the weight of years. Ann sits below in her room slowly dying. How pathetic it seems; the haying campaign is in full blast and she is a spectator to it for the last time. She is cheerful and uncomplaining. The humbled of us, knows how to die when the inevitable time comes. Are we not all dicing hard? Each day is one less, we know the last day and hour approaches and yet we are cheerful and go about our business. The criminal in his cell, who is to be executed in the morning, sleeps the sleep of his youth. The race of men has faced and met death so long that we have all in a measure got used to it and have an inherited calmness or indifference in regard to it. 22. Cloudy with sprinkles of rain all day. Great news from West Park yesterday at 6.15 a.m. a grandson was born to me, three with ahead of time, Julian says. May his tribe increase. Walk down to Depot and back this morning. 23. An old pachwind rain from the south, slow and continuous. Rained nearly all night; What I have been wanting to see but now I find it rather cheerless It is cold as I sit here and write this. The rain much needed. 10 a.m. How easily it seems to rain, how inevitably, a few days ago rain seemed impossible, now it is the easiest thing in the world. How broadcast, how deliberate, how regardless of our wants or wishes. The valley is all white with it and the distant mountain hidden, as I have so often seen it in my youth. 24. Rain in morning, clearing in p.m. The ground has had a good soaking. 25. A driving mist with cold. N.W. winds, cold as California. Clearing in p.m. 26. Clear, cool, lovely, an ideal summer day, not a cloud in the sky. I hear Johnny's mowing machine in the meadow below the wagon house, as I write. Clifton Johnson here, for photographs. Bobolinks all gone. Hermit thrush still in song 3 days ago. 27. Came over to Edens last night. Eden at work in his garden. Looks pale, but seems well, good appetite, good sleep. Mag well and active as usual. "I have to be well" she said. There is something in that the will to be well helps. Spend a quiet day; pretty warm. 28. Go out to James this morning. Jane comes from Evas, looks well, but very fat and full of blood. Hattie and Chester well and looking well, Hattie a good housekeeper and more intelligent than her sisters or than some of them. I poke around and visit all day, a hot day. Come to Curtis's at night. 29. Hot day. Poke around all day. Ann about the same. She has more fortitude or a better philosophy than I have, seems to look her fate coolly in the face - has given away her clothes and things and made her will. Curtis about as usual, but seems more subdued and quiet than last year; is losing his grip I think. - Your mountains (the Californian) Contrasted with these (the catskills) are like cattle lying down and ruminating under the trees. Tranquil restful with smooth long flowing lines are these mts. They have an introverted, dreaming look. The slumber of ages is upon them. But those new (comparatively) Cala mountains - lean, angular hungry - look outward alertly almost threatening. They are up henals, these are remnant of a great plateau. 30. A warm night, hot this morning with many low flying fog clouds. 31. Warm. Leave home today. Reach M. at 4. C.B. looking well. Aug 1. With C.B. Warm day, a walk in fields at night. 2d. Home today. 4. Start for [R] Stony Creek today. Reach there at 7 p.m. 5. Slow rain from N.E. light at West Park heavy, 2 1/2 inches greatly needed. 6. Bright fine day. Walk to Livingstone Lake. 7. Hot. Climb a mountain all granite. 8. Hot day, over 90 degrees, a picnic under the trees. 9. Hot, home today. 10. Fine day, a little cooler. 11. Much cooler, from N. Julian writing a story. The young J.B. a fine placed baby. 12. Fine day. Company at S.S. from Kingston. 13. Writing a little at S.S. 14. Binder comes today. 15. Wader a great nervous strain the past 3 days. 16. Rain, rain, began in the night, all day, heavy at times. 17. Rain all night, and yet this morning. N.E. probably 4 or 5 inches of water. 18. Rain and mist continues came over to the study and to Julians to stay on Monday, nervous strain continuing heart acting badly. 9. Soon good news, nervous strain lets up. 21. To N.Y. meet C. at station. To Staten Island till Sunday p.m. A very pleasant visit. C. much better. 23. In N.Y. and home in p.m. Cool, clear weather. 24. Start for Olive today with Mrs. B. visit the graves of her father and mother and arrange for removal of bodies to Tongore. Weeds and black berries growing on their graves, a woodchuck hole in side of father North's grave. Tongore much changed since my time there in 54 and 5. The big water works, spoiling all this part of the country. To Roxbury in p.m. Hot day. 25. At home. Ann about the same, Curtis better. Meet John Smith up on the hill, my school fellow of long ago, a little younger than I am. See the old look in his face. Talks a stream on money getting, his whole life has ran in that channel. Bargains in land and cattle and grain, opportunities missed and opportunities seized, and his experiences with men South and West and North e.t.c. Talks well and easily; is in the Iowa legislature. 26. To Tom Smiths to dinner, a pleasant day. John R. and I have much talk, or he does. I listen; is not curious about my life or my work, but like to tell his. 27. John R. comes to dinner. I walk back with him to top of hill in p.m. We may never meet again. 28. Johnny takes us over the mountain to Amy's. Jane is there, a cold bright day. Amy very active, under her great sorrow of the loss of her husband. Jane well and plaintive as usual. an immense flock of crows in head of the valley, more than a thousand I should say, the reunion of the clan. When Will saw, he must die he told Ammy he should watch for her on the other side. How heart breaking! Poor boy. 29. Shower in forenoon. Clearing in p.m. Return to West Park. 30. Warmer. 31. Windy. Go to P. in p.m. Sept 1st. Cooler, send off G.C. article to century. 2d. Unseasonably cool, threatens frost. Grapes repening very slowly. Well these days, but not very happy. I guess I am getting near the dregs of my cup of life. I dream and dream of Honolulu and Cala. Oh, what an experience that was! 3d. Off to Napanoch in p.m. 4. At Mr. Seamans, an auto ride up to. 5. Cool windy day, a picnic. in a gorge on Mr. S. trout preserve. Then over into wall of Rowland in the auto. Take our supper at the great "blue pool," where I had not been in over 30 years. A pool of great beauty, meet Mr. Dimmock and wife. 6. Start at 3 p.m. in auto, for Del. water gap, a brisk enjoyable ride, but very cool. Reach Strandsburg at 7. Pass night there, cold. 7. Off at 6 1/2 for the water gap, which we pass through at 7. Then on across N.J. Reach Orange at 12, lunch there. Then on to N.Y. I take 4 p.m. train for home. 8. Warmer, I take a hand in the grape racket, nail up crates in p.m. 9. Pick peaches and nail up crates. Get pretty tired; warm. 260 crates sent off yesterday and today. 10. Rain nearly all day from South, much needed. 11. Fine rain yesterday. Clear today and warm, North wind. This is the 101st birthday of my mother born at or near Westerton or Reusselaerville, Albany Co. She told me in her old age that the house where she was born had long since disappeared. I think it was a log house. Grandfather was a poor man. They moved from there to Red Hill Del. Co when mother was a little girl 12. Cool fair day. Write a little and walk to S.S. in p.m. Rover kills a baby rabbit. 13. Cool fair day, 52 years ago today. I was married and I am still in the bridegroom mood. - Any of the large doings or bounties of nature - the rain the sunshine, the seasons - illustrate the ways of what we call providence, a general providence and never a special. How dependent are all men, all life upon these things, yet how wholesale and undiscriminating they are. Take the rain; how it not only falls upon the just and the unjust but it falls upon the sea us upon the land, upon the rocks and upon the soil, in excess at times as well as scone and at times. So with all the ways of providence. There is only a natural providence, there is no religious or theological providence. Strange it is that men could ever have persuaded themselves there was. Their egotism did it, yet this natural providence brought forth man out of the lower animal orders, as if its efforts had been specially deserted to him, his providence; hot it did it in a long wasteful wholesale way, not by seeming to favor him, but by favoring all things alike. It never directed one rain drop, one sunbeam, one current of any kind especially to him, made no exceptions in his favor, shielded him from no cold, or disease or many hostile influences, and yet here he is, the crown and summit of the animal kingdom, the child of a general providence and not of a particular. The rains favored him, the warmth favored him the fruits of the earth favored him not because they were made especially for him, but because, in a stricter sense, he was made for them; his constitution was adapted to them; he came out of them, as it were. When I plant my crop and water and cultivate it, I am special providence. Burbank is the special providence to all his vegetable creations; but in each case, back of all lies the general providence of nature, without which our special acts would be of no avail. I am providence in the life of man only in the sense that something started him on the upward road and made it possible for him to climb it. And the same way be aid of all forms of life. It is good providences to us that fire burns and that water drows, though it burn and drown us, that we starve without food and perish without drink. Else, food and drink would not nourish us. From my point of view then the whole course of nature is providential. The total up shores progress, evolution, good will the race of man become extinct, as have so many forms in the past? No, not in that sense. Man will not drop out in the race of life as did the mastodon the Brontosaurus e.t.c. He will run the race to the end, that is till all life on the globe ceases. No animal with such a brain has ever before appeared. The accidents and agents that cut off the extinct forms, will not affect him, only a general failure of reproduction, could cut him off. - Modern life is becoming more and more a question of machinery. The machine is more and more and the man is less and less, yet man makes the machine and directs it. He delegates his powers to it, yet it robs him of something, what is it? It robs him of a personal element. Modern armies are machines and personal prowess comets in them less and less. With education, training, science refinement. The large picturesque personalities gradually disappear. They disappear from literature from the pulpit, from the bar, from the farm, from all the walke of life, and dapper, skillful, clever men appear. 14. Cool fair day; help in the grapes yesterday and today. Nail up crates. Enjoy it 6700 lbs today. - Break the record for this farm, 6050 lbs today. 15. Work in grape again over 5000 lbs today, mostly Delaware each day, cloudy. 16. Cloudy, cool, calm, not quite well, do not take hand in grape racket today. Few birds this year, grapes not pecked at all, no chippies, no oriole, or robins to speak of. Grape were never so free from blemish. Where are the birds? 18. Go to N.Y. today. Pose for Mr. Larned for etching. To Dr. J's in evening. C.B. there. 19. To the Bronx with C.B. and Paul to visit the zoo, a pleasant day. 20. To Peconic today. 21, 22, 23, 24. At Rowlands, have a good time. Weather warm, but cloudy and threatening rain [most] the last three days, never enjoyed the shell fish and the bathing more. One bad night (the 24) from eating too many clams and scallops. 25. To Floral Park in p.m. nearly well again. 26. Pleasant day with the Child's. 27. A long auto ride, 66 miles in light - cold rain. To N.Y. at night. 28. Home today, a fine day. Ann Eliza, my brother's wife dies today from cancer, a long and very painful illness - fearful toward the end, so that chloroform had to be administered, morphine having no more effect. Peace to her ashes. I shall miss her much, nearly 77 year of life. How much she toiled there amid those hills. And how unflinching she faced death and such a death. Why could not nature or God or something alleviated her terrible sufferings, so great at times toward the last that my sister Jane had to retreat into the pantry and shut the door so as not to hear her out cries. Oh, merciless nature! An intangible far, born and nursed in ones own body eating the poor body up inch by inch. How horrible. How impossible to reconcile such facts with the old ides of a human, yet omnipotent god. Sept 30. A fine day, Ann's funeral day. Oct 1st. Pleasant day, finish the Hawaiian Rhymes Oct 2d. C.B. and Mrs. P. from St. Louis come on morning train, a pleasant day at S.S. Walk to the old mill in p.m. 3. Delightful day at S.S. My guests go on 5 p.m. train. 4. Cloudy and cool, I am very well these days, and mind pretty clear and active. 8. Go to N.Y. and to Franks at Orange with Rowlands. Lovely days. 10. Charming days, spend night in N.Y. 11. Home today. Fine weather continues. 13. Cool, dry. To M. C.B. looking well. Ripe thorn apples and enchanting autumn woods. 14. To Napanoch, meet Julian there. Spend day and night at Seamans. Mr. S. and Mrs. S. away 15. We stop at M. and see C.B. Fine day. 16. Cool Oct so far. Writing some these days. 23d. Putman Hall girls today, a cool week with but little rain. Writing on Geology. 24. To N.Y. berel men Mr. Pine and Mr. Bowditch. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. Bright cool days at home writing. Health good. No irregular heart action for several weeks. 30. Clear cold; the coldest night of the season, down to 30, freeze the ground. 31. Fine Indian summery day. Write in my study on Geology. Warmer. Nov 1st. Calm, hazy, fine day. Leaves half off. Sleep well, eat well, feel well these days. A storm coming. 2, 3, 4, 5. At home at work, cool dry days. 6. Go to Briancliff Lodge on invitation of Mrs. West. Cool dry day, an auto ride to Crodon dam. 7. An auto ride to Portchester. Cool dry. Enjoy myself. The Briancliff about the best inn I ever stopped at. 8. Cloudy, cool. Home today. 9. Chant and Emma here, cool dry, clear today. 10. A cold night - coldest of the season. Stripped the mulberries of their leaves last night. Today they lie in heavy green masses at their feet. 11. Lovely day, warmer, [an] Indian summer weather. 12. An ideal Indian summer day. Chant and E. off for home today. Sit and take a nap in Summer house. Yesterday Julian killed 10 ducks - blue bills on river. Writing some each day, how on Geology then do animal instinct. 13. Pleasant day, 33 Vassar girls at S.S. 14. Cloudy. Poltons Bigelow and Commodore Higginson today. Bigelow and the Commodore met on the floor in the corner of my study window and eat their lunch of milk toast which they prepared over my fire and make believe they are camping out. 15. Writing on animal instincts day fair and cool. 16. Day fair and cool. 17. Light rain from S.W. Miss Freligh and Isabel Overbaugh come today, 18. At S.S. with the Saugerties company. Bright and windy and cold. 19. Froze apples last night. Overferet spit of snow this morning. Am much shocked this morning at news of Gilders death, which occurred yesterday of heart disease. An old and true friend of mine, not a great past, but a real one - very delicate and spontaneous wrote too easily, lacked force and intensity. Wanted too many things in life I think. Would have written greater poems had he wanted fewer and wanted them more, of course I am trying him by my own standards, a few of his poems will probably live in anthologies Peace to his ashes! 20. Fine mild day. Go to N.Y. to attend Gilders funeral. Julian rows me over to Hyde Part at 9. Reach the church just before the close of the services, a large assemblage, meet many old friends and acquaintances mostly literary men. Saw Gilders coffin bone out as the shoulders of four men, a sad day for me. Go to Rowlands for over Sunday. Mr. Howells and James have Allen call upon [new] Sunday p.m. Howells looks well but his head begins to settle down between his shoulders like an old man. Allen large straight and dignified, with almost a military air. Rowland brought out Garlands portrait which he had recently painted, "years" since Howells, that is Garland. - Garland overtaken by civilization." Ruth, be envy Stewart also called, a very bright woman, such people cultivate their wit all the time; they ought to be bright; The chief end of man to them is to be witty. (We who have no wit arrange ourselves by such remarks) Sunday was warm as Sept. 21. Spent the evening with her Johnson (R.W.) Glad to see them again. 22d. Came home today, a mild overcast day. 23d. A little rain and wind. 24. Very windy. Go out to Hobart. Begins to hail and snow. Reach Edens at 6. 25. Quite a winter day, 2 1/2 inches of snow and hail and cold, another thanksgiving dinner. Jane, Olly, Dessy, "Ort," Willie, Bruce, Clearly Eden, Mag and I, all are well. Curtis does not come. Cold and misty all day. 26. Back home today. clearing and warmer, 3 or 4 inches of snow at West Park, mud and slush when I arrive. 27. Clear, mild. To M. 28. At M. Mild, fair day. C.B. not well. 29. Home today. Pretty cold. 30. Fair, cold 22 degrees. Dec 1. Still dry and cold. Dec 2. Still dry and cold. Dec 3. Still dry and milder. Dec 4. Still dry and milder. Saw a large flock of fish crows, drifting in a vague aimless way to the North, with much croaking, never saw them so late in season and in such numbers before. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Rather cold dry Dec weather. Working on my M.S. The Great Stone book and others, a persistent dizziness [since] for past 3 weeks, not bad otherwise I feel well and strong. 11. Go to K. to look at house for C.B. a cold dry day. 12. Signs of storm at night, taken with low fever and pain in limbs, my old trouble. 13. Poor sleep last night, fever and pain all night, and all day today. Stay at the house. Snowed all day, raining at night. 14. Better this morning; fever and pain gone, a morbid condition of the blood. I think from poor digestion and assimilation of food, must eat less. Heavy rain in the night; snow very thin this morning. Bright clear, mild, no ice in river yet. My dizziness began after a streak of indigestion that followed my visit to Briancliff Lodge, where I was guilty of over eating. I gained one pound there in two days. All my troubles of late year, I believe have come from a morbid condition of the blood brought about by poor digestion. 15, 16, 17. Bright dry days, no fever. 18. Go to Seamans today. Fever returns at night. 19. Bad night, uncomfortable day. 20. Bad night again, only 2 or 3 hours sleep. 20. Visit Dr. Neal at E. he prescribes, says liver is at fault, too much bile. Cold dry weather. Sit by the open fire and read most of the time. 21. Some letter, less fever. 22. Fever gone; feel better. Go to M. in p.m. C.B. busy but well. Dr. Woodman examines me, finds nothing serious wrong. 23d. Home this morning. Cold, dry. 24. No fever yet; Head still swims at times. Cut wood and walk some. 25. Bright in morning; begins snowing about noon. We have our xmas dinner at Julians, we supply the turkey, a pleasant time. 26. Fierce storm of wind and snow all night. Raging yet at 10 a.m. probably a foot or more of snow much drifted, full fledged winter. Window panes all plastered up with snow. Like old times at home when the storm kept us from school. Blue birds this morning calling piteously. 27. Snow about a foot much piled up. Cold. Fever returned Sunday night. Went to P. this morning to see Dr. Van Tiling, says my lever is enlarged, gave me colonel and something else. 28. Cold, some fever yet. 29. Fever about gone. Cold. 30. Down below zero this morning; night and still severe cold worst all over the country, some better. 31. Bright, cold, near zero. Slowly gaining I think but no appetite. Jany 1st, 1910 Bright cold day, down to 14 above this morning. Still somewhat indisposed, but no fever yet today. Call at the Gordon's and at Leavings. 2d Cold bright day. 3. Cold bright day. 5. Off for M. Sanitarium at 12. Reach there at 4. Rain and sleet in evening. C.B. calls, looks fine. 6. Take the baths and treatment by electricity. No fever, dizziness slight. 7. Heavy rain all night turning to ice. C.B. calls. 8. Fair day, very icy, walk up to Caufields. 9. Bright fine day. C.B. comes in morning. Go to C's to dinner. 10. Bright sharp day, nearly well. 11. Bright day, milder. 12. To Caufields today. Cold. 13. At C's. Company at night. C.B. among them. 14. Cold snow storm. Return to Poughkeepsie and join Mrs. B. at Boyer's. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. At Boyer's, not well yet but nearly so. 22. To Newburgh. C.B. and Katharine. 23. In N. Fine day. Eds little girl dies today from dipthery. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. At Boyers writing on Geology. Health pretty good, appetite too good. Weather mild. Go up to Julians twice a week. Sleep two nights in study. Feb 1, 2, 3, 4. At Boyers writing and reading. 5. To N.Y. Go to steamer with C.B. to see Lillian off for the Orient. 6. Cold, cold. Stay with R.W.J. 7. Near zero. Return home today. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. At Boyers writing on Geology. Cold, dep snows 13. Clear cold day. Health good. 14. Bright, mild day. Julian comes down. 15. Milder overcast; rain coming. C.B. come to W.P. to look at the Shackelford house. I join her at Hilard. Likes the house much, may purchase. 16. Cloudy, thawy, storm coming. 17. Sleet and rain and snow. Colder in p.m. 18. Two or three inches of hard snow and hail, hard as a pavement. Walked over it this morning in going to Dr. Van Tiling's office. Clear, cold. Tree tops white with rime. - Joy in the universe and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion. As I grow old my joy and my interest in it increase. Less and less does the world of men interest me; more and more do my thoughts seen to things universal and everlasting. - What a pathless wilderness the question of mans origin leads one into! All is veiled in mystery. The imagination even is baffled, one only knows that the wilderness is not limitless that there is another side to it, but how to get there? There are many dews but they lead but a little way. Did man emerge from the lower or orders in on particular locality only? If so was he the result of a sudden mutation - a long leap? Did only one individual emerge and was it a male and did his progeny start the race? If so then the whole future of mankind hung on life of that one male through the perilous time of infancy and childhood. We encounter the same difficulty in trying to account for the origin of any species. We trace it back in imagination to one or two lives upon the preservation of which all depended. Then one ask was the line broken many times, and a new start made over and over? It was of course the growing brain power of the animal ancestor of man that first began to differentiate him from the rest of the tribe. Some one animal was born with more intelligence than the rest; his offspring inherited his intelligence and thus they got a start and held it till a group of animals began to dominate the others, as we see happen in families today. On the other hand we see that it is quite impossible to increase the intelligence of any species of animal by artificial breeding beyond a certain point. We can change their forms, their colors, their size, their speed, their habits in a hundred ways, but we cannot develop anything like mind or reason in them. We can train them but cannot educate them. In human time, but little can be done, but behold what wonders have been brought in geologic time. Could man ever evoke a bird from a reptile? or a frog from a fish? Could he even make a white man out of a black man? We associate the light and the dark skinned races with the climates in which each lives, but how slow these climatic influences must work. In human experience, a negro does not become white in the Northern climate or a white man become black in a Southern, yet a Northern sheep quickly loses its wool in the tropics. This is probably because the wool of a sheep bears so more direct relation to its well being than does the color of the skin among men. The European in the course of a generations becomes darker in the south, but the negro skin does not seem to yield so readily to the influence of our snow climate. 19. Clear, cold, near zero. Health good except a mild influenza. Go to N.Y. this p.m. to attend Gilder memorial meeting. 20. In N.Y. C.B. at Dr. J's. We attend the memorial services at Mendelson Hall 21. In N.Y. Go to Mrs. E's. Mild. 22. Rain all day. Mr. Turner pays me $125 on the old loan. 23. Cold, windy. Go to hear Harry Lauder in p.m. 24. Cold, clear. Down town in morning. Go back to Poughkeepsie in p.m. Mrs. B's cold no better. Her cough very painful. 25. Poor sleep, cold - below zero. Go up to W.P. snow very deep there. Julian and his family well. 26. Clear, cold, zero. Mrs. B. no better. My own cold nearly gone. 27. Warmer, thawing, rain in p.m. mercury 52. Meet Charley Benton at Peters, not very well. 28. A general thaw, floods expected. Go to W.P. today, water and slush. Blue birds, Dense fog. Mch 1st. Foggy and rainy. General floods. Glad to be here, much better than Poughkeepsie. I hear the hammer of Ed and Hud making crates - good music to my ears. Julian finishing his duck house. Snow going rapidly. Crows have a strong continent caw. 2. Still fog and murk. Snow half gone. Walked to S.S. yesterday p.m. Rerun with me. Snow over a foot deep. Saw 3 partridges near S.S. not fatigued by the walk. - I have often thought that ones complaints take the form in complexion of his temper or disposition - that violent choleric people have more severe attacks of one kind and another. Persons whose teeth come hard, have hard tough natures. Fevers and inflamations are mild with one, but more severe with Mrs. B. Does an unkind person suffer more in illness than a kind? 2d. C.B. and Caufield today a crushing blow; the fathers refuse to sell St. Faith's property after evading Miss Shackelford to believe they would. 3. Go to P. Mrs. B. a little better. Foggy and warmer. Snow melting radialy. 4. Clear, an ideal sap day. Mercury 42, never saw sap run faster. It leaps out of the trees, like the blood out of a cut artery. Calm, delicious. Tap all the trees today. 5. Clear, calm, warm, sap runs on a canter. Froze quite hard. Blue-birds full of enthusiasm this morning. Start boiling sap all the buckets full. C.B. comes at night. 6. A fine day, over 50. C.B. and I go to look over the hellon property. In p.m. go to Highland a walk through snow and slush; warm in the woods. 7. Cooler, overcast. Go to W.P. 8. At W.P. Froze last night; a good sap day. Return to P. in p.m. See Lown about the Martin affair. 9. To Stanfordville with Mr. Boyce. Warm; a fine sap day. 10. To W.P. Boil sap and sugar off in p.m. Partly overcast. 11. Froze hard last night. Clear and cold this morning. Go to Kingston to see Clear water. Boil sap in p.m. Clear, calm. 12. Fine sap day. Sugar off in forenoon. Go to P. in p.m. and to Vassar. 13. Ideal sap day. Clear warm after a freeze. In P. Sit a long time on College Hill. Julian hustles with the sap all day. 14. Colder, windy, a March day. Sap runs fast; at home today boiling sap. River broke up last week about the middle. 15. Colder, clear, but little sap. Go to P. and to Highland to look at house for C.B. 16. Clear, warmer in p.m. Sap runs again; give it to Hud at W.P. today. 17. Colder, snow flurries in forenoon. Clearing in p.m. Boil sap for Hud. 18. Froze very hard last night. Clear and sharp this morning. Shall boil sap for Ed this p.m. Ed and Hud clearing up vineyard. Sleep well and eat well these days, but tired, Liver, I guess. 19. Warmer S.W. winds. Sap runs, no ice in river. Snow in woods. Trying to write a little, still picking away at the sedimentary rocks. 20. Warmer; but little frost last night. In P. with Mrs. B. Walk to College Hall in p.m. Light showers with thunder about 4 p.m. 21. Clear as a bell, calm, a little cooler, but no freeze last night. Back home today boiling sap in p.m. Saw Phoebe bird today. River like glass. Hud and Ed tying up grapes. Poor sap day; no frost in ground or in the air. 22. Warmer, sap stops running. Partly cloudy. Enjoy the day at W.P. Several heels of the last snow larks still visible. Ice all gone from river. - It seems as if my whole life here has been all foreground, no background as my life on the pawn had. Julian and his family, how I love them all! My life would be worse than death without them; they fill the foreground, but oh, for the back ground of father and mother and brothers and sisters, and all the old life on the farm. Is it always so? Can our lives have but one background, that of youth? My 36 years of life here seem so unimportant. I have simply been away from home on a camping or fishing expedition and must hurry back where my real life is. How do the doings of Julian and me compare with the doings on the old farm in my youth? They are nothing, oh, the spell of the past! I sit here and look across the river to the palace of the multimillionaire with indifference or contempt. It means nothing to me. But when in the spring in my boyhood I used to look across the home valley and see at night, the sugar camp fire of Semer older in the woods on the side of the big mountain, how much that meant to me! How I love to recall it all now. Semer has been in this grave scores of years, but his camp fire still shines in my memory. Nothing warns big anymore, I am getting to the small end of things. of Miss Haight Stony Creek Warren Co N.Y.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1908-1909 (February - June)
Text: 1908 From Feb, 26 to July 17, 1909 1908 Feb 26. To Washington today. Clears off in p.m. The sight of the dome of the capital against the blue as I have so often seen it, makes me both glad and sad - the sadness predominates. And all the familiar scenes - how pathetic they all seem to me! Stay with the Bakers till March 2d. Lunch with Prest. Roosevelt on 27th. Find him looking as well and as unsupplied as I ever saw him. Told me that Prest. Murray Butler had written him a letter strongly...
Show more1908 From Feb, 26 to July 17, 1909 1908 Feb 26. To Washington today. Clears off in p.m. The sight of the dome of the capital against the blue as I have so often seen it, makes me both glad and sad - the sadness predominates. And all the familiar scenes - how pathetic they all seem to me! Stay with the Bakers till March 2d. Lunch with Prest. Roosevelt on 27th. Find him looking as well and as unsupplied as I ever saw him. Told me that Prest. Murray Butler had written him a letter strongly enduring his famous message to congress. - Said the message made every American hang his head with shame and c. The president seemed astonished that Butler should look at it that way, but said nothing in his own defence, said he was glad I liked the message and c. It was not an academic document - that is why Butler could not stand it. There was no stage thunder in it, it was full of the real thing and the elegant academic mind of B, recoiled from it, saw all my old friends on Sunday the 1st. March 2d. Mrs. B. comes on from A.C. and we take train for Atlanta Ga. at 11 p.m. 3d. Reach Atlantic at 7 1/2 p.m. 4. Go to experiment Ga. to see Prof De Loach. 8. Stay with De Loach till today, a pleasant time; weather warm and pleasant most of the time. Peach trees just blooming. Off for Macon today, at 5 p.m. take train for Jacksonville Fla. 9th. Stayed at Jacksonville last night. Down to Orange Park this morning. Stay at Orange Park with the Van Burens till the 19th. Weather hot most of the time - 86 and 88 and dry. Glad to be with Trowbridge again. We walk and ride and sit together. He is well and hearty - doubt if I can ever carry 80 years so well many people, much pleasure a little to many social. demands, but beautiful hospitality. Abby Brown, Ethel Howard, Mr. Bush, Mr. Williams, Mr. Waterman - all very pleasant people. Mrs. Van Buren attractive and intelligent and a part of many accomplishments. We tire of the August like weather and leave on the 19th for Atlantic City. In Va. on the night of the 20th ran into a snow storm which delayed the train 2 hours, frost on the windows in the morning. Pass through Washington at 11. Reach A.C. at 6 p.m. on the 21st. 22d. Again at A.C. and glad to be there, gained 8 lbs feel in fine health. 23, 24, 25. At A.C. fine cool days. Walk to Ventnor in one hour on the 24th. 26th. Off to High Bridge to visit Knox and Lucy Taylor, a very pleasant time amid the Jersey hills. 27. To N.Y. and with Katharine. Go to M. 28, 29. At M. a pleasant time. C.B. sad and over worked. She goes to P.B. on the 30. 30. Back to N.Y. at Rowlands. 31. In NY looking for girl. April 1st. Mrs. B. comes from A.C. stay at Dr. Johnsons. 2. Home today. Rained in the night, mild. 3d. Cold wave, below freezing. Bright windy day; go to P. My 71th birthday. Health excellent, weight 157. 4. Cold, windy bright. No sap. 5. Bright; down to 26. Grows warmer and clouds up. 6. Clear often rain in the night; warmer, an ideal April morning. 7. Home today on early train. Reach Curtis's at 11. Go directly to sap bush where I see steam and smoke issuing from sap house. Windy, sap running well. Johnny and hired man Fred boiling sap. Find the family well. Snow banks yet linger on side hill and in the wood, on the mountains. In p.m. I tap 6 trees in upper [Andaz] bush. We [sump] off in p.m. Am very glad to be amid the old scenes once more. 8. Rain; in the sap house most of the day boiling sap. Rain stops in p.m. 9. A cold wave with wind in the night; froze feet, hand. A windy raw day. Clearing in p.m. Boil sap. 10. Warmer, cloudy, came home in p.m. Curtis suffers more and more with the sore, (cancer) on his head. I doubt if he lives another year. 11. Windy, with signs of cold wave, new book "Leaf and Tendril" came this morning. Mercury 60. Grass starting and elm trees in bloom. 12. Bright day. Work to S.S in p.m. 13. Clear, windy day, fine but chilly, soft maples red with bloom, pussy willows yielding pollen to the bees. 14. Froze last night; clear, crisp calm today. The red poll warbler over by the station - now on the low branches of the trees, now on the ground. Hear him sing for the first time - a song much like that of chippy, a little finer in tone - notes a little more rapid. 15. Some rain today, 16. Clearing, very windy cold, Amelia A. and her friends at S.S. 17. Fine day; froze last night. Spend the day at S.S. 18. Cloudy and light rain in p.m. Spend p.m. at S.S. Mrs. Van S. and some P. boys. 19. Cloud and sun, chilly 20. Hard snow squall from S.W. Froze last night. 21. Clear, cold, windy. Froze again. 22. Warmer, cloud and sun, a fine day. 23. A perfect April morning, at last, warm, still wooing, a morning that makes a great stir about the farms. How the plows will start today, there is a kind of sex warmth and longing in nature. The swallow should be here today, and the early birds will be concerned about their nests today. Hud plowing the vineyard, Ed, hoeing. How the seed men will sell seeds and bulbs this day. Off to M. today. 24. At M. mild day. 25. To N.Y. and then to Summit with Mabie, a dinner to Whittridge at night 26. At S. a fine day, Ride to Morristown to see Davenports fowls and horses - very interesting. 27. Back to Orange to the Frank at night. 28. To Lehigh University with Carnegie and party, a lovely day and an enjoyable one. 29. To Pittsburgh with the Franks. Snow and rain at night. 30. A cold storming day. See many people at Founders day at Carnegie Inst. May 1st. Cold and wet. 2d. To Slack, at Edgeworth, a pleasant family. 3. Cloudy. Play golf at country club. 4. Back to Orange at night. 5. Bright, milder. In N.Y. today and to lunch on 5th Ave, meet Edith Rickert in p.m. To Brooklyn to dinner with her. 6. To Washington in p.m. reach Whitehouse at 6, raining, president out horse back riding. 7. Raining, off for Pine Knot with president and Mrs. R. at 11. Reach P.K. at about 4 p.m. Sun shining. 8, 9, 10. At P.K. walking and driving with president and observing the birds. Back to W. in p.m. [9] 11. Go to Bakers and to the British Embassy to lunch, like Bryce much. 13. Fine day and warm. [14] Back to N.Y. 14. Home today, apple trees dropping bloom Getting warm. 16. To Slabsides and glad to be there. Tired and dull. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,. 24, 25. At Slabsides. Company several days. 25. To Edenville with E.R. in p.m. Very warm 86. 26. At E. hot 87. 27. Home again, hot 87, hot since the 22d. 28. Shower last night; hot and clear today. Season striding ahead. Locust bloom dropping. 29. Cloudy, cooler, off for De Bruce in p.m. Health excellent these days. Weigh 158, sleep like a boy. C and S come to L.M. 30. Cloudy, misty; drive up to De B. Go fishing in forenoon. C takes 3 good trout. Rain in p.m. The Martins and Corbins come to tea at Caufields. 31. Fine day. We all drive to the Corbin lake on top of mountain and have a picnic. C. S. and I troll for Pickerd - take fire, a fine time. Walk down the mountain to C's. Cooler at night. June 1st. Cool, clear. C. and S. up at 5 and start for L.M. sorry to see them leave, not ,much left for me. Cool day. Drive up to Willowemock to see Mat Decker, am convinced he saw a flock of pigeons a year ago last fall - nearly a hundred he thinks. Take only 2 trout today. 2. Clear and cool. Fish the mongaup, take only 5. Back home in p.m. 3. Fine cool day; go up to R. in p.m. with boat. 4. An ideal June day; the breath of meadow grass again on the air. Daisies buttercup, clover. Hot in p.m, all day at S.S. 5. Ideal June weather, clear, cool, a party at S.S. Vassar girls, the Van B's, J. and E. and the children, a pleasant day. 6. Lovely day. Go to K. to the Van Slykes, meet the women of S. clubs. 7. Clear, warm, dry, signs of a drought. How sweet is the breath of June. Grape vines nearly ready to bloom. 8. Warm fine day. 9. Hot day 86. Getting dry. Doing little these days, but writing a few letters and sitting under the trees, stay at S.S at night, Rover with me. 10. A little cooler. The promised shower last night flashed in the pan, I saw lightning and heard thunder. 11. Calm, cool, gray clay, go on river in p.m. 12. Clear, cool, dry, air streaked with perfumes of blooming grapes. 13. Warm, dry, C.B. and sunshine come at 4 p.m. 14. Fine warm day, a sail in Wawee. 15. The long wanted rain is here. Rains all p.m. and nearly all night, hard at times 2 or 3 inches of water, never more needed, an ideal rain. 16. Cooler, clearing. 17. Off for N.Y. in Wawee, pass night at Croton point. 18. Reach N.Y. at 9, anchor Spuyten Duyvil. I go to Sagaponack at p.m. 19, 20. Cool clear days by the sea, with Miss Peck and her friends, air fragrant with clovers and daisies, [but] and full of ,the songs of meadow larks and bobolinks, an enjoyable time. 21. Off for Floral Park. Stay with the Childs; hot. 22. To N.Y. hot, hot; start home in p.m. Pass night at Croton Point; hot, hot, hot, a bad night. 23. Reach home at 11, left C.P. at 3 1/2, Hot. 24. Hot, 96, Company come at 4.30 for Slabsides and fine shower, about one inch water. 25. Cooler, fine day. 26. Cool, clear delightful, Chestnut trees getting hoary, currents and cherries ripe. 27. Ideal day, calm, clear hot. Boat races. 28. Go home on morning train hot and dry. Curts folks all well; very dry in R. 29 and 30. At Curts; wild strawberries in the meadows. July 1st. Light rain. 2d. To Edens today; heavy shower in H, light in R. Eden in better health than for 10 years, he says; work all the time. 3. Heavy rain all forenoon. 4. Muggy; go to James, Jane well, all her children home and 8 grand children. to W.P. at night; heavy shower here in p.m. ground well drenched. 5. Hot, 92. 6. Hot, 92. 7. Hot, 93 to 96. 8. Hot, cooler in p.m. a delightful change. 9. Cool, lovely. 10. Warming up a little, hot wave due here by Sunday the 12th very well these days, no work. 11. Warm, off for Roxbury this morning, all well. 12. Hot, hot, go on N. side the house. Cloudy with sprinkles of rain. 13. Cooler, pleasant. 14. Fine day, very dry. C.B. and Addie ,come at night, old house very comfortable. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. All lovely days - Idyllic days in the woods on the hills in the Hammock, in the house - all goes merry as "a marriage bill" congenial company - what a factor [of] in human happiness is that? C.B. improves daily. Each day too short, never had a happier week. To Pine Hill all of us on Tuesday the 21st. 22. Rain abortive, as usual. Rained part of the night and did not make easy drop, very dry, as soon as the storm clouds reach this part of the country, they seem struck with paralysis. 23. Delightful day, a walk to woods of Hay barn meadows. June plums, apples, and nectar. Pass night on [24] "old clumps," six of us. Warm, cloudy, thundery, but no rain. C.B. in Hammock. 24. Cloudy. Return to house at 6. Began raining in p.m. at dark. Slow gentle rained all night. 25. Rained slowly till near noon over 2 inches of water. a walk to [Augin] in p.m. 26. Lovely bright day. Photograph thorn trees. 27. Bright, hot, a memorable night. 28. Bright, hot. C.B. and A. gone to village. 29. Hot. Find Gold finches nest [at] in home orchard. 30. Fine hot day, and gone with Johnny. 31. C.B. and I take a walk, sit in the corner of the meadow. Aug 1. Cooler, windy. C.B. and I go to old clump; get 2 gts of huckle berries, a wonderful day. 2. Warmer, leave Woodchuck Lodge today. Leave C.B. at K. reach home at 8. 3. Start on our boat trip today. Pass night at Coxsackie, warm windy at night. 4. To Albany at 4 1/2. Enter Canal at 2, hot, hot. Pass night at cold spring. 5. Hot, two showers, reach Ft Edward at night. 6. Hot, hot, reach White Hall at 5. Pass night there. 7. Leave W.H. at 11. Pass night near Ner Tie, mosquitoes, mosquitoes no sleep. 8. Visit ruins of Old Tie, much impressed. Go on to chimney point in p.m. a delightful anchorage. Warm. 9. Lovely day. Go on to Essex in p.m. 10. All day at Essex, hot, clear, calm. Start back at 7 1/2, for a Merrilight sail. Reach [ch] Crown Point at 10 1/2. Peaceful waters. 11. Visit ruins of Crown Point. Well worth the trouble. Up anchor and away at 9. Reach White Hall and 4. Run into a shower. Reach Ft Ann at 7, pass night there. 12. Up and off [at] early. Pass sunken boat. Reach Flynns lock at night; hot. 13. Up and off early; Reach Troy at 10; Hot, hot. 90+. Detained 6 hours by lock menders. Off again at 4 1/2. Reach Shad Island at 7 1/2. 14. An early start; hot, hot, hot, hot. Reach home without incident at 4 p.m. 15. A little cooler. Tired and sleepy. 16. Clear, dry. 17. Cloudy, light rain. 18. Clear, cooler, rain a failure. 19. Cool and delightful, but too dry, off tomorrow for N.H. 20.. To Franklin N.H. today. Stay till Friday the 28 with Mrs. Aiken on the shores of Webster Lake, cool fine weather, a pleasant place, a hospitable family. Go to Lake Winnipesaukee on the 25th a memorable day. 28. Start for Nantucket today. We reach there at 9 p.m. Stay till Sept 3d. Only one rainy day, cool and beautiful. Sept 3d. Cool bright day. Leave Nantucket at 1 p.m. 4. In N.Y. this morning a lovely day. Reach home at 2 p.m. 5. Cool bright day, very dry. Grapes nearly off. 6. Cool and dry. 7. Cool and dry. 8. Cool and dry. Clear. Go to S.S. to stay. 9. Clear, dry, dry, getting warmer. [Finish] 10. Dry, dry, grapes finished today. 12. Dry, warm, dusty, to Saugerties and then to Hi Craig, a pleasant time. 14. To Napanoch with Mr. Seaman, warm, dry. 15. To M. today. 16. Home today. 17. Off in the Wawee for East Hampton, still warm, hazy. Reach Croton Point after dark. 18. Off early, pass little Hell Gate 11-12. The sound very hazy, all the sirens singing! Reach Stamford harbor at 5. 19. An early start all day on. The smooth water in the dense haze. Reach Clinton Harbor at 5 1/2. 20. Bright with some wind, Haze gone, cross the Somuel and go three Plum. Got at12 1/2. Gradener bay rough, reach 3 Mile Harbor at 3, pass night there. 21. To East Hampton where we stay till Oct 8. Bright fine weather, with one heavy rain, fairly well, much time on the beach. Read considerable - "The Long Labrader Train." "The Flock" and finish Olivers Hamilton. Oct 8. Leave on return trip, a fair day, smooth. Reach Bridgeport at 6. A wind drives us into Black Rock Harbor, a quiet night. 9. Fine day, off early. Reach our anchorage in Harlan at 4 p.m. 10 and 11. In N.Y. and vicinity. 12. High wind from north. Start up river at 11. Reach Greens Cove at 5, a still frosty night. 13. Reach home at 3 p.m. a fine quiet day. All well, very dry here, only one light rain since [oc] we left. 14, 15, 16, 17. Warm, hazy lovely days. Company at S.S, two days. 18. Health all right again. Since my return, hazy partly overcast. 19. A change to cooler without rain, stiff North wind, very smoky can smell the smoke and see it in the rooms; river hidden. Sun a ball of fire cherry red, very dry. Oct 24. A week of calm, clear lovely days. Sharp frost some nights. Haze over all. Forest fires all about. Wells and springs and creeks going dry everywhere. Remarkable drought. Health good, writing each forenoon on Man and Evolution e.t.c. Have struck few leading veins yet. Fairly happy, as I always am if I can write at all. Walk to S.S. each p.m. Cloudy, signs of rain today. - Yesterday while my dog was eating his dinner I started off hurriedly for the P.O. as I was ,starting up the drive my dog overtook me, jumped up against me and whined, I hurried on. When I looked around he had gone - he had hurried back to finish his dinner, in a few moment he overtook me again and went with me to the P.O. Now most persons would say that my dog asked me in his dog way to wait till he had taken his dinner. But I do not suppose there was any process in his mind akin to that which would go on in our minds under similar circumstances. This is my explanation of his act He wanted the food and he wanted to go with me. For the moment the latter desire overcame the former and he started to follow. Then he remembered his food and rushed back. The whining was expressive of his discomfort at being pulled in two ways at the same time. To formulate an idea, like "wait for me," [a] I doubt if even a dog ever does that. 25, 26, 27, 28. Light rain here, heavy in parts of the country, heavy out home, when it started all the springs that had dried up. No effect on the springs here. Spent the time at Slabsides. 31. Go to Napanoch. Cold and windy C.B. joins at M. Nov 1st. At M. at her Seamans a pleasant time. A cold windy day. 2d. Warmer, Mr. S. and Mrs. Sarse bring me home in auto, a pleasant ride. 3. Mild, fine day. Go up to vote in p.m. Vote the Republican ticket, though hesitatingly, I hate to vote with all the big rascals and pirates. 4. Cold, still at S.S. 5. Cold, windy, first snow tonight. Leave SS. 6 and 7. Milder. Stay at Riverby. 8. Cloudy, mild. Go to S.S. with Mr. Finley. 9. Mild Indian summer like day. Send off MS. to C.B. to type 10. Calm, hazy, sun like a great copper ball, at sunset it was abroad scarlet, mild. Staying at S.S, still writing on the Long Road. 11. Calm, mild, cloudy, Ethel Van B. wedding day, sleep well and am well these days, but losing flesh. Sprinkled a little and then cleared at night. To rain seems impossible. 12. Clear and windy and colder. Stay at Riverby. 13. Cloudy and cold with now and then a snow flake in the air. Walk to S.S. in p.m. and see flocks of crossbills feeding on the hemlock cones, - It is quite easy to interpret the action of your dog, but to read into his mind the ideas which his act awakens in yours may be and probably is very wide of the mark. 14. A seamless cloud over the sky. Go to M. Begins snowing in p.m. a walk to the woods over dusty roads. [Nov 14, 1908] One thing which shows the low psychic life of the dog is his enormous capacity for sleep. If nothing is doing he can, apparently sleep all the time, sleep all night and sleep all day, the week through. Physical activity or nothing with him. He has little or no mind to keep awake. Evidently he does not think or brood or reminisce; he runs or he sleeps. One trait I envy my dog, he never finds a walk or a run over the same rout, tiresome or uninteresting. The moment we start he is all alertness and expectation. The old and familiar becomes new and strange at once, adventure lurks on every hand, he is sure something exciting will happen [Nov 14, 1908] around that corner, or behind that rock, or over that Knowl. He is the true pedestrian, always on the trail, or near the trail of some notable game. If he sits down for a moment he is constantly feeling the air with his nose; his interest rarely flags. To his hightened instincts other peoples eats other peoples hens, other peoples cows or pigs, or sheep are pet subjects for reprisal. Oh, if my own interest and powers of observation could be always hightened by a walk, as his are! [Nov 14, 1908] Birds will break a butte with their beaks or by pounding them on a stick or stone. It is said that in S.A. the Sulphur tyrant bird will take a snake by the tail and beat it over a branch, a stone like a flail, till it is dead. Has it ever been known to reverse the process and beat the snake with a stick? This is the step an animal cannot take. [Nov 1908] 15. Five or six inches of snow, all day with C. call on the Caufields, pretty cold, a young winter. 16. Clearing cold, down to 16, or 18. Home at 10.10. 17. Clear, milder, much snow. Still on the ground. Blue birds still here. 19. Fine day, at S.S. 22. Clear crisp day. Go to N. to look at farm for C.B. Like the farm. 21. Fine bright day; cool. 22. Fine day. 23. Fine day. Capt Baldwin the Arctic explorer at S.S. Good fellow, but had been drinking. 24. Foggy. An enormous flock of wild geese at 8 1/2 going south, probably 200. J. shoots at them. The 3d or 4th big flock within a week. - Later Julian went down on the river and shot 4 of this flock of geese - snow geese from the far North, beautiful fowls, poor things! I thought, with no one to care for them or provide for or protect them, without [arms] tools, or weapons, without instruction or guides of any sort, without season, with only blind instinct. - What a wonder that they survive at all. Compelled to migrate from one end of a continent to another often bewildered by the fog as they were this morning, many of them young birds without experience of man and his ways demanding food, but with no supplies between here and Fla, that they do not seek at the hazard of their lives - what a pity to kill them. P.m. clearing warm as early Oct. 25. Still foggy, mild, promised rain does not come. Start for Hobart in p.m. Clearing at H. Find Eden and Mag well. 26. Meet my people once more at thansgiving dinner. Curtis Jane, Eden, Olly, Dessie, Ann, Mariah, and Willies family. A mild, pleasant day, all goes well. Go to Hiram's grave in the morning. Curtis about as he was in July. Looks young for a man of his age. 27. Cooler, clearing. Return home on morning train. Clear here. 28. Fine day, no frost. Go to S.S, and write, my dog and I. 29. Fine mild day, no rain yet about finish the Long Road began in late Oct. 30. Mild, cloudy, threatening rain still at work on the Long Road Dec 1st. Clearing without rain. Rain seems impossible in this part of the country. Warm, but cold wave near at hand, chipmonks still running about, mercury 60. 4. Colder. To N.Y. today, meet C.at 1 1/2 and take her to see "Dinner of Herbs." She returns at 7. Stay at Rowlands 5. Lunch with Mr. Seaman and to Campfire club dinner at night. 6. Cold, down to 18 at W.P. 7. Warmer and raining hard. Home today. Snow and rain at W.P. 8 and 9. Clear fine winter weather. 10. Cold, down to 12, clear. Mrs. B. leaves for P. Still at work on Long Road. 11. Cloudy, begins snowing at 8 1/2. p.m. about 2 1/2 inches of snow. 12. Clearing, mild, C.B. comes in p.m., a delightful day. 13. Snowing gently, one inch during day. C.B. and I have our dinner at Slabsides. The flower of the Dec days. 14. Clearing, mild. Go to P. in p.m. 15. Clear, mild, no frost last night. Snow melting. Got off the Long Road to Atlantic. 16. Clear, colder, calm, not much go in me these days. 18. Go to N.Y. today. 5 inches of snow last night. 19. In N.Y. at Rowlands, meet many people. 20 and 21. In N.Y. 22. To P. today, mild. 23. Mild, in P. 24. Go home to Roxbury this p.m. Chant meets me at train. Reach Curtises at 6 in the deem moon light, a white landscape. 25. Xmas at the old home, mild. still, cloudy day. Jane and Olly and her husband there, and Ed and his wife, 12 of us at dinner. In morning Chant found a woodchuck on the snow over above the orchard; brought him home in the sleigh, slow and dull, but apparently well, I found hole in orchard where he came out and followed his wanderings about the fields. Had his sexual instincts awoke him prematurely and sent him forth in greed of mate? He seemed looking for something. Glad to be at the old place again and see the winter landscape. No xmas at home for over 10 years. 26. Colder, snowing and blowing this morning. Return to West Park. 27. In P. with Mrs. B. 28. At West Park today. Clear mild lovely day. Hope to get work again. 29. Mild day. 30. Cloudy, signs of storm a light rain at night. 31. Clearing, mild. Go to P. with J. 1909 Jany 1st. Fair day, colder, ice in the roads, thin coat of hard snow in fields, very well these days. The old Adam rampant for 2 weeks. Living here in study and boarding at J's. Writing again on the animal mind. Fairly happy, weight 153. Blue birds still here. Terrible news from Italy. 2d. Mild day, still writing. 3d. Mild day, still writing. [Jan 3, 1909] - Life of course has its mechanisms but is life itself a mechanism or the result of a mechanism? No machine can run itself; what runs this machine, the animal body? Is there something back of and independent of the machine that runs it? Is there a vital force? Force of some sort runs all machines and prompts all chemical action whence its source? In the inorganic world we see only the action of mechanical and chemical principles, but have not there principles been touched by something to finer issues in the organic world? I wonder. 4th. Calm, mild day with, with fog and a little rain, clearing in p.m. at night moonlight with fog. A day at S.S, with Warwick admirers. 5. Mild, foggy, rainy all day, not heavy. Snow nearly gone, mercury 40. Write in morning. Weight 148 1/2, height 5.7. - I often find myself saying of certain class of books, usually the so called new thought books, that come in my way, or are sent to me, "I cant read them, they are not literature an they are not science, and a book must be one or the other to appeal to me. The new thought is for the most part, a kind of counterfeit thought. It [Jan 1909] - Looks like that at first glance and the writers yet evidently, persuade themselves it is that but it is not. If the idea of Emerson could be reduced to a jelly, all the lime land iron taken out of them - that would be [the] like the new thought. 6. Quite a rain yesterday, more than an inch I think. Snow all gone, clearing today, mercury 46, but cold wave coming. 7. Much colder, down to 10, zero at some points, clear. 9. Much ice in river, cloudy with signs of snow, milder. Writing again on Animal Mind. Blue birds still here. 10. Mild cloudy, at times a mist of rain. 11. Like yesterday. 12. Colder, sleet and then snow from the North, Le Gallienne and his friend come, an interesting day at S.S. 1/2 inch of snow. 13. Cold and clear, down to 4. - Do we not recoil from the explanation of life and mind in the terms of physics? Why should we? I know not, of course, physics and chemist and mechanics enter into the problem, but are they the only, or the chief factors? Well, when we invoke physics, we must accept the results of physics, when we invoke metaphysics we seem to be in freer or more spiritual regions. Physics can explain the phonograph how simple the mechanism of it is, but the wonder, the marvel if it is not diminished by its physics. Probably the soul and all that pertains to it, has a physical, and physiological explanation, but how inadequate it seems in face of its miraculous powers of all we feel and think and dream and aspire to! For the origin if there tones and harmonies and living voices of the phonograph, we can only point you to these waving lives of the records, yet think what sleeps in these lives! 14. To N.Y. to Rowlands. 15. Start for Ithaca, mild day. Snow on the ground. Meet Prof. Basty on train. 16. At J. cold. Mr. S. and Mrs. S. and I attend lectures on chickens. 17. To Dr. Andrew D. Whites to tea. Dr. W. an attractive man, gentle and wise, and learned. To Prof Baily's at night. 18. Snow and cold. To Dr. Whites to lunch, meet many interesting people, a fine lunch. Stay to Ithaca till Friday the 22d a good time, many interesting people, a great university. 22d. Warmer, thawing. Start for M. today. Get in wrong train at Waverly and am carried West instead of East, much chagrined, an enforced ride to Elmira, snow running fast. Reach Port Jervis at 10. 23. To Middletown today, warm. 24. At M. raining. 27. Stay at M. till this morning. Then to N.Y. C.B looking extra well. 28. In N.Y. at Mrs. Franklins, a party at night. 29. To P. this morning, and to W.P. in p.m. Snowing. 30. Four or five inches of snow. 31. Cold, near zero, at work on Long Road. Feb 1. Fine winter weather plenty of blue birds. Gone sleighing. 3d. To Vassar to dinner. 4. Milder. 5. Much warmer 50 degrees. 6. Rained a little, sleighing gone. Hazy, mild, calm, dark today, not much work in me these days. Live in the study, Mrs. B. in P. The trip to Cala abandoned Vassar girls at S.S. Clearing and spring like. [Feb 1909] 7. Mild, snow all gone. At P. with Mrs. B. 8. Froze last night. Ice boats out. Clear, mild, March like, no work in me. 9. Colder down to 20, this morning. Storm coming. 10. Some snow last night and rain this morning, trees coated with ice. Fog and murk. A song sparrow timing her instrument this morning. To Saugerties yesterday. 11. Thunder yesterday p.m. and a long shower. Clearing and colder at night. Cold and windy this morning. Snow all gone again, except in woods. 12. Clear, down to 24 this morning ice boating good Fine day. - Oh, the world and systems that the night reveals, the out 12. An ideal ice boating day, steady stiff breeze from S.W. and smooth ice. The river is flocked with ice boats, going at great speed. So far Feb. has been like March, yesterday and today are typical March days. 13. Rained a little in the night, hazy and still and cloudy this morning, more rain coming I think. 13. P.m. Clear, soft, warm like an April day. Mercury above 50. Bees out of the hive. Spring is getting ahead of itself. - Boys whistle, girls do not, so male birds sing, females do not, whistling and singing are male characteristics. - Ice harvesters beginning to open the canals this p.m. too late I think, 14. Colder, cloudy. 15. A little rain. Conclude to go to California, with C.B. and Mrs. Ashley. 16. Cold rain most of the day, an enamel of ice over everything. 17. Thunder last night and heavy dashes of rain. Clearing this morning, an ice storm, some trees broken down. Colder 29 degrees. J.B. Feb 20, - 1909 to July 15, - 1909 Part dictated to C.B. Par C.B. Friday, Feb, 19/09 (To Po'Keepice to pass the day and night with Mrs. B. before starting on Western trip. When I said goodbye to the children, Urane said in her peculiar plaintive tone, with her "gee - gee" in her and and her thumb in her mouth, "We shall be lonesome, but we shall be happy.") C.B. Feb, 20. An eventful day. C.B. and Mrs. Ashley come to P - in the morning, Julian meets them at Highland and helps them with baggage. All meet at station, Mrs. B. with us, and wait for the 11.47 train. C.B. and Mrs. A. apparently in high spirits. Off on time - Mrs. B. and Julian standing on the platform looking rather forlon. My own heart is pretty heavy - I know there's joy and sunshine ahead but for the time an feel the burden of the undertaking, and the pain of the parting. We had not gone far before we saw gleams of sunshine on the opposite shore of the Hudson? Then we pass a bald eagle flying leisurely Northward above the river. We distinctly see his white tail and head. We hail it as a good omen As we near Albany we see the effects of the heavy rain which fell Friday night - Front street under water, people rowing in it in row boats. We find the valley of the Mohawk flooded, vast stretches of meadow under water and covered with the dirty wreckage of the river ice. In many places trees stand waist deep in water, fences half submerged, or more. But our train is not delayed and we make good speed and pass Port Byron after dark - straining our eyes trying to see. C.B's group of nieces and nephews she hopes to see standing on the platform. Feb 21/09 Wake up in Northern Ohio, sun shining. Smooth easy run to Chicago which we reach on time. Bright and warm like a mild day in March. C.B's friends, the Macaulay's meet us at the train and take us home with them. Here we stay, the recipients of their cordial hospitality, during our stay in the dirty Mammoth city. Feb 22. The day began bright and spring like but became overcast in p.m. Visit R. way exchange and arrange for our tickets over the Santa Fe'. Secure, each of us, a pair of hob nailed shoes for tramping on the heels of John Muir in his great preserves in the Petrified forests and Grand Canon. Lunch at Marshall field's store. Feb 23 A day fog and mist and murk. Visited R. way office and got our letters of introduction which the officials kindly proffered us. On our way to Elle's Ave, to the old home of my dear cousin. John C Burroughs, we were much delayed by blockaded street cars. But afterward felt rather grateful for the blockade. 2/23 I found his old home turned into a club house and all memory of him and his family gone from the place. It was very sad to me. My last visit there was 1886 when both he and his wife were well. In the evg, C.B's friends help us pull ourselves together, bag and baggage, and accompany us to the train through a thick misty atmosphere and over sidewalks be daubed with black prairie mud and soot. Off on time at 8 p.m. on the California Limited and have a smooth easy ride through the night. Feb 24, We wake up in the morning under clear bright skies in North Western Missouri and are very soon speeding through the broad bottom lands of the Missouri river. At 9 o'clock we are at Kansas City. The rest of the day we are speeding through Kansas; looking out upon the great stretches of undulating prairie and river bottoms, seeing many home like farm houses and many very uninviting ones. But little wild life in the landscape - Two crows struggling in the air over a bit of food which one carried in the beak, but which he was finally compelled to drop in the Missouri river. Now and then a hawk and one blue bird sitting on a stake in a farm yard. (For more details of impressions, see letter to Julian of this date.) West of Emporia we saw a good many stone walls built of fragments of the light cream sandstone which crops out of many of the hills. But they are not attractive stone walls as we have at home; they are free from moss and lichens and look new an hasty. Apparently the Kansas farmers never draw manure on the land, at least I have seen none in my journeyings thus far. Feb 24 1 p.m. West of Topeka, a beautiful rolling country. Looks like "live." As soon as the earth is lifted up a little was to make good drainage what a different atmosphere it has, how much more friendly and salubrious it looks (a red tailed hawk) Osage orange hedges, stacks of straw, looking like great warts. Mrs. A. says some attractive farm houses on the swelling landscape. Black muddy rusty roads and straining teams hauling loads of baled hay, a few stone walls and wooded hills. Feb 25/09 Thursday Las Vegas, New Mexico, 9.30 a.m. Passed through S.E. corner of Colorado in the night. At sunrise in New Mexico entering upon a new kind of scenery; broad yellow plains stretching away on either hand surrounded by a wall of those short angular much broken volcanic mountains, with snow on their summits. All the morning speeding through this tawny plain, feeding our eyes upon the distant snow-streaked and snow capped mountains. Here and there on the broad plain herds of grazing cattle, groups of low in conspicuous ranch buildings, or the humble shacks of the new settlers. Much trap rock here and there and many stumps of volcanoes. Only a little wild life on the plain now and then flocks of what seemed to be prairie horned larks (saw an Oriole's nest there, probably Bullocks Oriole) now and then a big hawk. 2/25/09 prowling slowly along above the landscape. In recruiting of Las Vegas the low hills were dotted with scrub pine. Everywhere the landscape is goshed by little canons made by the small streams any of which night serve as a model for the great canons - a photograph of any of these little earth canons, enlarged, would give a pretty good idea of the grand canon. Nature seems to have her fashions. In the East West of her creek and river banks slope but when one gets in the Rocky Mt. region they are precipitous in the soil as well as in the rock. Las Vegas seemed quite a large, bright well built town with a picturesque minion style hotel Castenada. Here and there after leaving Las Vegas, numerous adobe huts and houses of the earth [earthy]. 2/25 10.30am. Passing through a broad, winding, irregular valley of red soil, dotted with scrub pine and cedars, surrounded by mountains covered with the same. But little signs of human occupancy or fertility of soil. To west of us high snow copped peaks shine in bright seen like great orbs - level lines across face of mts, as if strata lay perfectly horizontal and here and there a broadness and Va butte. Road muds and winds on a down grade. Dry water courses on as red as raw beef. Evidences here and there of glaciation in the banks of worn boulders and red clay. Two engines pull us over the Glorietta, 7420 ft. A vast expanse of rolling pine covered barrens, surrounded 2/25 by irregular mountain ranges, snow capped here and there. Soil as red as that of Jersey or Georgia. The bunch grass, and trees take great care not to crowd one another. A coyote's track, ant hills(?) Top of Glorietta at 11.30 am. Pleasant 20 minutes stop at Alberquerque at 1.30 where met Mr. and Mrs. Simpson of the Santa Fe' who showed us kind attention. Hotel Alvarado mission style, Mr. Harvey's most interesting Indian collection. Navajo Indians weaving modern blankets; saw many rare old ones, one which Mrs. S. showed us is priced at $1200.00. Leaving Alberquerque see San Dio mountains and Rio Grande river, and soon pass a picturesque Indian village (Isleta) The plain of the Rio Grande here is broken and irregular, 5 or 6 miles broad, bounded by the snow capped San Dio range on the East. No rain here from this time till July and Aug. No crops can be grown except by irrigation. Many of these table mountain or mesas have a sort of cosmic along the level line of the top - a broad band of fluted or scalloped rock (trap?) that has the effect of an architectural finish. At their base and on their sides there is often an effect of piers and columns high and massive with deep shadows that is very pleasing, abrupt perpendicular walls in the rocks and in the soil is the order here. Something about it all that suggest Egyptian ruins, except in the red color. None of our Eastern Mts, suggest architecture or architectural ruins but here in the West such suggestions come to you from every hand. Reached Adamana, Arizona Thursday night Feb 25, 1909. John Muir met us at the train and his voice sounded familiar and good out of the obscurity of the night. "How are you, Johnny?" my reply was "By thunder, Muir I'm glad to see you!" I introduced him to my two travelling companions and he said in a [jorose] way that he was surprised that there were not 6 instead of only two women in my train. We passed the night at the little inn at Adamana. In the morning we drove to the North Forest across an undulating Plateau and saw our first Jack rabbits scurrying away the low bushes - then big ears tipped with get always being conspicuous. They ran with so little effort that they in same way gave me the impression of the motion of a bicycle. After a ride of 2 hours we found ourselves on the brink of the broad valley in which lie the petrified trees. The spectacle of the painted desert in the distance was such that it moved C.B. to tears. We descended into the dry river bottom and after a walk of 2 or 3 miles came to the trunks of the petrified trees, lying scattered about over the red and gray clay mounds. Everywhere were trunks or fragments of trunks of enormous trees, some broken into fragments and others whole and partly covered by the soils. We saw trees 100 ft or more long, straight as a candle apparently lying where they had fallen, as in many cases the stumps and roots were still visible. We spent several hours wandering about amid there ruins of a foreworld. One could not look without emotion upon these silicified trunks of trees that had been growing millions of years ago, probably in carboniferous times. In some cases the all structure of the tress was exactly reproduced in the stone, so that under the magnifying glass we could see the cells as in the living tree. In other cases the process of crystalization had gone on and the interior of the trunk presented more of a solid vitreous appearance, in which the cell structure was obliterated. These were the ones that presented many brilliant colors, red, orange, yellow blue, purple e.t.c. The only signs of animal life (prairie horned larks) we saw were ravens flying above and croaking and the sand bore delicate tracery of the marks of small rodents such as field mice or ground squirrels or spermophiles. After a most delightful day musing and dreaming and wandering amid there strange scenes we returned to the inn at 5 o'clock. Sat Feb, 27. On this day we went to two forests, the first and third, which lie 8 or 9 miles South of the railway. On this drive we saw three coyotes sneaking among the low shrubbery like kill-beef dogs. The scene of these two forest does not differ greatly from those we saw the day before. We walked over the famous tree trunk that forms a bridge over a charm. This was over 100 ft. long and 3 or 4 ft in diameter. We ate our lunch in a huge trunk 4 or 5 ft in diameter and 100 or more feet long. In some cases we would see what appeared to be the marks of the wood borers which had tunnelled their way under the bark as they do in our own times. Often we found our selves in what appeared to be a veritable wood yard, where the trunks were sawed up in store lengths and the ground was strewn with chips - a pan ful of these chips would have deceived the eye of any house wife, but when she would take the pan in her hand she would be astonished at the weight. At one point there was a rocky spindle 30 or 40 ft high, on the top of one of the buttes, upon which was the remains of an eagle's nest. We found petrified bones of extinct animals and casts of many shells - among other fossils we found the lace coral. Though these trees had branches along their trunks they were not of the branching kind as we know them, they went mainly to trunks, like our pines. They grew long before the flowing trees and shrubs had appeared. We left Adamana that night. Sunday Feburary 28/09 Arrived at Grand canon at 10 a.m, tired and hungry. In the p.m. rode out through the Coconino forest with the Brauts. March 1. Made our descent into the canon, found it "well worth while" not with standing the chafing of meier. Remained at the canon till evening of March 4. March 5. Stopped at Doggett on the Mojave Desert to see Helen Muir. Left then March 6, at noon, starting for Riverside, California, which we reach about 6 p.m. At Riverside (Mission Inn) till March 15. March 15. Leave for Pasadena on the p.m. train. Stay at Miramonte over night. Rent a cottage on Madison Avenue. Remain at Pasadena, house keeping and enjoying the hos- pitality of the people, and the sights of the beautiful country till April 23 - a long and delightful chapter in our Western experience, of which I cannot now give the particulars. April 23. Start for Barstow, but find our tickets take us over Southern Pacific. Retrace steps to Los Angeles and reach Santa Barbara the evg of the 23d. April 24. Ride about S.B. with the Dreens in auto - a pleasant time. April 25. On hills above S.B. with Bradford Torrey - a memorable day. Stopped at the Gregson and find it a very satisfactory, moderate priced hotel. Afternoon start for San Francisco, which we reach at midnight - after a ride through a country very novel and picturesque to our eyes. April 26. Went to C.B. friends, Rev David Evans I hunted up Harvey Kilbourn, my boy lave of 58 yrs ago. Find him a practicing physician of good standing, looks so much like the Kellys. I would have known him on the street. April 27. Go to Charlie Keeler's and meet interesting people in afternoon and evening, connected with the university of California. [April 28] Met John Muir again and made the acquaintance of the artist. Wm Keith, whom I liked much. April 28. Went to Mt Tamalpais and the Muir woods with Keith and Keeler and several others. April 29. Start for Yosemite with John Muir. April 30 [May 1]. Meet Mr. Brown at El Portal, and drive into Yosemite. Reach floor of valley about noon. In p.m. visited Yosemite Falls and strolled about the wonderful valley. May 1. Tramped to Vernal and Nevada Falls with Muir and Browne and C.B. and H.M. A. a glorious day, full of the exhilaration of those wonderful scenes - a walk of about 13 miles. I cannot stop to give my impressions of Yosemite here further than to say that as contrasted with the S.C. one could live in Yosemite and find life sweet. It is like a great houses or hall in which one could find a nook where he could make his nest, looked down upon by the gods of the granite ages. The floor of the valley really has a domestic habitable look with its orchards and ploughed lands, its superb trees and its limpid silently gliding river, and above all its waterfalls fluttering against the granite precipices. The ethereal beauty of waterfalls and the genial look of the pure streams makes almost any place seem inhabitable. Stayed at Camp Ahwahnee that night where around the big camp fire, under the full moon playing pick a bad with us above Sentinel Rock, we passed a delightful evening. Sunday May 2. Spend in strolling about valley till p.m. when we take the stage for El Portal. Passed the night there. May 3. Take morning train for San Francisco. Reach Berkeley in evening. May 4. Spend in S.F. - at Keith's studio and met some more College professors in Berkeley in evening. May 5. Opens a new chapter in our experience when we take S.S. Mongolia about 11 for Honolulu. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. At sea - under clear skies and on smooth waters. My first enjoyable trip at sea. Reach Honolulu, morning of May 11. Go to Mr. and Mrs. John Warren's for luncheon - our first taste of Hawaiian hospitality and it tasted good. Stay at the Pleasanton till Friday 21st, having a very enjoyable time. 21st. Start on the 8 day trip to Main and Hawaii. Reach Main. Sat 22. - Mr. Aiken meets us and takes us to the plantation house at Wailuku, (the Penhallons) where we are very hospitably received. In the a.m. We go up the Tao valley. In the p.m. go in auto 15 miles, to Mr. Aiken's house - the Hilly Peace, and pass the night there on our way up Haleakala. May 24. Mr. Aiken drives us to Idlewilde, where we rest and lunch and in p.m. make the ascent on mule back to the top of Haleakala. Reach the summit in time to see the sunset. 25th. We spend the night there under clear skies, and set out on our return at 10 a.m. Rest and lunch again at Idlewilde, then return to Mr. Aiken's home where we spend the night. May 26. Visit the Baldwin pineapple cannery, and the sugar mill at Paia, where we lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Lowell. In the p.m. go to Wailuku by train, where on automobile meets us and takes us to LA, Hawaii just in time to catch the boat. Mauna Kea, for Hawaii. May 27. Reach Hilo at 10 a.m. after a pretty rough voyage. Lunch at judge Andrews and take train for Volcano in p.m. Reach Volcano House at dark and see the red glare of the volcano upon the clouds, from my bedroom window I can see its red glow at any hour in the night. May 28. Spend forenoon walking about near hotel and looking into the great cratery Kilauea. At 4 p.m. visit the Volcano (Halemaumau) on horse back, where we spend over 4 hours. May 29? ? Leave Volcano House early in a.m. and reach Steamer at 10. May 30. Reach Honolulu in time for breakfast. May 30. Breakfast at governor Frear's and meet Dr. Anderson, an English vulcanist, and others. Lunch at Mrs. Hendricks, spend p.m. and evening at Major Winslow's at Waikiki, moonlight serenade of native musicians. May 31 - Whitman's 90th birthday. Spend it up on Pacific Height with Mrs. Coleman, Miss Cross and others Read "Leaves of grass" to an interested audience of 6 or more. In evening met Whitman admires at Mrs. Hendricks where a Mr. Horton read form L of G. and where I talked a little about Whitman. June 1. Visited Diamond Head under guidance of Major Winslow, feel more heat, than we have before experienced. Bath and lunch at Mrs. Winslow. Took afternoon tea at gov. Cleghorns and dined at artist. Havard Hetchcock's in evening, where gov. Frear and wife and several others were present. June 2. Lunched with Cap. Wores - wrote my name in set of his books and went to Pearl Harbor in p.m. In p.m. moonlight stroll on Round Top. June 2d. Sitting here in this land of perpetual summer. I think of the coming of June in my own land - the sparkling river, the new born leafage of the trees, the first diaries and clovers just opening, the tussle grass, the long tender, shoots of the grape vines the eager meting birds, and of all the suggestions and enticements of early June - how it all comes back to me! How I wish I was there. There are the year round summer get rather tame and humdrum while the coming of our fresh coy summer is like a new bride to our arms. June 3. We walked up in the mountains (10 miles) with governor and Mrs. Frear and Mr. Cook. Dined at Prof. Alexanders in the evening. June 4. Saw paintings and artist Hitchcock's, launched at Mr. Thompsons, visited Lunalilo home and heard melees chanted and saw nose flute played by one of the natives, and heard Hawaiian girls sing modern Hawaiian music. In evening dined at Mr. Warren's. June 5. Shopping in a.m. and rested before luncheon. In p.m. visited [the] Castle's Folly at Waikiki and had tea. Had beach supper at Dr. Coopers cottage - 17 present. Spend the evening on the beach in the moonlight, talking of W.W. and other things. June 6 - Bathe in sea and stroll on beach for hours in a.m. C.B. burns her shoulder badly. Lunch at Mrs. Water house's. June 7. Mrs Weaver at Lunalilo home gives us Hawaiian lunch. Steamer where we are waiting for, reported in dock at 5 p.m. Evening call at Dr. Hobdes and receive calls later. Francis Gay of Kain calls and writes me to be his guest on Kaur. June 8. Leave the Pleasanton at 8.30 and board Manchuria. Many friends come with gifts and flowers and fruit to see us off. At 10 once more afloat on Pacific, homeward bond. June 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14. Upon the sea. Little or no seasickness among passengers, smooth waters and fair skies. Dictate some letters, play shuffle board, read, visit, and in general have a good time. At 11.30 land is sighted, our deeds are packed and we are ready to disembark. 15. To John Muir's in Mrs. Harts Auto. Muir well and at work. Back at night. 16. To Burbanks today in Auto. C.B. and Mrs. A. do not go, greatly enjoy Burbank. Back at night. 17. Leave for C, at10 p.m. 18. All day speeding through Cal. 19. In Arizona and N. Mexico. 20. All day speeding through Kansas. 21. Reach C. at 12 m. on time. 22d, 23d, 24. In C. stay with Ruth Gentry Bush, on North State St. CB. leave for Michigan on the 24th. 25. Start for home at 10.30 a.m. 26. Reach home at 12.14, all safe and sound. Find all well, weather very hot since 21st. 27, 28. Hot, 90 degrees. Heavy shower in P. on 28. 29. Cooler. Trying to undo the work in my study of Mrs. A. 30. Cool, dry, lovely day. July 1st Hot, 90 degrees, dry. Pottering around home these days, rearranging my study; rather sad. All my western trip seems like a dream. Did I really have those 4 months in that strange new land and meet all these kind hearted people. - 4 months beyond the reach of the domestic furies. But the furies are fast squaring the account now. 2d. Dry, cooler, north wind. 3d. Dry, cooler, north wind. 4. Dry, cooler, north wind. Rowland came yesterday. Ethel chase and Nora Gill today, all stay at Slabsides till the 6th. 5. Bright cool day, night cold, dry, dry. 7th. At Slabsides alone trying to improve my Grand Canyon paper. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Dry fine day at Slabsides, writing, well but easily tired. 13. Partly cloudy and warm. S.W. winds and signs of rain, much needed, no rain for nearly 4 weeks.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1907-1908 (June - February)
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1906-1907 (September - June)
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 9 May 1905 - 15 Sep 1906
Text: From May 9th, 1905 to Sept 15, 19061905 May 9. Light thunder shower last night, one drop of rain when we needed the thousand. Clearing, cool and bright this morning. A day of sunshine and apple bloom at the foot of storm king; fragrance color, warmth and a vast river prospect; mossy boulders, a dripping ledge; the milk of the black birch. the fragrance of the early meadow we pressed by girlish hands, the spicy ginger root with its "dusky floral bell", trilliums and "thrilliums...
Show moreFrom May 9th, 1905 to Sept 15, 19061905 May 9. Light thunder shower last night, one drop of rain when we needed the thousand. Clearing, cool and bright this morning. A day of sunshine and apple bloom at the foot of storm king; fragrance color, warmth and a vast river prospect; mossy boulders, a dripping ledge; the milk of the black birch. the fragrance of the early meadow we pressed by girlish hands, the spicy ginger root with its "dusky floral bell", trilliums and "thrilliums" and many other sweet wild things; few birds and no quadrupeds save two vagabond dogs - a May day not to be forgotten. 10. Cool this morning and still dry. Work on the new vol. 11. Clear and warmer, no signs of rain, apple bloom falling. Last night Julian found a song sparrow near his house so ill that he picked it up, though,It could fly, he brought it to me, the bird was panting dreadfully, it sat in my open hand with eyes partly closed apparently suffering dreadfully. We placed it under the blue bush where at 7 o'clock, it still sat panting, but I thought less rapidly as if the end were near. This morning it near dead, in the nights beneath the lilacs the little thing had died, I dissected it and found some disease of the lungs or growth on the lungs. Was it pneumonia? The lungs themselves seemed fairly normal but upon each was a thick whitish skin or heavy membrane, no doubt the poor little sparrow had a high fever and suffered greatly. It was a female, the eggs were small as fish eggs. 12. To Lakewood to dinner of the Periodical Publishers Asst. a pleasant time. Walked around the lake with Markham and Roberts, M. took off his coat.13. To Floral Park with the Rowlands. 14. Rain all forenoon. 15. Home today 20. A cool dry week, spend it at S.S. 22. Almost a frost the past two night. 23. The funeral day of Capt. Cox, at M, bright but cool. The Captain at rest after 8 years of agony, a brighter, more genial soul never lived. C. and V. and I walk to the cemetery, then C. and I go on walk to Pine ridge, and eat our lunch by a fire. 24. Back home, then to Roxbury on p.m. train, walk up from station. Old hills green and tender and beautiful; family all well. 25. A lovely lady, I roam the fields dreaming and shouting woodchucks. 26. Apple trees in full bloom, a severe frost here on 23d.Go down to the Hemlocks and back through fields, kill 10 woodchucks in all, country day. To Edens in p.m., Eden and Mag, pretty well. Rain at 6, not heavy. 27. Rain enough to wet top of ground, come back to W.P. at noon, warm, no rain here. 29. Off to Mt. Holyoke College at 6.20. reach there at 3 p.m. Stay till Thursday p.m. June 1st. Dry and cool, a fine time; the girls show me the nest of a humming bird, nuthatch, rose breasted grosbeak, meadowlark blue jay and crow. The male grosbeak was on the nest. We found a phoebes nest under a bank with a cow birds egg in it and one egg of the phoebes. The nest was evidently deserted. We were shown a fox den one mile from college and in full view.of the trolly and highway. Saw one young fox and one old one, seven had been seen that morning. June 2d. Cool and dry. 3d. Very cool and dry, all over showers the past three weeks flash in the pan - only rain enough to lay the dust, a sprinkle last night with much thunder. 4. Sunday, a little warmer and partly cloudy with sprinkles of rain - a ball sign. More queen bumble bees this spring than I ever remember to have seen before, stop anywhere in field or wood and you will see or hear one or more looking for a mating place. It seemed to be the game at So. Hadley last week. - My little bush sparrow sings of times a minute I timed him at 8 and at 11a.m. on different days, and he has sang since April, he does not sing muchin afternoon. He probably sings 300 times an hour for 7 or 8 hours or 2000 times each forenoon. As yet he shows no hoarseness or falling off in his song. The red eyed vireo sings all day till past mid summer. He is a continuous warble or a string of ejaculatory notes interrupted only [by long] while he is denouncing the warm he has just caught; He is hunting all the time he is singing, he is like a boy whistling at his work. 5. Warm fine day, dry day. 6. Fine shower last night, 3/4 inch, cloudy and cooler this morning. 10. Fine warm day, start for De Bruce, C. joins me at M. Reach L.M. at one. drive to De B. and walk the last mile, fish the mongaup in p.m. with the C's. 11. Cloudy, misty; a lovely place, beautiful trout brooks; drive forenoon.Lunch in the woods on banks of the mongaup. Fish in p.m., only 5 or 6 trout, one 9 inches. C. very happy and eager to fish, I bait her hook and bait it with my heart and yet the fish do not bite, slow rain. 12. Still warm and cloudy with spirits of rain. C and I fish the willowemoc before breakfast, only one 6 inch trout. Later all go up the willowemoc, a large fine trout stream but we take no trout. [the bee] But better than trout were the falls upon which C. and I came suddenly at a bend in the creek - a side show to be sure but very beautiful, ten or thirteen feet high the dark foliage of the woods on either side dashed here and then with masses of prick azalea, what a touch the delicate color gave. Above the road and the mossy rocks, we sat a long time in admiration, then more rainFish again in p.m. and gather wild strawberries but not the ones we wanted most. Leave at 4 for train; reach M. at 6 1/2, stay at the C's. 13. Take early train for home, a warm lovely day, showers around us in p.m; heavy at Poughkeepsie. 14. Ideal June weather, June is in my heart, a perfect day, 82 degrees in shade, cedar birds with finished nest, cherries repening. 15. Lovely day and warm. Go to St. Stevens Commencement. 16. Hot, go to Twilight Park in p.m. 17. Hot day in the woods of T.P. Drive to Ontario to see Mrs. Dodge on her back, but cherry as ever. 18. Hot, hot, come home at night. 19. Very warm, cooler in p.m.20 Cool, cloudy, go to Cornwall and climb to Southerlands Pond and to Black Rock, with Clara Reed and the Stillman girls. 21. Cloudy, cool, no rain yet. 22. Light showers - and slow rain in p.m. 23. Warm, cloudy, not half enough rain. Heavy showers south of us. Hylas piping in the woods this month. Crow black birds have left my trees with their young 24. Cloudy, cool. 30. The last June day, a week of very light rain, cool. [on the 29th] July 1. Warm with signs of rain. Go to Woodland in p.m. C. joins me at K, a delightful ride from Phoenicia to the Roxmare. 2d. All day in my old tramping and camping grounds in Snyder Hollow, very happy with C. Eat our lunch at "Sweden" with wild straw berries for desert - Back to Phoenicia.for 4.40 train; home at 8 1/2, a light rain in p.m., also last night. 3d. Bright lovely day. 4. Clear and warm 86 degrees no rain, spend the day at home occupied with various tripling matters. 8. Much company at S.S, no rain yet. Heavy shower south of us. 9. Hot, in the 90's 10. Hot, go home in p.m, reach Curtises' at 7 p.m. Two heavy showers in p.m, all well. 11. Bright, hot; sit in the sap bush beside one of the old maples and read the Evolution of Sex. 12. Hot, go up to Old Clump in p.m. Brisk brief shower at night. 13. Hot, picnic with Suter girls on big rock over by spring; Then party and go up to the old clump. 14. Hot, read and poke about, heavy shower at 7.15. Much cooler, to the Winnisook Club, reach there at noon; delightful. 16. Very cold last night, was cold in my bed at the Hinkley Cabin. 17. Cool, but gradually warm up; leave for home, run down into great heat. 96 at West Park and still no rain; things drying up, showers have come as near as Esopus on the North and Highland on the South; but not a drop here; never saw it dryer; rains all over the state, but just here. 18. Hot, hot, dry, dry, 102 in the shade of the apple tree at 2 o'clock 99 1/2 on the house, a shade below 100 in summer house. 19. Hot as ever, leave on12.15 train for M, a change comes at 3 1/2 cloud, rain in some places and high wind. Sit for my portrait to Miss De Cordoba at the Rustic Cottage.20. Cool and fine, sit for Miss Dr. C, in evening an automobile spin to State Hill with Vanamee, C. with us. 21. Cool and fine, more sitting, see C in p.m. at 6 we walk to reservoir and sit long by the peaceful water and under the glowing sunset sky, a delicious hour. 22. Moor sitting and another spin in the Auto, with Mr. V. and C, cool. 23. Light rain from S.W. in morning, much of the day with C. Portrait a fair success. 24. Off to N.Y. and take Steamer for Portland [Mc]. 25. Fine trip, reach P. at 9 1/2. Take trail for Seal Harbor at 11, arrive there at 6.35 and find the Rowlands and Mrs. Burnham waiting with the steam yacht.Aug 1st. Stay on Sutton Island with the Burnhams till today, sailing, fishing, walking, looping, reading - an ideal time, ideal weather till the last three days when there was wind and rain, very cool all the time, twice we go to Duck Island when the gulls breed and the mother caress chickens. 2d. At Seal Harbor with the Rowlands till p.m, where I take steamer for Rockland, where I take steamer for Boston. 3d. In Boston, warm, in p.m go to Weekapaug in R.I. to see Lora Leonard, a distant relative. 4. To Coseo's this p.m. to Thompson Setons. 5. With the Setons, a pleasant time. Seton makes a favorable impression on me, a beautiful house of his own designing. Hot and muggy. 6. At Ridgefield with Johnson; hot play my first game of golf and like it. Play well my competitors say, a lone drive to the Salem lakes. 7. To Tyringham valley to see the Gilders, spend three enjoyable days. Old home week, Gilder one of the best souls in the world, like a child in many ways, unselfish, unworldly, generous, devoted to any and very good cause, does not spare himself, flutters about too much like bird from branch to branch lacks continuity and concentration of effort, yet carries out what he undertakes, lacks system and organization in his life, as seems to me, a real poet - fluid, lyrical with fine deep touches now and then - the nearest to keats of all our singers.We dine at a house with Joseph Choate one day, C. a fine clear cut hawk eyed man - heard no great wit or wisdom full from his lips on this occasion. 10. Home today, hot, hot, 90, showery. 11. Above 90, Mrs. B. at Hobart. The Country green again. 12. Fine shower in the night. 13. Fine day walk to S.S. 14. Fine, go to S.S. with St. Faith's girls, 6 of them pass the night there, the happiness of the girls make me happy. 15. Raining hard, rain nearly all forenoon, girls remain and have lunch with me. 16. Cool, 60 and light rain. 17. Go to Cragsmoor to visit Dellenbaugh, a fine time; cool, clear. 19. To M. today at 4.20. At M, an automobile ride with C. in p.m. 21. Home today. 22. To Worldstock today; fine weather. 23,24,25. At Byrdcliffe, on 25, Miss Moore and Miss Patrick and I walk to Meads and then around the mountain via shady and home - 7 or 8 miles. 26. C. Came today with sunshine, I meet them at Hurley. 27. To Overlook today with the Whiteheads and C, a grand view, unforgettable. 28. Fine weather, C. leaves, I continue posing for "Cordy" and Miss Carpenter. 30. Back home today in rain. 31. To Hobart, Eden well for him. Sept 1st. At Eden's with Mrs. B, warm. 2. At Eden's with Mrs. B, warm 3. Rain 4. Steady rain till noon, go to R. 5. At Roxbury all well.6. Leave Curtsies' at 6, take train to West Harly, then to Woodstock again. 7. To Kingston 9. At Byrdcliffe again, lovely weather, C come in p.m. 10. At Byrdcliffe, lovely day. Return home at night. 11. At home writing letters, warm. 12. At home writing letters, rain, rain 13. At Slabsides with company, clearing and cooler at night. 14. Clear and cold, mercury 50. - Weenat says in his Human and Animal Psychology "P,350," The entire intellectual life of animals can be accounted for on the simple law of association. 15. Nearly a frost last night; the first cold of the season, warmer today with S.W. winds. 16. Warm, rain. 17. Warm, cloudy and misty.18. Warm, foggy, misty, stagnant. 19. Warm, clearing at noon, hot, go to Slabsides for the night, read life of Huxley. 20. Hot, stagnant, cloudy, heavy rain in p.m. 21. Stayed at S.S. again last night - sorted old letters and read the life of Huxley. Found myself at the bottom of a sea of fog in the morning. Cooler, clearing at 10. No real mark these days, only arranging my poems for publication in the spring. Health good - if I abstain from raw fruit. 22. Off to Stamford. Come today to visit Mrs. Bonner, a bright day. 23. Cool, clear at Mrs. B's place "hervana" an enthusiastic bird woman - in the first flush of her studies. 24. Fine day, play golf. 25th. Off to Bridgeport - find Smith and Emma well, a day and a night with them, cool.26. Frost last night. Start for home. Emma walks a mile with me on my way to the trolly a leaf out of the past, reach home at 3. 27,28,29, 30. Lovely days and warm, spend them at home, mercury up to 84 on the 30th a kind early Indian summer. Julian his family at Easthampton L.I. Oct 1st. Lovely, warm dreamy day, a remarkable streak of weather the 10th fine day. 2d. Foggy, overcast and a little cooler. Robins very much in evidence. The hilarity of the autumn birds very noticeable. 3. Fine rain in the night, clearing today and cooler. Quiet tranquil days. 4. Lovely, warm day. Denton and judge Upson come, at night company from Pa, warm as August. 5. a day like yesterday, only warmer.6. The superb weather continues. Soar threat today a bad walk. 7. A white frost at S.S, this morning, none at Riverby to hurt tomatoes, cold pretty annoying. - The beautiful days pass and leave me only ashes, Julian still absent at East Hampton. White throats and knights here some days. 8. The matchless days and nights continue, this is the 19 consecutive day of fine weather, clear, calm, warm. 9. All gold by day and all silver by night. No frost yet to effect the tenderest vegetation, cold better, but still weak and flabby. 10. No change in weather - only a little cooler, not a cloud for days. Many ducks on river yesterday. No thoughts these days, no work. 11. Clouds at last -with threatening rain.- When I look at the colors of autumn - red, yellow, orange, purple and C, I take but little stock in the notion that the colors of fruits are to attract the notice of some creature who will eat them and thus scatter the seed. I doubt if these fruit colors come about by natural selection, any more than the color of the autumn foliage did. In both cases it is the natural effect of the ripening process, and has no reference to use. 12. Rain last night, heavy. Julian home from E. Hampton. 13. Lovely day. 14. Perfect day and warm, Vassar girls at S.S, Olley Gilbert and her husband at night. 15. Warm and lovely. 16. Warm and lovely. Influenza still has me in its grip.17. Bright, clear, cooler, a letter from the President this morning, says he hopes to Heaven that he will have a legitimate opportunity to skin M.J. Long sometime. 18. Warm, cloudy from S.W. the trees and forests in the light of their autumn glory, no frost yet to kill the tenderest plants. 19. Warm, above 70, light rain last night, still half sick with my cold. The foulest of all colds is a fair - weather cold. 20. Rain, colder. Go to C. and spend day at the Stallmans. Clearing in p.m. Go to meet train at 5.30, a disappointment. To West Point at night to Denton's. A windy night with fast falling temperature. 21. Clear, windy, cold. Walk to Highland falls and view the school house where I taught in '63-42 years ago, School house now used as stable, most of my pupils are dead; meet only two Denton and Royal Taylor, my best scholarFrank Dusenbury a girl of 15, dead long ago. Few old landmarks left in the village, a kind if large ulcerous growth of the place, many long sad thoughts. Began my study of birds while living here, and of botany. Wife "got religion" here and joined the church. I read medicine; wrote nothing here. Walk up to Fort Putt. Foot ball in p.m. 22. C. and C. come from N.Y, a happy day at Slabsides, chilly day but fair. 23. Clear, cool, begin writing again. Effects of cold about gone. 24. Overcast threatening, no frost yet to speak of. Green corn yet yesterday. Go to S.S. to stay and write. 25. Mild and fine. 26 and 27. At S.S. 28. Vassar girls; fine day. 29. Fine day, company at S.S.1905 30. Lovely weather. Writing at S.S, on Human traits in animals. 31. Frosty night, fine days. Nov 1. Cool dry weather; health good. 2. Cool dry weather; leaves half off trees.4. Cool pleasant. To M. in p.m. 5. Delightful day at M. 6. Home this morning. Rain at night. 7. Fine day write in morning. 8. To N.Y, to attend 1st academy dinner meet C. at Dr. J's. Dinner not a success - only 9 members present, Mark Twain very diverting as he always is. 10. Snow in some parts of country, cold and partly cloudy here. Good Nov weather. 11. Down to 18 this morning. 12. Lovely warm day, Heffley, Rowland and Pittsburg lawyer at S.S, a good time. 13. Fine in forenoon. Wind and cold at night. 14. Clear, cold, down to 18, down to 12, back of the hill. 15. Partly cloudy, down to 22 this morning.17. to N.Y. in afternoon. Clear, dry cold, at Gilders at night. 18. Stay with Rowlands. To Cordis reception in p.m., C. there. To theatre at night to see Julia Marlow, a great actress, clear dry. 19. To Dr. J's to dinner and to C. reception at 3. 20. Home in p.m. clear dry cold. 21. At home writing, clear dry cold. 22. Bad sickness last night, all night, - everything inside me seized with sudden panic and rushing out by front door and by back, so that by midnight I am completely cleaned out. The effect of eating some state clam broth I think. Feeble all day. 23. At work again, but soar throat coming on. 24. Still clear, dry mild Indiansummer weather. One of the finest falls in 25 years, a bad night with my throat. Below par today, cough some. 25. Lovely day, Vassar girls at S.S. Feel miserable, but do my best to be agreeable. 26. Still fine and warm; feel better. 27. Still much below par. 28. Our first snow today, began at noon 2 or 3 inches by night, then rain and warmer. 29. Snow all off and raining, still much below par; am taking Dr. Tuttles drugs. 30. Clear, cold and windy; feel better; stopped writing two days ago; sorry I did not feel equal to the trip to Eden's today. -Paley defines instinct thus "an instinct is a prospensity prior to experience and independent of instruction." Natural theology, 2d chapter. Dec 1. fine day. 2. Fine day, an attack of chills fever last night, a wretchednight. Glad the disease has declared itself. Start for M. at noon. Stay at Vanamees. C. comes at 5. Some fever in evening. 3. Rain all day, much needed. C. comes at 11, stay till 10 p.m. 4. Clearing and colder, keep in doors all day and write some. C. comes at 5 and spends the evening. 5. Clear cold. go to N.Y. and to the Mark Twain birthday dinner at night, a gay company, only a few known to me, my partner is Louise Chandler Moulton, whom I do not find pretty or interesting. I could not recall one of her poems. Twains speech amusing as usual but contained a very few things, a serious man would care to say, except at the close. This was fine "Your invitation honors me and pleases me because you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, and would nestle in the chimney corner, and smoke my pipe, and read my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and that when you in your turn shall arrive at pier No. 70 you may step aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart."6. Clear, calm. Home today on 10.23. 7. Day of great beauty and serenity. River like a mirror, temperature above 40, not feeling very well, some fever again. Mrs. B. goes to P. today to board for the winter, I stay and board at Huds and then at Julian's. 8. Another Indian summer day, clear - calm, mild, slightly veiled. Such a fall as we have had! Feel better today. 9. Cloudy mild. 10. Two inches of snow last night, mild. Write some today. 11. Colder, cloudy. Write in morning for outing. 12. Sun and cloud, calm, mild. No work today. 13. Clear, calm, March like. No blue birds or robins this fall as last, and yet it is much milder.- From a letter to Ernest McGaffey. -"There is many, a fresh breath of wild nature in the Sonnets (To a wife) and plenty of the good red blood of human love and passion. The thoughts of feelings are always tangible and well within the sphere of universal experience" This last is a great matter to me, the airy and fantastic nothings of so much current verse - how I hate it! I want the ground just as real beneath my feet in poetry as in prose. 14. Dry, nearly clear, sharp. 15. Cloudy, cold, threatens snow. 16. Clear [threatens snow] go to P. 17. Clear, calm, lovely winter day. 18. Fine days continue.- Am trying to read Howells "London Films," while I am reading for the second time, after an interval of 40 years, Darwin's "Voyage of a naturalist" I turn with relief from Howells to Darwin, H. tires me. Why is it? Such a lover of good literature as I think I am, why can I not read Howells? Filmy indeed is his book - the mere glint and surface of things and done in that, to me, tiresome circumbinar style - nothing direct or emphatic or positive, but shaded and toned and qualified and miled till it all slips through the mind without making any impression, a seamless kind of style, wrought and manipulated till it wearies one with its mere verbal [per]cleverness and perfection, such a dept pen! What feats he performs with it, balances and tunes and tosses his subject around on his point like a juggler. The book lacks body and substance. It is like some fine flavoured confection that meets in your mouth and leaves nothing. Try Tame's notes or Emerson traits and see the differences. 18. See in river fast this morning, though zero has not yet been recidual by 10 or more degrees, a long procession of boats has just passed up. Still the ice does not move. 19. Still fair, calm, mild, walk to SS. 30. The mild placid day continue. Every morning the weather report says cloudy, or rain, or snow, but each day is of Dec, Indian Summer veiled calm, delightful, mercury in morning.25 or 26. In middle of day 42 or 3, and yet very few birds. Feel better today; walk to S.S, am writing on my philosophy of life. Sleep in my study and board to Julian's. My fathers birthday - 102 years ago and my mothers death day - 25 years ago. Darius said in a letter to Hooker in 1865, that three or four days never passed without his thinking of his father. My father has now been dead over 121 years ago not a day passes when I am home that I do not think of him. But Darwin was engrossed with great problems as I am, several times and mother too, I am not perpetually comparing my life with his to my disadvantage. Father never ate of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge as I have. This fruit begets longing and unrest and a hunger that nothing satisfies. 21. Rain last night and rain today, mild. 22. Mild, overcast, see floating again like March. Snow all gone23. Dark, misty, mild, looks like an open winter. Frost going out the ground. Writing on my philosophy of life. 24. Clear, sharp, go to P. and to St. Faiths. 25. Bright, lovely day, like Nov. No snow, spend it at St Faiths. Rarely see such an Xmas. 26. Bright, mild, calm clouds look warm, only a few degree of frost last night, Write to C. Great white island and continents of thin ice floating on the river. Health all right again. 27. A fine Indian Summer day, mild degrees (45degrees) hazy, tranquil, like the best of Nov. Finish my "Outlook upon life", walk to S.S. a fine spectacle in the Western skies these nights - Saturn and Mars almost shaking hands - now Mars is soaring above and away from Saturn. 28. Another Indian summer day. Go to P.29. Rain last night from South clearing this forenoon. Warm and sunny like April, light thunder shower at 4. 30. Colder, clearing, go to P. 31. Mild, fine day, thermometer about 26. 1906 1st Jany. Clear lovely day only a few degrees of frost. go to S.S. in p.m. 2d. Still clear and lovely, calm, mild, mercury 29 in mornings, go to M. 4th. Go to P. 5. Clear, sharp. go to N.Y. to lunch with Mr. Coffin. 6. Windy, chilly. 7. At the p.m and Brush Club. 8. Sit for MacVeil, colder. 9. Cold, down to 12 [at hon] in N.Y. down to 2 at W.P. A reception at Rowlands. 10 and 11. In N.Y. posing for MacVeil. 11. To M. 12. At M. raining.13. Home this morning and to P. in p.m., mild. 14. Snow gone, mild. 15. Mild, cloudy, in P. 16. Rain in the night, mild, clearing in p.m, warm as April. 17. Clear and windy like March a few degrees of frost last night. River open in front, ice fast above. 18. Snowing this morning - 1 1/2 inches clearing in p.m. and warm as April. 19. The wonderful winter mildness continues, bright calm, April like, mercury just down to freezing this morning. And yet hardly a bird of any kind to be seen. Working at my poems. 20. Cloudy and light snow in morning. Chilly day, but warm enough at S.S. 21. This winter is a record breaker above 60 today, above 70 some places North of us, calm, smoky, delightful, in P.22. Overcast but still April like, mercury 55, frost all out the ground, very humid and hazy. 23. Still 55 and threatening rain from S.W, too warm - danger to fruit birds, came up to W.P., yesterday p.m, mercury stands at 60 now (3 p.m.) in my summer house, a sheet of fog lies close to the surface of the river, no rain yet. 24. Cooler - down to 40, nearly clear, a robin this morning in the Gordon orchard. To S.S. in p.m; roads drying. 25. Cold wave in the night, windy, down to 18 this morning. I have no doubt but that back of and working through those visible palpable forces and objects, is a whole universe of forces of which we only now and then catch glimpses. There are sounds too fine and sounds too coarse for us to hear; there are material substances too fine for us to see, odors too delicate for us to smell.Would not analogy lead us to believe that there are forces and influences and presences that we want not of? There is occasionally a person who by some subtle sense becomes aware of a cat hidden in the room; others seem to have the power to detect hidden veins of water in the earth, others to read the thought in your mind e.t.c. 26. Down to 18 this morning, a calm, bright, lovely day. No ice on the river and no snow to be seen. - During the warm days at the beginning of this week the little piping frogs were heard in the marshes, I did not hear them but my neighbors did, this is something that never happened before since I have lived here, I doubt if it ever happened in my life time. 27. Still bright and calm and warmer.28. In P, sun and cloud, mild. 29. Colder, down to 18, clear, windy. 30. Clear, milder, smoky, not a flake of snow even in the woods, a winter so far from out the South, probably quite as mild as a Carolina winter. 31. Calm, hazy, only a few degrees of frost last night. Feb 2. Go to Hightstown N.J to visit Lora Leonard. 3. A bright cool day, The Peddie Institute like the School at Cooperation I attended 50 years ago. Even the building the same size, shape and the campus. The same boys and girls too, and teachers. It all made me curiously sad. 4. a bright windy day, a walk with Lora and Miss Knox, on the whole a good time at Peddie. 5. Off for Washington: reach thereat 2p.m. Go at once to Harvey's for steamer oysters, as if old. then to Cosmos Club, put up at the Club by Dr. Howard, a quiet homelike place. 6. Lunch at the White House, meet Root, Dr. Merriam, May Pitcher and others. The President very cordial calls me Oom John and tells me of his affection for me, Mrs. R, very cordial. Rowland comes in p.m. I remained in W. from the 5th to the 21st part of the time at the Cosmos Club and part of the time at Aaron Johns and Dr. Bakers. Dined at Dr. Merriam's, Dr. Howards, Mr. Baileys, Miss Gardiner Hubbards, Mr. Covilles, Mr. Gannetts. Lunched twice at the White House met Root, Tapt and Moody. Moody and small, rather important man -able, but not great, openshis eyes too wide, Tapt big, fleshy judicial, among these men and senators e.t.c. Roosevelt is of a different stamp -the imprest of the machine is not upon him; he touches life at so many more parts, he is so alive all over. I liked Root the best of the Cabinet I saw, walked with the President on Tuesday p.m. for nearly two hours along Rock Creek and Pine Branch. - A red hot walk through mud water and over ice and snow, a long paths, a long the highway, across fields, driving ahead as if on a wager. I could follow him easier than I feared I could; a four mile gait most of the times with much talk. Day clear and mild. On the night of the 8 it snowed 3 or 4 inches. At West Park the snow fall wasnearly a foot. A cold wave before and after made 8 inches of ice on the river. C. Came morning of the 9th. We walk about my old haunts, Saturday the 10 we all go to Rock Creek cemetery, I visit the grave of my old and beloved friend Hugh McCulloch. C. returns Monday the 12th R. leaves same day. W. very beautiful, weather fine a vague sadness fills me as I go about the ghosts of 40 years follow me. On Sunday the 18th we go to Plumer's Island above Cabin John's Bridge and picnic in the camp of the Biologist, an enjoyable day. To Arlington on the 21st and on to N.Y. in p.m. Meet Julian in N.Y. Go to sportsmen's show and to Bronx Park and home to P, on Saturday the 24th25. Rain nearly all day, mild. 26. Home to W.P. today; clear mild. 27. Colder, windy. 28. A cold wave, down to 10, clear. Return to P. Mch 1st. Clear, cold, down to 10, very windy. 2d. Milder, down to 20, streets dusty, staying in P. 3d. Raining - a heavy rain. 4. Mild clearing, in P. 5,6,7,8,9. At home boiling sap most of the time, no snow, cold some nights; pretty good sap weather. 10. Fine day, picnic at Slabsides a happy day. 11. A sugar maple picnic at Riverby, with Sickley and his girls. 12. Colder, freezing at night. 13. Boil sap all day, cold. 14. Snow squalls, too cold for sap.15. A full blown mid winter snow storm from N.E. began before 7 and lasted till 9 p.m. reached its height about 4, when the river was blotted out, mercury about 20, probably 10 inches of snow, drifted, Kellogg here. 16. Clearing, sap runs in p.m. snow softens. 17. Clear, down to 20, a winter landscape and rivers cape. 18. Cold and clear. 19. Snow began at noon, finished at 9 p.m. 8 or 10 inches, much deeper in some parts of the state. In P. 20. Cold, clearing. Like mid winter. 21. Clear, cold, down to 20. Back to W.P. 22. Clear, cold at work on my reminiscent the past week. 23. Clear, cold, down to 12 this morning [at] 24 at noon. Boil in 4 pails of sap, snow 18 inches in woods. 24. Cold and clear, zero in many places. 25. Still cold, zero and below; yet butlittle ice forms in river. The same temperature in Dec, would close the river. 26. Warmer, cloudy, mercury 22. 27. Mild, thawing, cloudy, misty, many letters about my cosmopolitan article. 31. Fine day but cool, off to M. April 1st. Clear cold, froze hard last night, at M. See C. in evening. 2d. Clear, cold, C. calls at V. 3d. Lovely day, mild, a walk in p.m. Health good, now I am on the road to 70 - seventy the next stop. 4. Mild lovely day, now the robins do laugh, Mrs. B, home today gone 4 months. 5. Mercury at 60. 6. Light rain last night, cooler. 7, 8. Mild fair days. 9. Snow starting to rain in p.m.very heavy all night. The ground all afloat this morning (10). 10. Clearing, snow all gone, mild. Frogs all the past week. 11. Mild, light showers. 12. Mild, grass starting. - Saw a female blue-bird making love to a male and meeting with a spiteful rebuff each time. She followed the male about lifting her wings and calling to him in her most endearing tones, when he would dark at her viciously, I could hear the snap of his hill, she would utter a little scream of pain and protest dart away, and then as the male retreated follow him again pleadingly, amorously. Time after time, I saw the angry male dash at her with clicking beak and as often she recovered and followed him with her softest warbles and most winsome gestures. The female blue bird is the only bird I have ever seen make advances to the male. The hen sparrow alwaysresents the addresses of the males. I have seen a her sparrow seize a male and hold him over the edge of the roof a moment and then at him drop. The hens always tweak the feathers of their admiring suitors. 13. Clear, cooler, a high hole morning, yes and a bush sparrow morning. 14. Mild, cloudy. 15. A warm murky rainy April morning. Grass growing fast, an angle warm morning; they are crawling everywhere on the ground. They began to throw up their casts several days ago - a heavy rain clearing in p.m, a red maple in bloom humming like a hive with bees. 16. Clear, Cooler. 17. Lovely day. 18 Lovely day warm - toads sing all day, work little in garden; walk to S.S. in p.m. Miss Alkins and Mr. Eastman19. Perfection of April days, warm tranquil, brooding. Blood root and dicentra in bloom. Bush sparrow sings nearly all day, laboriously reading Bachellers "Silas Strong", no writing but letter writing these days. Terrible earthquake in San Francisco. 20. To N.Y. to Rowlands; fine day. 21. Still at R's reception, C. in p.m. 22. At Dr J's, in evening at Heffley's 23. Rain with snow cold. Go to S.J. 24. Clearing, colder, home today. 25. Rowland, Noyes and Perrine come to S.S. Fine day. 26. At S.S, a good time. 27. Vassar teachers, lovely day, R. leaves at 5. 28. Ideal April day; Vassar and Putnam Hall crowd. Light frost every night. 29. Hazy, mild, company at S.S. 30. Fine warm day. Work a little and answer letters, again farewell to April.May 1st. Clear, cooler, May signs today - robins go by with loaded beaks; a nest on the end of a pile of grape or warts with 4 eggs; light yellowish patches over the brown woods - the blooming sugar maples; they are again shaking out their tassels; cherry trees just blooming; yellow patches of marsh marrigolds in the swamps; everywhere come the sweet ringing songs of the bush sparrows; dandelions just begin to dot the leaves; the Cheswick and brown thrasher here and the plough is doing its work. - I often think of Lincoln's and Everetts speaches at Gettysburg; one of them has become a classic of the other not a word has servived in the popular mind, but Lincoln had greatly the advantage; he had been through the firing furnace and thepure gold in him brought out. He had had Gettysburghs of his own, events had brought him closer to the pith and marrow of things and to the heart of the people. The fearful responsibilities that had been put upon him and the ordeals to which he had been subjected had brought out the nobler and more heroic lines of his character. He had a depth of seriousness that E. could not have. Had E, been through the same trials doubtless his speech would have struck a deeper and more lasting note. Atlas with the globe upon his back will speak words of deeper wisdom than Atlas without the globe. 4. Fine day, off to Atlantic City with the P.P.A. of A. Meet Ceveland on the train. Like him, kindly, serious unaffected, humble, young Ernest Colby - like him too.Jersey getting green and leafy, a big day dinner at night; over 400 men - editors, authors, publishers, artist e.t.c, Young Colby makes the star speech of the evening. He has the real stuff, a fat man, John a wise of Va. tells the most laughable story, a fat man's humor comes easy. The stories on Jonny Dodge fall rather flat. He is too clear and intellectual. Paul Morton dull. Cleveland same and honest but not brilliant. Van Dyke presides well. 5. Warm; loop all day on the sands with the Rowlands; then to Vanamees. 6. Cool, cloudy. 7. Rain all last night from N.W. Cold, walk with teachers of high 5. 8. Bright and cold. 9. Leave A.C. today in rain. 10. Cool, partly cloudy. 11. Frost last night.12. A little warmer, but chilly till p.m., when it gets warm. 13. Warm, above 7-, maple leaves half out, apple trees blooming. 18. Hot, dry, up to 92 to 96 in shade. Knox Taylor and his Lucy at S.S. 19. Hot, hot, but cooling a little in p.m. 20. A big change, very cool and no rain, a picnic at H. 21. Go out home on morning train, a frost last night to scorch tomatoes. 25. Stay home till this morning, a peaceful, sad, happy time, all the friends well. The country very green and tender. Bobolinks madly singing in the meadow. On the 22nd I go down to the grave yard and spend an hour or two in silent communion with my dead -sad, sacred hours.step at the Suters on my way back. On the 23rd go up to the old clump, on the 24 go fishing over by the school house, a willow near the site of the old school house very fragrant, delicious, never met it before, what kind is it? a fine shower at night. 26. At S.S today with Brooklyn teachers getting very fry. 27. Rain today from N, cold. 28. Rain all day, cold. 29. Clearing, windy, rain raised the weeds and springs. 30. Clear, fine day, light frost last night in places, much company at S.S. 31. Mild, partly cloudy.June 1st Welcome to June with her dairies, buttercups and clover. 3. Fine day, Brooklyn friends. 4. A load of Vassar girls in p.m. 5. Warm fine day, Saugerties visitors and Mrs. Packard. 6. Bright warm day, off for Dr. Bruce. Take 8 trout after 4 p.m. 7,8,9. At the Caulfield's; warm fine days. Bring in 45 trout in all much enjoy my visit. The [menegaup] an ideal trout stream, how I wished for C. 9. To M. in p.m., see C. at night, heavy showers with hail. 10. Fine day with showers in p.m. All day with C. a lovely visit. 11. Home today, cool, fair, company. 12. To class day at Vassar.13. Restful day at S.S, the company appears. 14. Bright day, resting at S.S. 15. Hot day, 85 degrees, peace and rest at S.S. [no co] 16. Raining this morning from S, needed and in p.m. 17. Rained gently all night - a soft soothing rain but did not sooth my pain at S.S. 18. [Cloud and] fair, go to P.E. 19. Rain 20. Fair and warm. L.L.L and G.P. come today. 21 and 22. Warm, fair days. 23. Warm, heavy shower at boat races. 24. Fine day, and cooler. 25. Fine day, and cooler, ideal. 26. Ideal June days continue. "Dr. Anna and A, Angell entered into rest June 8th "What poignant emotion than words gave me! I had thought of her many times as probably dead, yet when the announcement came suddenly in these words, it sank into my heart all that trying, and to me, eventful time of 28 years ago and the part she played in it, passed quickly before me. How much she has been in my mind the past day and night, she was a fine spirit, without her aid I probably should not have had Julian. She came here a few years ago in my absence and Mrs. B. was very ugly to her, she probably came thinking Mrs. B. would feel grateful to her by this time, but she was bitter and abusive. The dear doctor with a pale face asked for a drink of water and left the house. I wrote to her and expressed my regrets e.t.c. Peace to her ashes!27,28,29. Ideal June days, hot. 30. Hot, bright day, meet C. in K, a lovely afternoon at K.P. Long slow shower at night. Jult 1. Hot day, cooler in p.m, brief hard shower in the night. 2d. Sultry a terrific shower at 8 p.m, hardest of the season 2 inches of water in 1/2 hour. 3. Still sultry, showers in the air. 4. Pleasant day, go to Byrdcliffe. 5. Cloudy, cool, still, with C. at B. 6. Home today, fine day. 7. At Slabsides, company, fine day. 8 and 9. At S.S, shower on the 9th. 10. Clear sultry, off for Byrdcliffe which I reach in p.m. Stay at Byrdcliffe part of the time in my tent till the 27th when I return home for 3 days. Much rain all the time and heat. Read several books, Stevenson's letterand letter of Fitzgerald, life of St. Francis of assisi one of Paters and others. July 31. Return to Byrdcliffe, for 3 days, heat, humidity, much rain C. not in a happy mood, poor child. Aug 4. Heavy shower at noon, go to Saugerties and stay with Frelighs and Overlaghs at Hi-Crag, till Friday the 10, a fairly pleasant time. 10. Back to Byrdcliffe, stay till the 11, then home. 12. A change in the weather, cooler and clearing. 13 and 14 and 15. Charming clear, cool August days, enjoy being home and seeing J and Ed, work at the boat. 17. To K. delightful day. 18. Getting hot and humid. 24. A hot sticky, hasty week from 85 to 88. Light showers, at home all week.25. go to Winnisook on early train and stay till tuesday the 28th, heavy rain on 26 and 27, a quiet restful time. 28. Brilliant day, cool. Home to Roxbury - all well. The ideal August days. 29. On old clump, today lovely day. 30. Walk or sit about dreaming the old dreams. Curtis as well as last year still milks with the old vigor - sometimes 19 cows. 31. Curtis and I go to see Jane and Homer, Jane well and broader than ever. H. very low, quite helpless, but he knows us and asked questions. To Eden's in p.m. Sept 1. Eden looks better than he has done for years, at light work most of the time. Mag well, a day of wonderful clearness and beauty. Back to W.P at night.2d. Fine day, rain at night. 3d. Raining in morning till 10 1/2 clearing in p.m. warm. 5. Go to Croton to visit Miss Truman, a pleasant time, cool. 6. Back home today. 8 Warm and dry, at Slabsides alone. 9. Hot 84 degrees sore throat. 10. Still hot and dry; throat better 11. Back to Riverby, overcast, cooler. 12, 13. Hot and moist. 14. Cooler, after light shower. 15. Clear, cool, from north dry. Health fairly good.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 1903-1905 (October - May)
Text: 1903 From Oct, 1st to May 8, 1905Diary from Jany 1st 1903, lost or stolen - stolen I am convinced (Found at S.S. in July) Apart part of the winter at home. On Feb 14, went to Florida with Mr. Childs, stayed ten days at Manatee with Mr. Aiken. In Washington Mch 4th to 8th. At home till Mch 26th when I went to N.Y. and then to Washington. On April 1st started with President - Roosevelt in his western town. Reached Yellow Stone Park April 8th. - In the park till 22nd or 3d. Left the President on...
Show more1903 From Oct, 1st to May 8, 1905Diary from Jany 1st 1903, lost or stolen - stolen I am convinced (Found at S.S. in July) Apart part of the winter at home. On Feb 14, went to Florida with Mr. Childs, stayed ten days at Manatee with Mr. Aiken. In Washington Mch 4th to 8th. At home till Mch 26th when I went to N.Y. and then to Washington. On April 1st started with President - Roosevelt in his western town. Reached Yellow Stone Park April 8th. - In the park till 22nd or 3d. Left the President on 24th for Spokane with Mr. Gilbert. In Spokane with delightful people till May 10 or 12th. Start for mountain to visit Abel Gill, spend 3 or 4 days withGill at his ranch near Landusky 60 miles from R.R. Leave Gills on 16th or 17 return home through St. Paul and Chicago. Reach West Park May 22nd. Country very dry, both West and East, no rain here for 2 months. - Great forest fires. Go to M. May 31st stay 2 days. Rains begin middle of June and continue all summer. A cold wet summer [Go home] Write much in June on annual life and instinct, stay at S.S. Go home late in July; stay three weeks or over. Write much of the time. Then go to Twilight Park to setfor portrait to Mr. Rowland for 10 days; portrait a great success then home. Aug 26 go to P.B. and spend a week. then to East Hampton for a week, then to Veconia for a week with Rowland then home. Home again about Sept 20. Fine weather, at work again writing on "What do animals know?" Oct, fine and warm till the 8th when the great rain began. Rained nearly 24 hours about 10 inches water; terrible floods in many places and R.R. washed away or buried. the heaviest rain fall I ever saw.for so long a time - two storms met one from N.W and one from South. Such meetings and crossing always make a flood, it is a kind of cross fertilization - what a robust storm the union makes, each alone would not have yielded 1/2 the amt of water. When the two united wind changed to N.E. Wind continued N.E. for four days with clouds and some rain. 12th. cloudy and chilly. 13. Clear and bright at last and cool. Not much frost yet - corn untouched. Nearly 20 inches more than the average rainfall this year. No hot weather to last more than two days all summer. Became a grandfather Aug 12th.14 and 15. Glorious days; spend them at Slabsides. Mr. and Mrs. Childs come on 15th and stay a day and night. 16. Overcast, warm misty. 17. Overcast, rain in p.m. 18. Clearing, cooler. 19. Growing milder. 20. Bright and lovely, maples all golden. - To me much of Jefferies writing about nature is child like - vage and formless highly colored masses of vapor, no tangible thought or fact. He is poor in ideas, poor in science but rich in feeling and in fancy, no intensity of pungency or phrase but a diffused kind of gladness in nateure.Oct 20, 1903 - You look in vain for a man's style in his language, what is called good English does not make a good style, on the want of it a bad style. Style is a quality of mind. If a writer's relation to his language is vital and not second hand and mechanical, if his words carry his own fresh personal quality, he is near to a good style, whether he uses Latinized English or Saxon English. -There is probably more literary culture in the world today than ever before, more knowledge of books of style of all the technique of literature and yet or no great literature is being produced, why? Because this literary talent is no longer associated with greattypes of men, great and original persons. The current skilled and learned men are light weights. The amount of nature force available in them is small. Without your great character to begin with them can be no great poet or artist. How clever Mr. Howells is, how skillful, how delightful his style and yet it would not do to call him a great novelist or a great writer. There is nothing great about him. He makes me admire his delicacy and depthness, his lightness and sureness of touch, but he does not make me love anything he portrays. I do not want to meet the people he portrays, or see the places he describes, or read the books he discusses, or take the journeys he takes. He cannot give himselfhe can only give you his talent. He looks heartiness, breadth, richness of the fundamental human traits and qualities. His work is often photographic and lacks just what the photo lacks - the man is not in it. - How often I try to forecast the fare distance future and to see how it will be with us then - five hundred or a thousand years hence. How completely the world of today, with all its names and fames, it questions and its triumphs will be forgotten, buried beneath the accummulation of the centuries, like the leaves upon the trees that today fill over eyes, but next year are dust. I fancy that even most of our cemeteries will be obliterated in less than a thousand years, and as for books - think of the millions andbillions of books that will by that time be pressing down upon those of today. If science and material progress go on for the centuries as they have gone on during the century just past our world and its achievements can verily be found at that time, by the diligent students digging down as he does now to find Egypt or Rome. - Let me define God in my own terms as the active vital principle of the universe, without which nothing is or can be, then I agree with the god makers. Everything is of God and for God and by God, not a sparrow falls or can fall to the ground without his cognisance, not a bud unfolds or seed sprouts without his ordering. You and I are a part of God in a literal sense.21 and 22d. Lovely autumn days and mild, 23d. Rain from N.E., not very heavy. 24. Cold and rain, with streaks of sunshine. the "Castle" crowd comes. 25. Cold. the first severe frost last night; killed all the leaves on the grape vines. 26. Clear with increasing cold this morning. Wind N.W. flurries of snow in p.m. - Saw Bishop Patter yesterday.(Sunday p.m.) at the station, the door swung open [and in it] authoritatively and in the door way stand the bishop "Gives me a check to N.Y., will you sin?" Spoken in a proud commanding tone and looking at me as I turned from dropping a letter in the box, Another answered and I went my way and he a fellower of the mick and lovely Jesus! He looked like a richmans' bishop - the N.Y. rich man. There was something imposing and metropolitan about him. I would not like to see him at Slabsides. 27. Cold windy, snow yesterday p.m. and at night. Severe cold wave for Oct. - down to N.Y. this morning. 28. Warmer and fine. 29. Warmer and fine like Indian summer. 30. Go to N.Y. lovely day, Indian summer 31. In N.Y. Lovely day, Indian summer. Nov 1st. At Englewood with Chapman. Ideal weather. 2d. In N.Y. at the Bronx. 3d. Warm as Sept. Indian summer. 4. Return home, Indian Summer. 5. Slow warm rain from S.W. 6. Colder, snow squalls all afternoon. 7. Clear with increasing cold.8. Bright cool day; spend it at S.S. with company. 9. Lovely day an unforgettable walk through fields and woods in Orange Co. A cloudless sunset with the sky all glowing, gradually deepening from yellow flame to crimson [ruckers]. It seemed as if the sky was full of still deffused vapors that slowly burned up, what a spirit of tranquility - broaded over the landscape all day. 10,11,12,13,14. Indian Summer weather continued, perfect days, severe nights. 15. Cooler, and some cloud. 16. Warmer with slow rain. 17. Still raining and warm. 18. Colder, the ground full of water again.19. Cold, down to 21 at night, snow in the north. 20. Clear and cold. Pine grosbeaks here some weeks. 21. The coldest night yet; down to 17 or 18 Finishing my papers on animal life and instinct. 23d. Cold, dry. To N.Y. to Miss Dwight. 24. Cold, dry. See the Van Bs' off for Italy, at 2 meet C. at Hotel. Go for lunch then to Miss D's, to see portrait, then to Rowlands studio. Dinner at little Romer Cafe on 6th ave. 25. Cold, dry. Lunch with Johnson at Players Club, then to 5th ave Hotel to meet C, - to lunch, to Reader office then to museum, Natl History. 26. [To Dr. Johnsons at] meet C. at Drs, at 10 1/2, then toDr. Johnsons; thanksgiving dinner there then all p.m, with C, and the family, in evening go with C to Dr's; then to the Circle. 27. Reception at Miss D's; many friends; all like the portrait. Vanamee and Sister there, C. comes at 5, stays to lunch then goes to Dr's, at 8 1/2 join her and we go to Little Hungars to meet Vanamees, a delightful memory; home near midnight. 28. To Phila, with Dantons to see football game; pleasant day, cold, with light snow flurries. 29th. Sunday; make several calls, an hour with Gilden. 30. Cold dry, all day at Miss D's. R. paints mother portrait of me. Good.Dec 1st. Clear, little warmer, meet C at 9 1/2 at drug store; then an hour with Miss Earl and R. at his studio. Then meet C. and stay at studio from 12 to 1. The old bitter cup again; less bitter this time, may it prove a cordial to us both. Lunch at R. Cape. at 1. C, bright and happy; then to 14th street; leave C, at music store, with sunshine in her face. Rowland goes with me to train ta 4 p.m. Reach home at 7. 2d. Poor sleep last night; many long, sad thoughts, cold clear. 3d. Winter upon us; 8 inches of snow in the night, clearing in p.m. 4. Clear, down to 20, good sleighing. Better sleep. Go to S.S. in p.m. 5. Cloudy, looks like more snow, sad inspite of all my efforts to be glad, selfish.6 and 7. Calm, partly clear winter days. The snow slowly evaporating. The Old Adam very rank in me [since] the last 10 days- like Florida. 8. Sad today and full of vague longings, something seems to have gone out of my life. One year ago tonight came that crushing letter, and another drought from the same bitter cup has been mine this Dec, I must see to it that there is never a third. My span of life is too brief to be thus wrenched and broken. 9. We go to P. Mike and I go to board at Mrs. W's snow in p.m. and at night. 10. Five or six inches of snow; good sleighing. 11 and 12. Cold sharp days. 13. Rain from S.W clearing off. Colder in p.m. 14. Cold wave; down to 10.15. Cold and partly overcast; come up home and dine with Julian and E. Find a letter from C. much is in river. But little of my life in this record. 16. To N.Y. today, stop with Miss D. Clear and cold. 17,18,19. Cold and dry, mercury 8 below at home on the morning of the 19th. 20. Warmer; hard rain all day. 21. Clearing and colder, Miss H. comes in p.m. 22 and 23. Cold and dry. Still at Miss D's. Each day with Rowland, whom I like more and more. On 23d I and my portrait are given another reception at Miss D's. 24. Still cold. 25. Xmas; rains gently nearly all day. Dine with Miss D. and her sister R. at 6 1/2 p.m. 26. Clearing and colder. Return to P. Snows nearly all day.27. Cold and more snow - about 6 inches since yesterday morning. 28. Come up to W.P. to try to do some work. Sleep in study and board at Huds. Fairly happy, cold near zero. 29. Cold, good sleighing, answering letters. More snow - 3in, 30. Fann above this morning, sleep well here in solitude, no work yet. 31. Up to 12 this morning, partly overcast, shady, cold winter weather, its steadiness is omnious. The last day of 1903, an eventful year to me - pleasure and pain, health has been above the average; weigh 168; have written more and [gadded] about more than in many years many new friends - still my heart is with the old ones.1904 Jany 1st Bright lovely day, spend it in P, with Mrs. B, walk up to Haggerties in the morning and see the Chickadees feed from Mrs. H's hand, then to call on K, back to W.P. in p.m. 2d. Cold, down to zero, snowing from the north. Quite happy in my while solitude. - Cold and storm increased all day two below zero at noon, a driving gale in p.m. as near an approach to a real blizzard as we even have. 3rd. All night the wind and storm roared like an express train. The worst night I ever remember to have [seen] or heard, managed to keep warm in my lonely study, but had to fight for it, the wind hummed and howled like a maniac not much sleep. Three below this morning, storm spent, wind subsiding, sun appearing, only 4 or 5 inches of snow, the windaninhilated it, snow all piled up such a spell of weather as I remember in my youth at the old home, when we used to stay home from school. The mild open winter I had predicted has not yet turned up. 4. Clear and cold - 4 below this morning. My old friend of Ravens nest and J.B. Aiken died at Jacksonville, Fla, on the morning of the 21st of Dec. 5. Cold wave - 20, 30, 40 below zero this morning in plane in Hudson River Valley, a record broken. I stay in P. with Mrs. B. The air stings your nose and cheeks. See a school girl on the street with the end of her nose as white as a piece of cheese. 6. Still 12 and 15 below. 7. A little milder [with]8. Milder and fine snow all day, and 1 1/2 inches. Julian and Emily come home from Cambridge. I go up home, warm their house and stay in the study. 9. Mild, fine day, write in my study. 10. Still fine and a little colder, stay in Julian's house last night and am now taking my meals there. News of my neighbors Mr. Midlinger's death comes today, my favorite among my wealthy neighbors. 11. Mild, winter weather. 12. Mild, winter weather. 13. Snow turning to rain in p.m. 14. Colder, excellent sleighing. See harvest begins. 15. Clear, mild. 16. Colder with 2 in, of snow. 17. Clear with cold leave near18. Clear, down to 4 below this morning 19. Cold, down to 16 below this morning See men can't work. Writing these days on the old subjects animal life and instinct. 20, 21, and 22d. Snow, turning to rain. 23. Go to N.Y; rain nearly all day, air Jany, though floods in some parts of the country. 24. Clearing, colder, return to W.P 25. Clear and much colder. 26. Snow from N. about 4 inches, well and at work again. 29. Mr. Mifflin from R. comes. Light snow, cold. 30 and 31 Milder, go to R. Feb 1st. Snow in morning, clearing and colder in p.m. 2d. A cold wave, down to 6 below. The arctic doors still wide open!- We lived in those who went before us, we shall live in those who come after us. Is [that] there anything else? any other immortality? I frankly confess that to me the belief that there is, is childish. 3d. Cold, finish meeting and send Mr. to Dr. B. 4th. Cold 5. A day at S.S. alone, cold, clear, an enjoyable day. 6. Rain and hail in the night. Go to P. in p.m. 7. Warm. rain, thunder storm. Melts snow on river. 8. Clear, cold wave in the night. Health better than a few days past. 10. Cold, go to N.Y, with Mr. Page to see "The Pit" - a strong play in parts and some good acting. 11. Cold and dusty; home with Mr. P.at night. 12. Back to N.Y. and to Rowland and Miss D at night. 13. To Middletown in p.m. C. meets me at train at 5.30. To Mr Vanamees in evening, music, talk, refreshments and a good time. Stay in Mr. V's delightful study. 14. To Hospital at 11 for the day, a soothing comparting time. 15. Cold, To Goshen to tea with Miss Vanamee, a fine company (at the Sayers) C, looks her best. Back to M at 9, a cold walk up to hospital. 16. Cold, 8 below and a howling wind. To Mrs. A's and to Capt. C's. at 5. Then to hospital, company there, sit by open fire in R. room. 17. Cold, meet C. at Mrs. As, and go to dinner at the Canfields.a pleasant family and an excellent dinner. Take C. back home at 9. 18. Milder, work some in Mr. V's study, a long walk alone from 3 1/2 to 5, returning through "Snake Lane". Spend evening with C. 19. C. ill with grip, go up to see her at 5, has high fever and a tearing cough, stay till 8 1/2. 20. Run up in morning to see C. find her better, stay one hour, my best and most helpful friend among women kind. Return to N.Y. at 11. In evening go to dinner with R. and Miss D. to Colgates, a big fine affair. 21. Much milder, return to P. in p.m. 22. Raining, return to West Park.23. Clearing and colder, work again. 24. Milder, snow and rain, C. is on duty again 25. Colder, go to P. 26. Down to zero. 27. 8 above, warmer in p.m. clear, out of sorts today. 28. Rain nearly all day. Back to W. P 29. Overcast, windy, near freezing. Half a dozen big white gulls going North this morning - the first of the seasons. No open water probably between here and Hudsons Bay - a blue bird in p.m. and a chipmunk running briskly over the snow above the mountains. Mch 1. 2 1/2 inches of snow last night, mild, mercury at 40 in p.m. blue bird calling, spring like.Mch 2d. Fair, colder, go to N.Y. 3. Rain in N.Y. [Cold, down to 4 here] 4. Cold windy. Dined with Markham last night at Miss Burts. Down to 4 here. 5. C. came last night, dined at Dr. J's with her. At R's Studio with C, all day. Attend camp fire diner at night and speak very poorly on animal intelligence; disgusted with myself 6. Rainy, dine with Garland. 7. Heavy rain all day. 8. Clear, warm and spring like. Reach home on 4.20 train snow [nearly] half gone. 9. Cold - down to 20, at work again. 10. Down to 18. 11. Light snow and hail at night, a fearful wind keepsme from sleep. Delightful letter from C at night, write a little. 12. Clear and cold, but March like, a musical reunion of gold finches in maple by the spring; the earliest in the season. I ever knew it to occur, they keep it up for an hour or two. Go to P in p.m. and to Vassar to dinner. 13. Clear, sharp, sap runs a little. Return from P. at night. 14. Partly overcast, cold, not feeling well. 15. Light snow last night - 1 1/2 inches. Small brown warms on snow near the apple trees, out of sorts. 16. Bright day, windy cold, freezing in shade, sap runs well at noon. Go to P. in p.m. am better, ground getting bare. Two papers to Harper. 17. Down to 16 this morning, clear cold, Robins in song.From a book published in London in1783, entitled a new Geographical Historical and Commercial Grammar and the present state of the several Kingdoms of the world. By Wm Guthrie Sqr. Trusting of Norway It says this of the white and red foxes there; "they have a particular way of drawing crabs ashore by dipping their tails in the water which the crab lays hold of." 18. Snowed till p.m. - about 4 inches, clearing in p.m. Begin hailing sap. 19. Warmer, mercury at 30 in morning. A sparrow morning. Boil sap and write on Instinct till noon. Snow goes rapidly, fox sparrow here. 20. Warm, spring like; last snow nearly gone, birds vocal. Blue birds have taken a box.21. With the mercury 40, wind N.W. frost in the ground, snow here and there. Why will sap not run? Give it up. Mrs. B. returns today. Fine day. 22. Misty all day, with fog. Boil sap in p.m. a fox sparrow jubilee this morning, birds very musical all day. 23. Cow bird this morning, trying to clear off. 24. Phoebe here, health at low tide. 25. Misty, mild, Rowland comes in p.m. and we go to S.S. 26. Warm, wind S.W. sprinkles of rain, mercury near 60, Mr. Riosdan comes in p.m. an interesting Arizonian. 27. A jolly day at S.S, in three, cooler and cloudy, health much better, 28. Froze last night, cloudy and rain today, my guests leave me.30. Fine clear day, 5 Vassar girls at S.S. 31. Start for home on early train; reach home at 11 a.m. all well, Curtis looks better than he was for years. Begins snowing about noon. Boil sap all afternoon with Johnny; breath much smoke and steam, wind S.E. April 1st. Ground white; begins raining early and rains nearly all day. Boil sap till noon, 7 pail, syrup. 2d. Colder, windy snow squalls. 3d. Colder, light snow squalls all day, spend only an hour in sap house; a cold coming on syrup off in p.m. 8 pails, sit indoors most of the day. So goes my 67 birth day. 4. Clear and cold, down to 14, Curtis andI go to Edens on morning train, find Eden better - looks good like himself, though he does not go outdoors, May well and as active and cheerful as ever. We stay all night. 5. Clear lovely day, getting warmer, good sap day, I walk down to Hiram's grave, at 8 1/2 we take train. Leave Curtis at R. and come on to W.P. warmer here and roads dry and grass starting. 6. Warm, smoky; storm coming. Feel pretty well - cough some. 7. Mild, first peepers today 8. Walk over to S.S. The trill of the first toad, a fine day. 9. Cloudy, rain at 4 p.m. warm grass starting rapidly. My M. visitors do not come much dissapointed.10. Clearing, cooler, fine day, Miss Best comes, a very pleasing and intelligent woman, much talk from 8 a.m. till 9 p.m. 11. Cloudy and cool, 50 years ago today I began my first school - in Tongore, what a green homesick boy I was! 12. Cloud and sun, cooler at night. Loafing these days and trying to get strong again. 13. Warm in middle of day when sun shines. 14. Chilly and partly cloudy. 15. Cloudy and cold - feels like snow. 16. Snow last night through which the green spears of the grass show here and there, squally and blustery this morning. Clear and cold in p.m. 17. Froze hard last night and down to 22 this morning. Clear and bright.18. Pleasant day and mild, fox sparrows still here. 19. Cloudy, threatening showers, but only a sprinkle of rain, wind change from S.W. to N.W, clearing and colder in p.m. nearly over my cold. 20. Cold, cold, down to 22 this morning. Ground frozen like a rock. The past winter has been the coldest in the memory of the oldest inhabitant and the spring is off the same piece. Getting dry. Flying snow flakes in the air all day. 21. Milder, the p.m. a clear superb day. Walk to SS twice. 23d. Go to N.Y. to dinner of. Institute of Arts and letters, a pleasant day and an agreeable dinner at night. Stedman, Matthews, Makel, Prof Lowanbury, Prof. Royce, St Gardens and others present.24. Fine day, walk in Park with Addie and the boys, a song sparrow with 5 distinct songs, due of them very striking. To Plainfield at 5. 25. Warm, 76 in shade; walk over the hills with Anna Haviland. Light rain at night. 26. In N.Y a dinner at night with Riordan, Dwight, Rowland and Fenno and a "Joram" afterward. 27. Rain and wind from N.E heavy nearly all day. Home in p.m. 28. Rain and mist today, cold. 29. Cloudy and warmer. 30. Fine warm day with threatened rain in morning. C.B. and Miss S. come in p.m, much time in Highland; then to Esopus and a walk to S.S. through the woods a charming walk an arbutus walkMay 1st. A fine May day, warm, very happy at S.S. We walk to Sunset Rock, a memorable walk, shad blow just opening, my guests leave at 5 p.m. 2d. Clear, cooler, very fine, maples just ready to shake out thick tassels, currents ready to bloom, the willows down by the old manning house are green chucks, apple tree leaves the size of the mouse ears. A great many high holes calling this morning all forenoon. Season now about one week late. 3. Fine, warm an ideal day. 4. Fine, warm an ideal day. 5. Fine, to Vanstykes today, ideal day. Cherry trees blooming, wood thrush. 6. Perfect day 7. The 8th day of ideal May weather. Clear warm, tranquil. Trees in the woods and groves again outlined by opening foliage. I spent each night at S.S. and enjoy it much. 8. Warm and fine, a mist of the yellow green off new foliage fills the woods. 9. Cloudy, threatening, warm, all the birds here, apple bloom just opening, maple leaves half grown. Health very good. 10. Clear, cooler, dry; the storm passed without rain; acts as it did last year. In fairly good heart these days. 11. Light shower in p.m. 12. Clear, cool, light frost at S.S, this morning. 13. Warmer, clear, calm, lovely; the night of the apple bloom, all the birds here but the indigo bird, grape shoots begin to show.14. Warm and lovely - Vassar girls and pupils from New Paltz - normal school at S.S. at 3 p.m. comes Miss V and C, a delightful evening. 15. Raining, rained slowly all day much needed, over an inch of water. Mr. V, Miss T and Mr. H, came on morning train, a jolly day at S.S, all leave on 5 p.m. train and I am desolate again. 16. Rained slowly in the night. Charmy today and cooler. The world very fresh and green, Owen Johnson comes at 4.20. 17,18 and 19. Cloudy, with very light rain. 20. Clearing and warm, O.J. leaves today, a fine fellow sure to make his mark in literature, as a child he was disagreeable, as a man he is charming. 21. Ideal day, clear, warm; lots of company at S.S.22. Perfect day, summer heat. 23. Go home on morning train, find them all well; Country very green, day warm. go on Old Clump in p.m. 24. Bright lovely day - go down to the village with Curtis. 25. Hot clear day, Curtis and I go over on Rolls Brook fishing; had not net my line in those waters for over 20 years; take 23 trout of fair size. The valley flooded with the very spirit and essence of May. The orchards everywhere sheets of pink and white bloom; the bobolinks very jubilant, nearly all the people I had known among the farmers here dead. At noon Curtis and I sit with over backs up against a farmer wagon house in the shade and eat over.lunch. Then home, at three just as we reach home a sudden downpour followed by hail, a fine shower. 26. Warm, go down to Olly's and spend the day and night. 27. Go fishing in Millbrook, no luck at all. Home at night. 28. Fine day, company at S.S. 29. Warm, lovely day. 30. To M, heavy shower at 3 1/2. 31. To Mt. Holyoke, Miss D. meets me at train. At night hear Higginson lecture before the college girls; elegant and pleasing, but slight, stand up with him and Miss W. the president, after the lecture and receive the girls. Many of the girls greet me with more emphasis than they do H.1904 June 1st. Cloudy, go to lunch with H. at the house of Boston family, H. is well preserved for a man 81, I do not feel the veneration for him I ought to. Still threatening rain, walk with the girls and on p.m. climb Mt. Holyoke with 90 of them. 2. Milder with gleams of sunshine. Go to Smith College to lunch with Miss Peck, Jordan and Mrs. Lee. Then to Hankinson to see Clifton Johnson; then back to Holyoke. 3. Clara Reed comes up. We lunch with the president, Miss Woodley and in p.m. go to Springfield and spend night at home of Clara, a fine time. 4. Clearing and hot; home on 4.20 train from P.5. Warm day, above 84, a brisk thunder shower at 4 p.m. 6. Hot, 88, more rain at night. 7. Hot, Go to Vassar class day; a heavy shower at 4, Mrs. B. goes to Hobart. 8. Clear and warm, a walk to S.S. R, a heavy rain at night. 9. Raining from S.E.; rained all day heavy at times; ground full of water. 10. Clear and fine, Mrs Childs and her friend. 11. Ideal June day; at Dana Natl, History Club from Albany, 67 of them. 12. Fine day. 13. Fine day, Binder comes. 14. Fine day, Miss Richardson and friend. 15. Wedding at S.S, Rowland and Minnie Dwight, day perfect. 16. Johnson comes, shower south of us.17. Fine warm day, company in p.m. 18. Hot day and dry, company in p.m. 19. Hot day and dry, company in p.m. 20. Hot day and dry 21. To Floral Park - fine day 22. Go with Mr. and Mrs. Childs to the Wyendancher Club, cool and fine. 23d. Back to F.P and to N.Y. at night. 24. Cool and fine; home today, saw Gilden today nearly well again. 25. Mrs. Judd and Miss Luddington enjoyed their company, hot, 92 degrees. 26. Fine hot [warm] day, mercury 92 to 6, no rain yet. 27. Cloudy and cold rain. 28. Light rain last night. Boat races today; sprinkles of rain. 29. Light rain. 30. Fine showers today, heavy at 6. July 1st. Clearing and warm, wind S.W. Dr. B and friends at S.S. July 1904 2d. Lovely day, Miss Boxter comes today. 3. Lovely day Dinner at S.S, Mrs. B. there. 4. Ideal weather, all go to Riverby to eat ice cream. 5. Rain at night. 6. "Interview at Herms" Fine day. 7. "Interview at Herms" Fine day. 8. Charming day 9. Charming day, all go to Mohank. Mrs. B. with us. 10. Rain all day slowly. 11. Fine day. 12. Fine day, go to Long Level. 13. Fine day. 14. Lovely day, go to Black Pond for pond lilies an idylic day long to be remembered; heard swamp sparrow. 15. Still fine, Dr. B, leaves today. 16. Beautiful weather, Julian leaves for S.H. 17. Go to Sunset Rock with Addie J. 18. Rain last night nearly all night.19. Join Julians party in Snyder Hollow reach there at 10 - Camp Betty, near the cold Wittenburg Spring. Stay with Julian one week, enjoy it much, sleep at Larkins. 24. Light rain today, after 3 days of cloud. 25. Warm and partly cloudy. 26. Return to W.P. today, Mrs. B. at Hobart since the 13th. 27. Florence Wilkinson comes today, meet him at Esopus and walk to S.S, a very pleasing young woman - simple, serious human, genuine; like her much. We all go bathing in Black Pool in p.m. 28. Miss W. and the children leave for Utica today. 29. Warm lovely day, Julian and his family back today.30. The Johnsons and Miss B. leave S.S, today - Loth to have them depart one of the happiest months ever spent at SS. 31. Sunday, start for Hobart; find Eden better than I expected - looks pale but does his chores and walks to the village. Aug 1. Hot day, rain at night - heavy. 2d. Hot day, with showers at night. 3. Fair; go out to Homar's, Jane well, H, slowly failing - home to Roxbury at night. 4. Curtis well, old place fresh and green, done haying. 5. Warm day, threatening rain at night. 6. Warm day, very smoky - A chippy at Edens with a song like a little tree whistle, - Robin bowing for grubs in the turf.- A little green heron on the wall near the house; the robins much disturbed by it; follow it to some trees and scream vociferously - is it then enemy? 7. Brisk shower last night - Return to Eden's today, warm. 8. Cooler and partly cloudy. Walk over to Willies to dinner - across the hill. In the morning with a little on the robin. Read with keen intellectual pleasure Wm James essay on Herbert Spencer in July Atlantic. The most satisfactory discussion I have ever read of Spencer Claims. 9. Cool and clear. Home to W.P. today. 10. Began raining in the night, rained till nearly noon, heavy at times, cool. 11. Rained nearly all night; the first rain for many weeks that wet down to the roots of things.must have fallen nearly on quite 2 inches of water, warm and muggy today with gleams of sunshine. 12. Clear and cool, alone here since the 9th. 13. Fine warm day, go to H. 15. Mrs. B home today. 16. To slide hut, to Mrs. Hinkley's stay till Saturday. 17. Fine shower at night. 18. Clear and cool, go to top of slide, see my native hills - Old Clump. 19. Drive down the Neversink, a very enjoyable drive. 20. Rain last night; and nearly all day. Reach home at night. 22. Start for East River; stay there till 29th, an enjoyable restful time. 29. Go to B. to see Smith and Eunice.Spend the night with them, nine years since we met, I seem to have found them again. 30. Home this p.m. Bright and dry, no rain fro ten days. Sept 1st. Fine day, at S.S. 3d. Go up to Winnisook again, hot up to 80. 4. Rain nearly all last night, only light shower at W.P. Walk down throu Woodland valley, a fine cool day. 5. Partly cloudy. 6. Clear and cool. The thought that has quickened my pulse all summer is the thought of the Japs, when I begin to read the morning paper my heart hits ip up from 70 or 72 to 85. What a wonderful peopleMay they break the last bone in the body of the Russian bear, is my prayer. Sept 7. Fine and warm - Go to West Nyack and spend the nigh with Miss Leonard, a pleasant time. 8. To Atlantic City to the Vanamees stay till 15th. Fine warm weather nearly all the time. Bathe in Snap 4 times - good for me. The Va' very kind, a tremendous wind and rain on the night of the 14th almost a hurricane. Severe all along the coast, six inches of water in many places. Very heavy rain at West Park, probably six inches. 16. Visit Walts grave with C. and V. and H. 17. Home today from Plainfield, warm and fine. 18. Warm and fine. 19. Warm and fine. Start for Roxbury20. Meet Gandy Smith today, after a separation of over 45 years, I go over to Tom's at 9, see Gandy slowly walking up the road in his shirt sleeves. He sees me and turns about, his beard is longer but not so white as mine, his eyes fill with tears as we clasp hands, I should have known him, though not had I met him in a strange place. I spend the day there. Curtis and Ann come over to dinner, at 4 p.m, walk back home over the hill, Gandy walks part way with me. A great pleasure to meet him again. He went to Iowa and settled in 64, a large land owner now. 21. Some rain last night! Colder, Gandy and his wife and Tom and Mary Ann come over to dinner, another good half day with Gandy. His eyes easily fill with tears, he is 74, curts folks all well. The old place looks better to me than it did at my other visit in Any. In p.m. Gandy and I walk down tothe village, he is slower than I am, eye sight not so good as mine, we part at the crossing of the R.R, he to his brother Robs, I to the train, we part as if we might meet again soon but my thought is that we are parting for the last time. I reach home at 8 1/2. 22nd. Severe frost last night, kills tomatoes, corn, squashes etc, mercury down to 28, clear cold day. 23. Hard frost again ice 1/4 inch in places, leaves of grape vines scorched. The coldest snap I ever remember in Sept; a month a head of time. Warmer today. Go to H. to walk to S.S. 24. Warmer and light rain. 25. Much warmer. Rain in the night. - Found a drone or a male bumble bee fast to a queen bee in the road near S.S, the male was about 1/3 the size of the female. They were being together like a dog and bitch. The queens stinger was thrust out and curved up in dangerousproximity to the abdomen of the male. It required some force to pull them apart; they separated with a little snap. The male organs were not extirpated as is the case with the honey bee, they protruded but were soon drawn in, the queen ran away a few feet and then flew. The bumble bee does not lose his stinger either, when he strings, as does the honey bee. - The next day found a queen bumble bee trying to bore a hole in my path in the woods, she had penetrated about half an inch and was gaining very slowly, the ground was hard, I had supposed this bee always went into a mouse hole or something of the kind, an hour later the bee was gone. - The secret of style is not in the language as such, it is in the substance - not the substance of the subject - but in the substance of the aothors mind,Sept 30. To N.Y. and then to Statue Island to the Evans's. Oct 1st. Fine but windy day. 2. Cloudy, cold, drive to the grave of Geo Wm Curtis in the Moravian cemetery, spend some time by his grave with long sad thoughts. We never met. 3d. Begin setting for Mrs. Johnson at 29, 33d St. West, sit for her 4 or 5 hours daily till Oct 13th a hard time of it. Meet C. on Saturday 8th and again on the 9th at the Js'. 11. Go out to West Hills with Mrs. Cook, a lovely warm day like early Sept. Mrs. C. an artist a clear blue eyed woman. Drive to Walts birth place and drink at the well - very poor water. Then to a farm house for the night.Oct 1904 Go to the school house where he taught school about the year I was born. 12. A cold driving rain from the last pours till noon, sit in doors with Mrs. C. then back to N.Y. in p.m. 13. Home today. Fine but frosty weather nearly all the month of Oct, build a new chimney in my study. 21. A heavy rain - 3 or 4 inches, clear, lovely weather for 2 weeks, 3 or 4 degree of frost nearly every night, a cold but dry and lovely Oct. Nov 1st. Lovely day; health good, feel like writing. 2d,3d and 4th. All lovely days. 5. Cloudy and chilly, go to West Point to football game. Rain at night light. 6. A white made of snow this morningTen flocks of wild gees go honking South - never saw such a flight of wild geese in my life in the Hudson river valley. Probably means severe and cold further month. Now book, "Far and Near" came over a week ago. - She is perpetual woman to my peace of mind and the detachment necessary to my literary work. Every hour in the day she is liable to break in upon me, or break out upon me and scatter my thoughts and break the spell of my literary mood. 8. Election day, clear, calm, not a film in the sky, walk up to vote in p.m. Never saw a finer election day. 9. Cloudy but a tremendous Republican victory, overwhelming, too great, no reform of the tariff now.10. Still cloudy and threatening and cold. Writing on Protective Coloration. 11. Light snow in morning, clearing in p.m and warmer, company at S.S. 12. Clear, lovely, mercury 25 this morning, warmer in p.m. 13. Cloudy, higher snowing at 10, a wet heavy snow from North, not cold. Julian and his family in their house, boat on the river. 14. Storm of wind and snow continued all afternoon and into the night a gale in some places, nearly a foot of snow must have fallen - 3 or 4 inches of wet sudden snow on the ground this morning, clearing and colder this morning. 15. Bright and lovely, mercury at 25 degrees, this morning, snow still on the ground. - What a neat verbal fit he gives his subject, every word touches the right spot and the sentences bring out thesubject matter perfectly, such literary tailoring is hand to heal. 17. To N.Y, Julian and I and to Duch Day Page and Co's reception. Clear and cold, much snow still on ground. 18 and 19. In N.Y. at the Rowlands receptions, C. there on 19th. To the Manic dinner on the 18th. 20. Dry and cold. 21 and 22nd. In N.Y. on 22d go to the John Marley dinner at Carnegies. Morly a pretty strong man - large fine head; fine color, beardless face, a man without vanity or affectation, spoke a moment with Sec, Root, like him much and able and a sincere man, my seat at table is between the president of Yale and of Columbia. 23rd. Clear and mild; home on 10.20 train. 24. Fair and cold, wife and I go to Hobart. Curtis and Ann get on the train at R, and Jane at the station, all lookwell, Eden is at the station at H. as we arrive, looks very pale and yellow but seems much better than when I last saw him, Wilson's widow, Mariah Badle is at Edens, not much changed, Mag is well and happy in getting up her thanksgiving dinner, a fine dinner to which we all do justice, I think of Hiram constantly there under the winter turf so near us, but I do not go to his grave. Much snow on the mountains and patches of it in the fields. 25. Snowing and blowing this morning from N.W. Delaware Co. weather, an inch of snow. We take morning train for home, no snow here, roads dry. 26. Cold and dry, with snow in the air. 27,28,29,30. Dry cold days, roads dusty, writing on Protective Coloration of animals.Dec 1st. Fair and cold - down to 17. 2d. Cloudy with increasing cold. 3d. Cloudy and cold and dry, wind North. Snow on passing times from N. Quite content in my new study three days; big fires of maple and hickory. 4. Still cloudy and cold, down to 17 degrees. 5. Colder, down to 12, some thin ice in river. 6. Fair, Mrs. B goes to P. for the winter. 7. Fair and milder, slept in study last night, low tide with me after 3 weeks of writing. 8. Flurries of snow last night, and this morning, no thoughts these days. 10. Threatens snow, to Phila to Harvards, meet C. at J. City, - Snow all day in Phila, 6 or 7 inches and cold. 11. Clear and writing, good sleighing all day indoors, reading Whitman Mrs.C. very happy, I am too. 12. Snowing again, come with C. to Eric Depot in morning. Reach home at 4.20 snowing. Zero here on Sunday. 13. Snowed till noon, 10 inches. 14. Clear and cold, zero this morning. River steaming, shut below and above. 15. Down to 4 below this morning. River closed, very quiet, no wind yet this winter. A robin here calling near the gate, Mrs. B. in P. since the 6th. 16. 1 1/2 inches of snow last night. 17. Cold, dry, no wind yet, the snow on the trees. 18. Clear fine day, walk to S.S. in p.m. a winter wren in the woods by the road. 19. Flurries od snow, Mr. Findley from Oregon, a young bird enthusiast. Still writing on Colors of animals20. Milder, snow flurries, country very dry - 10 inches of snow on the ground. 21. Windy and snow flurries. 22. Milder, cloudy. gone up the open fire today and set up the ugly stove chimney "went bad" a day or two ago could only check the smoking by opening the door or window, I fear my inspiration has gone with the open fire. Blue-birds here every day and an occasional robin. 23. A thaw go to P. 24. Colder - [3 below zero] 25. Much colder - 3 below zero, snow in p.m. 26. 3 inches of light snow, cloudy and cold all day. We keep Xmas at Julian's. 27. Raining nearly all day.28. Still warm - mercury 35, clearing signs of cold wave. 29. Colder. 30. Milder, go to P. 31. Milder, write letter on Beavers to S.S. McClure. 1905 Jany 1st. Soft Indian summer day no wind, no cloud, a soft dreams haze; ground nearly bare. Hive bees must be out today. Does this day break the back of winter? I think so. Write in forenoon; in p.m. walk on College Hill. 2d. Raining slowly all day, return to West Park. 3. A blizzard from the North; wind and driving snow all day, mercury 18 this morning. The fall of part Arthur makes me forget all my woes. God damn the Russian Government.1905 4. Six or seven inches of snow all blown in heaps this morning. 5. Cold, down to zero. 6. 2 below this morning. 7. Rain at night and today, mercury at 40 ground bare in many places. 8. Colder - 20 icy. 9. Bright and clear. Good in boating. 12. To Chapmans at Englewood, meet Thomson Seaton at dinner. We talk over natural history matters and he agrees with me on nearly all points, but has no stomach for long. 13. To N.Y. not very well, at Mr. Heffley's party at night. 14. Bright and fine. 15. On my back all day, no food, a kind of winter Cholera. 16. Still on my back, Dr. Leo prescribes for me, better in p.m.17. Fine day, appetite returns. To M. in p.m, much better, meet C. at 4 1/2, a walk by moonlight along Snake Lane. The fields shine in a coat of white mail. 18. Warmer, water runs in streets, walk again with C. 19. Still thawing, muddy and sloppy; drive with W. to state Hill, walk with C. at night. 20. To N.Y. and to the Rowland party at night. 21. Saturday, back to P. 22. Up to W.P. to see new grand daughter 4 days old, ugly as a Choctaw. 23. Colder, write in room in P. 24. Colder threatening room in P. 25. Big snow storm, the boss storm of the season, snowed and blowed all day like great geese and nearly all night. 26. About 22 inches of snow, streets.blocked, mercury 10 below zero. 27. Cold, side walks shoveled off, go up to W.P 28. Cold 29. Milder 30. Clear and colder 31. At zero this morning; storm coming, send off paper to Atlantic, "Gay Plumes and Dull". Up to W.P. yesterday, new baby looks much better - getting into shape. Feb 1. A few degree below zero this morning. I think it highly probable that an animal's capacity to suffer pain is in proportion to its intelligence, or the size of its brain; or as some one has said in proportion to its ability to avoid pain, more has the largest brain and no doubt feels pain much more keenly than any other animal.5. The end of a cold dry week, sky clear since Monday and mercury below zero nearly every morning, ten below one morning, and [from] 10 to 14 below this morning. Snow evaporating. Here in P. at work writing every morning. Go up to Julian's every other afternoon. Have secured passage to Bermuda for wife and self on the 11th. Health good. 6. snowing - 5 or 6 inches at 10 a.m. 7. Cold. 8. Go up home, all well, leave on 12.15 train. In M. all night. 9. In N.Y. all day, cold. 10. In N.Y. all day, meet Mrs. B at 6. To Mr. H's party. C. there looking as attractive as usual. 11. Colder, leave on Steamer Trinidad at 10.30. No sea sickness all day, sea not rough, lose sight of land at 2 p.m.12. Sunday at sea, fairly comfortable all day, Mrs. B. takes to her berth after breakfast. White cups begin to show in p.m. increasing discomfort at my part. Go to dinner at 6 and then to the deck at 8, lose my dinner overboard, then to my berth. Rain and wind all night; fairly comfortable. 13. All day in my birth but no sickness, eat a little. Reach entrance to Harbor of Bermuda at night, but do not enter till morning. 14. Land about 9. warm 72. Take room at the Kenwood, [8] 14 per week. Head a little wrong all day. 15. A two hours drive with Miss S. beautiful country, very Englishy. 72 degrees, rain at night. 16. Colder, 62, in p.m. walk over to the sea on East side, very interesting cool like Oct. 17. Cool; go back to N.Y. discarded winter clothing overcast. Mrs. B has rheumatism.Mch 1st. Stay in Bermuda till today, one week at Bailey Bay with a Mrs. Stuart, a bad time for Mrs. B. Sick with bad cold and rheumatism, I am well and have a few pleasant days, some rain, cool. Take Bermudian at 11 for home. Sea sick at night, steamer rocks a good deal. 2d. Fair and steamer running quietly, Both keeps over berths. 3d. Fair, a smooth sea, the cold air feels like home, land at noon, take train for P. ant 2 O'c 4. In our old quarters again and glad to be here, Mrs. R, still wretched plenty of snows. Go to West Park today, all well there. Feb has been steady cold, often below zero.5th. Fair day and cold. 6. Fair day and cold. 7. Fair day and cold, but sun thaws the snow in middle of day. 8. Rain all day, not hard. 9. Clear and colder, plenty of snow yet. At mark on ways of nature since my return. Health good, Mrs. B. better. 16. Up to W.P and tap some trees. Morning cold - down to 20. 17. Sap runs in middle of day. 18. Fine sap day, boil all day and make some fine sugar. Robins sparrows and Phoebe here. Dr. B comes in p.m. to Poughkeepsee. a warm day, 48 degrees. 19. Rain all day, great pleasure with Dr. B. she leaves at night. 20. Rain slowly all day. 21. Rain and snow. 22. Storm over, 1 1/2 inches of snow mild sap rains as a jump. Boil all day and J. boils at night till 9,23. Mild, overcast, - sap runs faster than we can boil it down, met very well a fever last night, Malaria? 24. Cloudy, misty, mild, all day boiling sap, a sparrow day, boil sap till after 9 p.m. sleep in study. 25. Rain nearly all night, clearing in afternoon, mild, very spring like old Norwich broke up the ice in the river last night and this morning - had hard work to get through it. 26. Fine spring day [Boil sap] all day 27. Lovely day, boil sap. 28. Day of great warmth and beauty - 4 Vassar teachers. Boil sap and sugar off. Bush sparrow and high hole here, mercury 70, clear, calm soft. 29. Still warmer, 81 in shade under a tree; the warmest March day of which I have a record, now at 5, it is 76, boil the last of the sap, Mr. Sickley here, last night.heard the first "peepers", the troll of the toad and the sound of the "Clucking" frogs. River full of floating ice. Grass greening, very happy days, oh, the old thrill and longing of the spring. 30. Little cooler - about 75. 31. Mrs. B. comes back today from P. Hepatica in bloom. April 1st. The "heel" of the last snow bank has vanished. Still warm. Off for N.Y. today at 12.15, stop by the way, see C. at night. 2. Windy March, like day, cool a delightful hour on V's literary. 3d. My 68th birthday, clear and cool and dusty, getting warmer in p.m. Walk to "Perdition" with C. and Mrs. A. soft maples in bloom, a birthday cake at W's, a delightful evening. 4. Sit all day for Mrs. Johnson and return home at night, a light rain in morning. 5. Cloudy, light rain, grass greening everywhere. Elms on bloom, walk to S.S. in p.m. 6 and 7. Bright cool; down to freezing in the morning. 8. Fair, cool; found bloodroot and decantra in bloom on the rocks back of the hill; liverwort just opening. 9. Fair, cool, frost this morning. 10. Fair and warmer - near 70.13. Fine April weather. 14. Cool - light frost. I seem to feel older this spring than ever before. Is this old age this lassitude, this want of strength, this fatigue in back and limbs, this constant retrospection? Burn over Mr. Allen's field this p.m. and enjoy it much, if the world is ever to be burned up I want to be allowed to set the fire. 15. Light rain with thunder last night, clear and cool this morning, a light frost, Vassar girls at S.S, Trout lily, trillium, marsh marigold in bloom. 16. Frost again last night, - fair today unusual longing for C. these days. Snow flakes in the air in p.m. 17. down to freezing this morning, or below. Windy and snow flakes in the air at times all day, not so cold as one year ago. 18. Cold and dry. 19. Cold and dry. 20. Warmer, S. wind, smell my wild perfume in the air today. Is it fromthe elms? a few branches of pussy willow today gave out a marked odor suggesting that I have attributed to the elms. But there are not enough of these in this locality to so perfume the breezes. Light rain in p.m. and at night. 21. Warmer, smoky, moist South wind, things growing rapidly. Rain in p.m. 22. Cooler, clear, Vassar crowd. 24. Clear, cool dry days, frost every night. 25. Lovely day, walk to Black Pond after my boat. Boat too leaky, leave it in water and return by S.S, where I eat my lunch, a lovely walk through the leafless woods. The myrtle warbler and one of the views, many swallows around black pond, violets blooming and dandentious beginning. My old maple shaking out its fringe.26. Milder, hazy, the brown thrasher here this morning performing on a tree top beyond the station, shade blows just out. 27. Fine warm day, stay at S.S, company from N.C. 28. Still fine, stay at S.S,all night. 29. Cloudy, light rain in p.m. More company at SS. Maples in bloom. Health much better than last month. 30. The last of the April days has come again. Foggy in morning clearing hazy but cool, need much more rain. Cherry trees in bloom the past 3 days, sparrows nest with one egg. May 1st. fine day off to N.Y. meet C. at 1 1/2 5th ave. To Mrs. J's at 4 1/2. C. returns to M. at 7.30 stay at R's. 2d. To Summit at the Porters. 3d. Dine with Mr. Chubb, Mr. Mabie calls. Dry and windy. Frost at night.4th. Return to N.Y. and sit for Mrs. J. In p.m. go to Plainfield to Knox Taylors, stay all night. 5. A long walk in woods along the terminal morain of old ice sheet. In p.m. go to Havilands and stay all night. 6. A walk in blooming orchards with A. Many warblers arriving. To N.Y. in p.m. 7. Sunday, return home, no rain, dry, warm, 80 degrees. 8. The perfection of the orchard bloom a deep mist of green in the woods maple leaves half grown. Feel better than when I left home and more like work.
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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: 1902 (January - December)
Text: From Jany 1st, 1902 to Dec 31st, 1902Jany 1st. At Floral Park with the Childsis, clear and cold, wind blow all night like a raving manise. In p.m. to N.Y. to see Mrs. Fisk in [Wunellome] Mrs. Hatch," a slimsy play. The acting of Mrs. F. fair not great. Dine at Johnsons with Dan French and Miss. 24. Cold. Go out to Montclair to the Sewards, a delightful family. 3d. In N.Y. and back to mountain at night. 4 In N.Y. see Dr. Wein Mitchel in century office. Shows his age; begins to waver or...
Show moreFrom Jany 1st, 1902 to Dec 31st, 1902Jany 1st. At Floral Park with the Childsis, clear and cold, wind blow all night like a raving manise. In p.m. to N.Y. to see Mrs. Fisk in [Wunellome] Mrs. Hatch," a slimsy play. The acting of Mrs. F. fair not great. Dine at Johnsons with Dan French and Miss. 24. Cold. Go out to Montclair to the Sewards, a delightful family. 3d. In N.Y. and back to mountain at night. 4 In N.Y. see Dr. Wein Mitchel in century office. Shows his age; begins to waver or tremble. 5. Milder. Home this morning. River closed, 3 inches of smooth ice in front. 6. Mild still, roads dry and dusty in places. 7. Serene mild winter weather with cloud and sun. Song sparrow still here. 8. Mild with snow flurry. Blue-birds still here. 9. Mild gentle winter weather. At work all these days on the Audubon life. 10. Still mild, sun and cloud, but little freezing at night.9. Mild weather continues, 8 blue-birds this morning. Word comes that Homer Lynch is sick unto death - Better for him and for Jane that he should die, and has been so for years - almost a helpless paralytic - yet the news [deppres] depresses me greatly. - One thing nature - God - seems utterly regardless of - pain and suffering. In many ways they help forward her scheme, but she has made no effort to confine them or bisect them in this respect; she has let them go at loone ends and grow like tares in the wheat. Her plans are forwarded by some of the pain - no matter about the rest, let it spread. The needless suffering that attends child birth for instance, no utility in that, my poor cat, silly Sally - got blind as she got old and would have died from starvation had we not put an end to her life. What suffering the poor thing would have undergone? most of the wild creatures that die a natural death probably undergo great suffering. Think of the sum total of physical suffering in the world at any given time that [unbalance] no good.nature heas taken pains to bestow pleasure where her interests were [are] at stake, as in the propagation of the spices, in taking food and but she has made no effort to eliminate useless pain. In deed the universe is not run upon any system of economy that man can conceive of. Waste, suffering, delay, defeat, failure - all make up the whole. I can see no intelligence or love, a kin to our own, at work in the universe, yet where did man's love and intelligence come from? He too is a part of nature. - This is certain. The providence that presides over man is no different from the providence that presides over the trees in the woods or the weeds of the field, all are under the same law; the weak must give way before the strong, the winds and the storms break them, the drought burns them, enemies pray upon them, one generation follows another with vast waste and suffering; to keep up the stock and harden and toughen it alone is natures aim. Where pain condences to self preservation - that is natures gain - there is reason in it, but so much of it has no such end and simply beneath natures indifference.13. Cold and bright, start for Middletown spend 8 days there in Mr. Vanamus rooms on Orchard st. a delightful and profitable time. Weather nearly clear and cold and dry all the time roads dusty in many places; work on "Literary Values" and the Audubon book; feel unusually well, Dr. Barrus at the hospital, more than kind, helps me with much proof, type writes the Anderbon, a very keen appreciative mind of more ready service to me than any woman I ever met, would like to write my life, I would like her to do it if it is even done, - have named her my literary executor - the most companionable woman I have yet met in this world, reads and delights in the same book I do, - a sort of feminine counterpart of myself. 21. Home today; ground bare in on river 7 or 8 inches. Light snow in afternoon, growing warmer. 22. Heavy rain all night, mercury 43 this morning. Signs of clearing and colder. 23. March weather or early April clear and freezing a little. Ground bare, many blue-birds in the air.25. Bright and cold - or sharp, or March day, I crossed the ice last night from Hyde Park at 9.15. 26. Cloudy with spots of snow - growing warmer. 27. Rain all night; warm and signs of clearing today, mercury 42. 28. Julian and I start for N.Y. on our way to Jamaica. All day in the city, warm. 29. To Phila spend the night with Kellogg, colder with snow. 30. Cold and snowy. At 10 am we sail on Steamer Admiral Sampson for Jamaica. We are upon the Atlantic as darkness sets in. It is quite rough and Julian and I soon pay tribute to old neptune. 31. Fair, still I am unhappy. Febry 1st 2 and 3d. Warm, smooth, a lucky trip. At 2 p.m. on the 3d we enter the harbor of Port Antonio and find mid summer heat. Stay in Jamaica till March 5th where we take ship at Bowden and after a smooth voyage reach Phila on Monday.9th at 10 a.m. 10. Stay with Hamed and rest - head feeling very bad. 11. Warm; home today; robins and sparrows and other spring birds here, no frost at night. 12. Keeps warm - up to 55. 13. Very spring like - clear; head still bad. 14. Go to Middletown for treatment. 15. Much better; still warm and lovely, a long walk South and West of the town. 16. Rain and mist. 17. Nearly well, clearing and cooler. Return home. 18. A cold wave; nearly myself again, ice all gone from the river. Begin digging the cellar for Julian house today. Very glad to be home again. Ed comes today. Bright and windy in p.m. 19. Cloudy with roaming wind all day, very fierce and persistent, cold. 20. Wind moderated, mercury a little below freezing, sign of clearing. Sap starts briskly. 21. Good sap day; only light frost.22d. Clear and fine. Dr. Barrus and the two children come today and we have a sugar maple picnic. Wind still in the North. In p.m. all go over to Slabsides, Hazle bloom by the way; three butterflies, piping frogs in the marshes. 23d. Sunday; still warm and fine, with North wind all go to the falls in p.m. numerous butterflies. 24. Another cerulean day out of the North. Come over to Riverby in p.m. and have another sugar maple picnic. The doctor and her charge leave on 5 o'clock train, a woman after my own heart. 25. Weather still remarkably fine - a little freezing at night. Stay at Slabsides till Thursday. 27. Go to P. and then to Vassar. Stay with Barnes, a return of the sea sick feeling in my head. Signs of rain. 28. Cloudy and warm, a little rain. 29. Rain last night and this morning. Warm soft maple and elm trees nearly ready to bloom, grass starting, a walk with Miss Amelia Arnold. 30. Clear and a little cooler; the season remarkably early. The toads song last night; bush sparrow this morning.31. Colder and windy with flurries of snow. Walk to Auchmoodies Pond and back. April 1st. Cloud and wind with brief snow squalls. Ground white in the morning. Soft maple and elms in bloom. Staying at Slabsides since Sunday. 2d. Cold and cloudy and windy our belated March weather. Boys hauling stone for cellar of Julian house. 3d. My 65th birthday. Nearly clear and cool. Spend most of the day digging out stone with Ed for J's house and am fairly happy. Many birthday greetings and gifts come by mail. 4. Still clear and cool; frost at night, still staying alone at Slabsides, still digging stone. 5. Light rain. Binder came yesterday. 6. Clearing and fair, Hepatica near Slabsides. 7. Light rain. Get out stone in the woods in p.m. 8. Cold rain from N.E. 9. Rain continues from all points of the compass during the last 24 hours. Cold and clearless. 10. Cold and misty with signs of clearing; wind N.E. The Anophiles musketo [mosquito] was here in March and bloodthirsty.11. Mild day of sun and cloud. [Miss Leonard and her mother to] Miss Reed and Miss Brooks today. 12. Chilly but some sunshine, Mr Sickley and the Platts, a curious phenomenon in p.m; the air filled with a thick white haze, the clouds all seemed to dissolve and come down - then there was a sprinkle of muddy water, soiled clothes on the line, and fouled window panes - the sediment it left looked like cement. Was it meteoric dust? It seemed to affect the whole body of the air. 13. Still chilly with sun and cloud. 14. Colder with sun and cloud. Kellog comes. 15. Quite a freeze last night, but bright up today, still alone at Slabsides; health much better. Feel my self again with good spirits. 18. Still fair and cool, frost at night, work on the swamp. A sitting out celery. 19. A little warmer, smoky [A, s] Julian and George set out first celery. 20. Lovely Sunday. Sickley and his friends. The water thrush today. 21. Warmer, hazy, partly cloudy, just the weather for the farmers. Whippoorwill at night.22. Lovely, tranquil veiled days continue, mercury above [near] 70. Willows green. 23. Lovely day, getting [warm] hot. Miss Doolittle comes, 85 in the shath. 24. A change to ,cooler. Go to N.Y. and then to Montclair. Getting dry. 25. Cool and fair. Cherry trees in bloom, maples just shaking out their tassels. 26. Very smoky and misty, threatens rain, shad bush and spice bush in full bloom the past 4 days. Hiram with me. 27. Sunday, fine day, Vassar teachers at S.S. A fine time. 28. Still fine - two Vassar teachers; we go to the falls. 29. Go to Orange Co, mist and light rain in p.m. 30. Rained nearly all night about 2 inches water. Clearing and warm today, a long delightful walk, 7 or 8 miles. Heard "the woodcocks evening hymn" Continues blooming. May 1st. Warm and pleasant. Pear trees white with bloom. 2d. Apple trees just bursting into bloom, violets make blue the meadow places. Wake Robin Club comes up to SS. Wood thrush this morning. 3d. Rain last night and cloudy and chilly today with mist.4th. Cool and partly cloudy, Oriole here this morning and one of the vircos. Wood thrushes in full chorus, a mist of green over the woods. Trees all outlined. Some maples in nearly full leaf. Apple trees pink and white. 5th and 6th. Fine May days. 7th. Warm day, Hiram came last night, troubled about his rupture. We go to Rondout on 4.20 train to see doctor. Dr. fails to reduce the rupture - but thinks it may not be dangerous, as there is no strangulation. Hiram partly feeble from worry and some stomach trouble. We return at 8.15. Hiram has a poor spell coming over from depot - grows very weak and out of breath. But rallies again after we reach Huds. 8. Lovely morning and cooler, Hiram seems to be better and says he must go home today. Last night he thought he was going to die as did I. He said his work was done. He told me if he died to have him buried in Willies lot in Hobart. It is all heart breaking to me. I double if he lives another year. He has lost his grip upon life. I fear to have him leave me.Mrs. Kellogg and Miss Jenkins come. A lonelier May day I never saw, clear, warm, tranquil, the apple trees in the hight of their bloom. 9th. Getting cooler, a lot of Vassar girls in p.m, Mr. Binder comes. Am much disturbed again about Hiram - hear from Eden he is very poorly. 10. A cold wave; frost last night and poor sleep for me, at 10.20, the Castle girls come - about 25 of them. Day clear and sharp. In an evil moment I make one whistle for the girls, and then have to make a score of them. We go to Julian rock and to the falls. 11. Clear and cold and dry - a frost again last night - no damage in the river valley. Hiram is better. 12. At the station this morning I saw Mr. Allen with a telegram in his hand looking for me, my heart sank, I knew what it meant. Hiram was dead. So Edens telegram said. It stormed me for a while, yet my judgement said, "it is best so." I take the boat for Rondout and the afternoon train for Hobart. What gloomoverspreads me during that journey, at Roxbury. Curtis and Ann get in the train, Curtis looks a little strange to me his eyes. He does not know me at first. It cheers me somewhat to see them. At Hobart Eden meets us at the train, Hiram was found dead in his bed that morning. He did not get up when called and when Eden went to his room he lay dead. Apparently he had not stirred since he lay down at night. He probably died early in the evening. He had been around on Sunday, had eaten as usual, and at 9. had taken his lamp and gone to bed, and there his journey in this world had ended. He had said to Eden during the day, that he should never take care of any more bees, and had told Bruce to take good care of his tools. He seemed to feel that his end was near I found it impossible to sleep that night, more than 2 or 3 hours, I was in a strange state of excitement, my Hiram, my boy HiramMay 23d. Very hot and dry - mercury ,near 90. May 24. Still hot - no rain this month to speak of. A lot of teachers from R. and K, am slowly recovering from my nervousness caused by Hirams death. Yet hardly an hour passes that I do not think of him and speak his name.as I so often called him was gone - the dearest one of the family to me, and how could I compose my self to sleep in the room above his dead body? 13. Cold and dry. They put Hiram in his coffin this morning, and after a while I go in with Eden and look upon him. Jane comes and I think she goes in too, oh, the calmness and repose of death! I can no longer keep back my tears, oh if I had only done more for him, if I could only have another chance. How generous death makes us. Later Eden and I go down to the cemetery and look at his grave, a beautiful place. It was one of his last requests that he be buried here in Willies lot - Wilke whom he loved so well, but who cared little for him. I cannot be at ease so by and by I go over to Willies, through the fields and over the hill, the way Hiram and I had once gone a few years ago. The spring - beauty and adders tonge and anemone were in bloom in a sap bush I passed throught. The funeral sermon was preached by John Hublik at 2 o'clock, a mere string of woods and catch phrases that began no where and ledno where, not an idea in it, yet Eden and Jane liked it much. In religion matters, the uncultured mind often prefers shadows to substances. Anything real and logical and tangible offends them. It was a lovely day, but cool. The bobolinks were singing in the meadow in front of the house. We walked behind the hearse to the cemetery, I shall never forget my stress of emotion and grief on that occasion. Jane and Eden and I were full of tears, but Curtis I think shed no tears, his mind is very dull. I slept a little better that night. 14. The morning was again frosty, after breakfast Eden and I go down to the grave. The coverlid of the turf was already pulled over dear Hiram. We stood long by his grave, a finer locality for a village cemetery, I never saw a large, gentle gravelly knoll with the clear brook sweeping around its base on one side beyond which is a beautiful rolling landscape with its green hills, its grazing herds, its dark patches of pine woods and then the encircling mountains, still brown and leaflessI almost envy Hiram his last resting place. Hiram played a larger part in my life than any the rest of my family. He was the one brother who always stuck to me - came to see me wherever I was and wrote me regularly. He brought to me the old home, father and mother and my youth on the old farm, more than all the others. He had no entitled or judgement, was a mere child in many things, never read one of my books, but I loved him all the same. He had all my infirmities and little of my strength; he was a dreamer, an idealist, but had no firm grip upon real life - was one of those men who are always crowded to the wall in the scramble of the world - no push and self assertion in him. We have camped and tramped together; we slept together as boys, and we have lived together as old men. He was their first born and in the old home stood next to father and mother. The work of his hands shows all over the old farm - in the walls that he laid in the trees and orchards he planted, in the buildings.he helped erect. He was always handy with tools. He made the sheds, the stone boats, the hay riggings the churning machine. He made the garden and grafted the apple trees. He loaded and pitched off all the hay for nearly 40 years, and built all the stocks. He drilled and blasted the rocks when I was a boy. He made the sugar and always headed up the butter in the fall. He cut up and salted the pork and did a hundred other things in the old days on the farm. He always dreamed of going West and for years kept his valise under his bed packed ready to go. Once he started and got as far as Michigan when his heart failed him and he came back. He could not have the old spot; he could not face and hold his own with the great outside world. He worried father and mother a great deal by his threats to go West. He was a dutiful son, but he grew very discontented, (and with reason) at the way things went on the farm under Edens management. But he did no better when I helped him keep the farm from 83 to 90 and lost over $2000 by him of late years he had been greatly dependentupon me, which I suffer made him still dearer to me. If I could only have had a home where he could have come and shared with me and fussed with his bus, how it would have added to my enjoyment of life. I look back with such pleasure to the weeks he spent here with me one winter, when he and I boarded with the Ackers and he worked at his bee hives here in the fruit house, while I wrote here in my study. The sound of his saw and hammer was music to my ears. Julian was at Harvard and Mrs. B, in P. His death greatly enhances the burden of the past to me. It makes it all bleed afresh. It is like losing father and mother over again. Eden said he should miss him more than any the rest of us, which is probable. He said the "winter I was sick and sat here in my chair for over 3 months, I could tell when Hiram was coming by seeing his shadow there on that door as he came up the drive and passed the window, I shall never see it there again."Curtis and I go home with Jane on early train and stay till afternoon, Homer looks well, but is as shaky as ever. I cannot sit still long, and go walk about the place. Jane very happy to have us there. Home with Curtis in afternoon, I walk up from train. The old place looks desolate, everything seems to say "Hiram is gone." I walk up the road and look at a rock I saw him blast when I was a boy, but little signs of foliage yet. Apple trees budded; plums and cherry trees in bloom. 15. Frost again last night. I leave for the morning train for home, Curtis walks with me out on the hill through the woods, along Hirams path, he said. It looks as if Curtis would be the next to go, though he may outlive us all. 16. Miss Murphy and her school from N.Y. 17. Albany women and men Buck school. At 4.20. Dr. Barrus and Mrs. Allen. 18. Lovely day and warmer. We walk and loiter. At night a camp fire and much fun.19. My guests off on 8 1/2 train. Light rain. Vassar teachers and the doctor. 20, 21, 22d. Warm and dry. 23d. Very hot. 24. Very hot. 25. Cloudy and warm. Rains around us, Ed and Julian began the house on 23d P.m. again the welcome sound of thunder rolling through the sky; then slow gentle rain, set in about 5 1/2 and rained till after 9, about 1/2 inch water - never more needed. It may save the hay crop, and the strawberries. 26. Clear and warm. Ideal May weather. 27. Slow rain all day, began in the night nearly 2 inches of water. 28. Cold, squally - snow at Roxbury - 2 inches. 29. Clear and cool. Denton Lee and Hopson. 30. Warmer, cloudy, much company at S.S. 31. Ideal day, warm and clear, more company, Julians house partly enclosed.June 1st. One of the shining days, a soft nimbus fills the air. Locust bloom dropping, clover bloom and first dairies. 3. Hot day with heavy shower in afternoon. Go to the valley of the Kinderhook; the land of waving rye fields, see the winds carry them. 4. Cold after the rain and muddy. 5 and 6th. Bright days and warmer. 7. Warm and cloudy with gleams of sunshine, much company. Good shower at 6. 8. Cloudy, very humid. - The bobolink seems the least rustic of our song birds. There is something almost metropolitan about him - certainly cosmopolitan. The tone, the quality of his voice is like that of a great metropolitan orator - its articulation is so clear and vibrant. His dress and manner too, are not a bit rustic or rural - they are metropolitan. His voice has the polish and distinction of the town. All the field and meadow birds and ground builders are inscospicuous in their colors - male and female alike, except the bobolink. His presence in the meadow seems accidental and capricious.9. Fine day, company from Vassar. 10. Cloudy most of the day, at Vassar class day. 11 and 12. Warm fine days. 13. A series of heavy showers from 3 to 5 this morning, very timely. 14. Lovely day and hot. Go to Orange Co. with Vanama. 15. Hot showers around the horizons. The breath of June meadows fills the air. 16. Warm, muggy, partly cloudy with thunder and light rain. 17. Clear and cool, a day like a newly washed lamp chimney - all the smoke and dust and tarnish gone, a brisk rain in the night. Grape blooming about over. Boarding celery yesterday. A shipped first on 13th grown under cheese cloth. 18. Perfection of June day. Everyone has lowells line on the tongue, "What so rare as a day in June." Too fair, 19. Rain from S.W. a thick musky day; the antipode of yesterday. Rained heavily nearly all forenoon, cleared off in p.m.- I think Browing has more ardent women readers than men. At least this is my observation. His bounce and vigor and rigid muscles seem to compliment the woman. They like this rubbing and chafing. He stimulates and excites them, never a soft or feminine line in him, but a kind of procreate thrust and pressure. Terryson is much more flowing and feminine and melodious, at least in his art and is less passionately liked by women. 20. Clear and cool; picking currants, lovely day. 21. Dark, rainy dismal began raining about 3 a.m, June promises to be as much too wet as May was too dry. Rained 9 or 10 hours. Clearing in late afternoon. 22. Clear, cool very fresh. Go to Slabsides at night. 23. At Slabsides, clear cold, writing a little. 24, 25. Cold, cold. 26. Rained nearly all night; clearing at 8. Cool. 27. Cold and windy. Never saw colder June. 28. Fair a little warmer, still at S.S. alone. A crowd from Newburg. 29. Rain all day, hard at times. Well contented at S.S. with chosen company a fire in the fire place.30. Clearing, lovely morning. My guests depart, but leave fragrant memories. July 1st. More rain in the night, but clear and mild today; a little warmer. Pulled down the Delaware vines all afternoon. Began to write the Jamaica trip this morning. 2d. Bright and cool. 3d. Pouring rain from 7 to 11 a.m. 1 1/2 inches. Sat at S.S. and wrote on Jamaica trip. Cleared in afternonn; warmer. 4. Bright warm, placid summer day, wrote on Jamaica. Cuckoos calling all day. Tree toads copulating on hint of tree. Mail smaller and lighter color clasps the female and sits motionless, so far as I can see, all day. An indifferent sort of business. 5. Cool, hard shower at 5. 6. Cloudy and rainy; two pedestrian women from N.Y. an interesting couple, stay to dinner at S.S. Clearing in p.m. 7. Cloudy and warm. 8. Fair day and warm. Begin Julians chimney. 9. Rain in morning, clearing in p.m. warm. 10. Rain, hot, near 90, female gold finch begins to talk. baby talk, sign of nesting. 11. Fair cool day.12. Clear lovely day, getting warmer. Finished spraying for last time. 13. Bright, perfect July day. The boiling Cauldron of the woods is a foam here and there with the chestnut bloom. In the meadows the orange lilies hang like bells. What secret have they that they hide so carefully from the sun and Sky? First cicada today. 14. Clear with a veil of haze this morning. Signs of dry weather. 15. Warmer; there brisk showers, with some hail in p.m. 16. Clear cool, windy; go up to Woodland in p.m, walk to head of the Panther Kill with Miss Haveland - a charming sheet in valley. 17. We climb the Wittenburg, four of us. A windy, cloudy, hazy, threatening day, an enjoyable time. Back at 6. 18. Visit my big spring and old camping place above Larkins. Then take a few trout. Home in afternoon. 19. Raining gustly. Began in the night, cool. 20. Much rain in the night, cloudy with sprinkles till 7, when it began raining heavily and continued over 2 hours, a great fall of water21st. Cloudy, misty, South wind. Great damage in the West along the miss, hundreds of farms under water, crops ruined - $6,000,000 damage. Heavy shower at 6. 3/4 inch in 20 minutes. 22. Partly clear with aborture showers in p.m. 23d. Brilliant lovely day. Go to Mohonk. 24. Warm and threatening rain by 11 a.m. at 12,15 began to rain and thunder, a trerrible down pour for over one hour - then hard rain till 5, roaring and pouring all p.m. about the heaviest rainfall I ever witnessed, washed the vineyard, but not as badly as a few years ago. My neighbor says it fell 5 inches of water and I believe it. This summer will be remembered all over the country for its unprecedented down pours from the Rocky Mts, to New England. [Dry only in Texas] and from Texas to Canada. A regular drunken debauch of the rain gods, 8 or 9 inches since Sunday. 25. Cloudy and light rain from S.W. Returned from Mohonk last night. 26. Cloudy and very clamp. 27. Cloudy with brisk shower.28. Gleams of sunshine. Big shower down the river, light here. 29. Slow rain in afternoon. Helen Lathrop and Miss Poland came from Wilkes Barre. 30. Gleams of sunshine, warm. 31. Gleams of watery sunshine, but no rain. Still at S.S, writing a little. Aug 1st. Warm, with sunshine in p.m. a light shower at 7. 2. [Hot and partly cloudy] Apparently a change in the weather. Clear with West wind, warm and sticky, a shower threatens but aborts. 5. Gilder and his two boys at 6 1/2 this morning. A bright warm enjoyable day. 6. Rain in morning. Gilder off at noon. 7. Bright and cool, Rodman off at 7 on pedestrian tour up river. 8. Rained nearly all night, much warmer clearing. 9. Bright and warm; finish Julians chimney today. Katy-did on the 8th. 10. Storm blowing up from the South.Aug 11. Rain last night - light. Clearing today and warm - showers probable. Some of my pole beans refuse to climb, and go groveling about upon the ground. [West] Embracing weeds and coming to naught, about one in ten are failures. There are some degenerates in every family. - A brisk shower at 7. and the finest rainbow at sunset. I have seen since my youth. A perfect arch very brilliant and a second one fairly outlined. How curious that the rainbow is and yet has no place, no locality, and that no two persons see the same bow. The same rays of light cannot enter two eyes. 12. Clear and cool - a brilliant day. 13. Very cool last night, down to 47. Clear and brilliant today, Myron Benton fatally ill, my friend for 40 years. 15. Bright and cool; start for home, meet Jane on the train. Reach home at supper time. Walk over the hill later. 16. Bright and lovely day; on the old clump. All forenoon, cuff and spot with us. The spring full.over the hill in p.m. to some springs of my boyhood; rocks and ledges and leafy cradles. 17. Still fair and mild; through fields and woods, "Marpessa" under delightful conditions; a long pause by the wall in Old Deacons sap bush; then home to dinner. In p.m, the walk down by the pasture brook; the light shower, the sheltering tree and at five the superb rainbow seen from the door stone with an umbrella over us. 18. Raining in morning, soon clearing, over the hill to Chauts; then to grandfathers old house then through the woods by the ugly bull to the school house. In p.m. up Montgomery Hallow fishing, Curtis takes us. June very ,happy; one trout, much bee balm, falls, rocks, barbed wire and wild honey. 19. Rain in morning; to the gram yard in p.m. Olly, Emana Burr, June and I, a sad, glad hour sympathy in grief, companionship in thought. Poor Abagails grave naked and unkept. [A deh] In the gorge below the falls, then a delightful walk home through the hemlocks20. Bright warm; on the clump again in forenoon, then through to the cleared fields; a seat upon a rock and a new revelation of beauty; then reading in the brakes as in a green snow. In p.m. June leaves on the 3 o'clock train. Enjoyed her visit greatly, an unequalled, an unforgettable comrade. Sings and plays at night in the sitting room, a rare treat. Oh, that her paths could always fall in such pleasant places, much in her that rhymes to much in me. 22d. To Omanta today, then with Ethel Doolittle to Laurens to Dr. Fords, Rainy and chilly, meet Mr. Yagen. 23. To Cooperstown with my new friends, after an absence of 46 years. Town not much changed, only foundations of old summary remain. Row again on the lake; meet no one I ever knew. Back to Omanta and then to Hobart to Edens, Curtis there. E, well and hearty. To Hirams grave after supper; long sad thoughts. 24. Stay to Edens till 3 1/2, when Curtis and I cross the mountain for home; a light shower, a wonderful rainbow.25. Again at Curtises, then to Suters in p.m. 26. Start for home at 3 p.m. Leave Curtis nearly well. 27. Back to W.P. warmer; the grape racket on. 28. Warm; fine shower at night. One inch water, much needed. 29. Growing warmer. 30. Hot and tranquil. 31. The last of the August days; hot and quiet. Sept 1. Hot, lovely day, 235 cases of Delaware today. 2. A triple cooler; lovely day. 3. Superb day, company from R and N. Y. 4. Warmer; rain in morning; brisk brief downpour at noon; just what we wanted. 5. Clear and cool - ideal Sept weather. 6. Warmer, partly cloudy. 7. Rain in forenoon. Clear in p.m. 8. Ideal day, calm, clear, cloudless. perfection of grape weather. 9. Brisk rain, 3 or 4 hours from S.E. 10. Lovely day. 11. Superb day, a memorable picnic in woods near Orange lake. Locusts and wild honey indeed.12. Fine day and warm. 13. Rain in early morning, clearing off warm. - The depth of the reflection does not depend upon the depth of the reflector. 19. Start for the Adirondacks to attend the boys wedding on the 25th. Stay in Albany over night. 20. To Keene Valley by stage from West Port. Weather mild. Reach Mrs. Mackays, at 5.15. A beautiful country - near St. Huberts Inn. 21. Fine day, walk and talk. See Felix Adler in p.m. 22. Go to Indian Head via Gill Brook, a grand view, walk back by trail along the Ausable; a wonderful walk - Adler and 4 or 5 others, 10 miles this day. 23. To upper Ausable Lake and Panorama Ledge with Laura, Mary and a guide, a day full of noble and grand views - nature in her epic moods, warm, hot at times. 24. Still warm, Mrs. B and Julian arrive at night, light rain last night.25. Their wedding day - mild and fine. Ceremony at 3 in Little Rustic Chapel, trimmed with ferns, maintain ash berries, maple branches and [branches] masses of white hydrangea, Emily's grandfather, (80 tomorrow) officiates, a pretty and affecting sight. Only the family and us present. With what long sad thoughts I witness of all. Age and youth face to face under such significant conditions - the evening greeting and encouraging, the morning - the fall congratulating the spring. My father and mother were married over 75 years ago. I was married over 45 years ago, and now Julian and Emily begin the same journey together 26. Rainy. 27. Mrs B. returns home, Edwin Markham drives down and dines with me. Go back home with him to Mrs. Man Martins, stay till Sunday afternoon. Markham and I have much talk. I like him much - a genuine brotherly man democratic American. Like Mrs. Martin also. 28. Back to Budes today; cloudy, misty. Markham has a much stranger faith in the future life than I have.29. Still cloudy with light rain. Start for home, Julian, Emily and I stay in Albany over night. 30. Home early this morning - warm, muggy. Much rain here in my absence; a very heavy down pour on Sunday afternoon; one of the heaviest of the season; ground overflowing with water, no frost. Oct 1st. Warm, slow rain, disgusting. 2d. Cloudy with little sun. 3d. Clearing and cooler, never knew a wet summer to be followed by fry fall. Rheumali's better. Fairly well in other respects. River red as a mud puddle from the heavy rains. - As soon as we have invented a word for a thing then that thing seems to come forth and take shape and to have a reality. The soul, the reason, the fancy, the imagination and, - how there words seem to separate and fix these things. Are we in many things the victims of our words? No sooner do I have hear the true subconscious - self than I see this underself as distinct from the I, as the cellar to a house or the strata under the mills!5. Rain slowly nearly all day. 7. Clearing and fine. 8. Ideal dit day; a walk from Pratt Mills to Slabsides. 9. Cloudy in morning, lovely in p.m. again writing a little, Pretty well. 10. Light frost; clear and fine today, the great coal strike - "The blight of the black famine" the one absorbing topic of public interest. Julian and Emily unpacking and gluing and checks over their gifts of China, cut glass, silver and C. Happy couple! When I was married our presents did not amount to one tooth pick. - Longfellow thought - Thomas Buchman Read a better artist than poet, Wyatt Eaton says [all] the artists thought him a better poet than artist. - An American looking for Carlyles house in Chelsea, asked a well dressed man on the street to direct him. "Who was he" said the man. "Why the famous Thomas Carlyle, who wrote books, histories and C""Did he live here?" inquired the man. "He did, for many years" replied the American. "Well, I never heard of him before, and I have lived here forty years" "Very curious" was the reply, "I am an American and I wanted to see his house." "You are American? Have you ever heard of Dr. Witt Talmage?" Oh, fame what a cheat you are. (Told to me by Mr. Nadal, brother of E.S. Nadal) 11. Began raining in p.m. Go to P. to see the chimney swallows. 12. Heavy rain all night - till 9 in the morning 2 or 3 inches of water. 13. Warm, sun and cloud. 14. Clear and cooler. 15. Fine day and warm. 16. Fine day and warm. 17. Colder and cloudy. 18. Cloudy, misty still not much frost yet.17. Cloud and sun. Wild geese yesterday, honking southward. - Dr. Quincy says, Dr. Johnson never grows a thought before your eyes - to do this is to be a suggestive writer, Dr. Q, himself dies it rarely. - Social robins in the vines Shout and call in festive mood; Ruby knight in the pines Checking chipnumk in the wood Alder berries red as blood Gleam above the darkling flood. Drifting threads by spiders spines Glance and twinkle in the sun - An English poet makes a rainbow appear in the sky before it rains - as one of the signs of rain. Mrs. Whitman makes the Jasmine and snow drop August flowers. Byard Taylor makes Katy-dids chirp in August grass by day. Arnold makes the linden bloom in August (Cholar Gipsey) Mortimer Collins makes the swallow fly at November hidding. One poet [makes] thinks the swallow dips in the lake as the flies because he is "puzzled with that sky,"- Palaeolithic and neolithic man - the latter probably since the ice age - used smooth polished stone tools. The glacier period probably 100 thousand years. Palaeolithic man lived back in the tertiary age, neolithic in the quaternary age. The first appears to have been spread over all the earth, used fire - lived 220 thousand years ago. The man before him was probably a man-like ape, not yet great. The neanderthal skull probably dates back to this age, who were his progenitors? Oct 28. A week from home, 4 days down among the genakers of Chester Co Pa; fine weather and a pleasant time, no rain. Then to [Car] Phila, then to N.Y. and home [on the] to M. on 25 to 28 today a heavy rain last night, all night; ground again full of water. Maple leaves about half off; grape vines nearly stripped. 31. A fine mild day, with cloud and sunshine. Oct goes out half naked, half clad in golden rags and tatters, a fine month on the whole, but too much rain - perhaps 5 or 6 inches in two or three storms.Nov 1st. Nov comes in clear and lovely, with a little frost this morning, I begin to hear the banging of the quail hunters. Poor birds, how many of them will fall today, Julian and Emily off early to join the slaughter, 5. The fifth perfect Nov. day, clear, still mild, ideal weather. I correct proof of L.V. each day and rewrite, a Katy-did today. 6. Cloudy and threatening rain from S.W. - Why do women seem to put on good looks with good clothes? Dressing her up certainly has a more marked effect upon her face than it does on the man. She lives in her clothes more than a man does - thinks more about them and a new suit often makes a very plain face look beautiful, it kindles the soul behind it. 7. Weather continues fine, no rain yet this month. To N.Y. today. Hear Duse at night, - a great actress but a rotten play (The dead city). 9. Home today, clear, mild. 16. The past week all Indian summer, mild, still hazy, lovely, no rain, company 3 days from V.C. Mr. Durku died Friday morning, the 14thIt was one of the gentle rains That bell the trees to sleep When Pluto nods in his lary chair And storm clouds slowly creep, No boughs that bend, No greats that rend, No bolts that flash, No thunder crash - Vieled skies that softly weep.21. The extraordinary Indian summer weather continues, mild, clear, hazy, still, only a sprinkle of rain two mornings ago. Finishing Julians cistern. Olly and Dessie came down on the 17th. 23. Light rain last night. Cooler today; probably the end of the Indian summer. 24. Mild partly cloudy, windy - Vital force differs from mechanical force in this way at least - Here are two men of about equal size and height, yet one is much more active and powerful than the other - can out lift him, out run him, out throw him. The anatomy of the two men are the same, as machines they are exactly alike, yet what a difference. Between two mechanical contrivances this difference could not exist. The power of a machine always in proportion to its weight - other things being equal. In a man too, but not to the same extent. Into him enters a factor that is not governed by mechanical laws, - will spirit, vital force, a man of will and spirit can over do, - put more power upon his muscles and bones than they can well bear.Nov 25. News of the death of Myron Burton this morning, my oldest and best friend among men friends and correspondents since 62. Our last meeting must have been 5 or 6 years ago. When he came to Slabsides. I dreamed vividly of him night before last - was with him somewhere; his cheeks were flushed, but he looked feeble. Before getting up this morning I planned a letter to him today, then came word from Mr. Peters of his death yesterday a.m. He was one of the few farmers of real culture - a man of fine literary tastes, but a born countryman and lover of the soil. Tall, quiet, canny, lingering over the flavors of things, chucking upon the quaint the beautiful, the picturesque, fervently attached to his old home, always adding something to its beauty. - A man with the virtues and charm of rural things keeping alive traditions and legends, making much of them, lover of the old poets and dramatists - a man with an atmosphere - gentle, genial mellow unobtrusive - his own native meandering Wubutock in Herman form. [His one marked fault stingyness - clung too tightly to his money - often a fault of those home-braved nature] I shall see him no more, farewell my beloved Myron. How often we have wrestled with the great problems together.[Have] all but breaking our talk upon them in vain. His faith in immortality was stronger than mine. May he find it well founded. The last letter Thoreau even wrote was to him. Cloudy and mild and still this morning.26. Myrons funeral day, - cold and rainy from the N.E, the dark and somber side of Nov. What will my funeral day be like? 27. Gentle rain, start for Edens at 6.20. The Delaware hills white with snow. At S. Gilban I see a little dumpy white haired woman getting on the train. It is Jane, she too is going to Edens. At Hobart Eden meets us; looks well. Near noon Curtis and Ann come in a wagon. Mag treats us to a fine dinner at one - worthy of a much richer establishment. In p.m. I walk again down to Hiram's grave and stand long beside it asking myself, shall I arrange to be buried here. Jane goes home at 4. Curtis and Ann and I stay all night. I select a stone for Hiram grave. 28. Colder, snowing and blowing. Go to Homers [at] on morning train. Homer the same as usual, help cut a cherry tree in his sap bush, for Julian on afternoon train go to Roxbury. Snows and blows all day, but lets up as sun goes down. At Curtises all are well as usual. 29. Cold, winter morning; only an inch of snow. Start for home on morning train. No snow over Pine Hill. 30. Clouding up.Dec 1st. A snow fall of two or three inches; came like a thief in the night. Am writing these days on "The Ways of Nature" and hitting the mark now and then. 3. Weather not bad. 4. Rain in the night. 5. Cold driving snow storm from N.E. blowing like great guns, clearing at night. 3 or 4 inches snow. 6. Mercury down to 4 this morning, clear, still. 7. Snowing again this morning, but quietly, gently mercury 18. Clearing in p.m. 4 or 5 inches snow. Good sleighing now. Still writing on "Ways of Nature". Health above fear, can't write unless I am well, and then writing makes me better. It is a rare tonic, nearly the same appetite for work I had at Cambridge two years ago. 8. Clear and colder. Go to P. 9. Cold - 4 below this morning, only one above at one o'clock. 10. Cloudy - up to 10. Two sleepless nights - a terrible strain, upon my emotional nature - "Can a man and woman who have loved each other deeply cease to be lovers and become friends? Will not the pulling up of the flower of love pull up the plant friendship also? Are not their roots inextricably interwoven? June and I are trying the experiment." 11. No we only remove a troublesome sucker from the root of the flower. Will that surgery kill it? We shall see. Furrow five inches of snow again from N.E. cold. 12. Clear and cold, my skies also are brighter, still writing on "Ways of Nature." 13. Another driving snow storm from N.E, began in the night, mercury at 10. I sleep well and am well, and tireless. A robin on the 11th and blue birds everyday till yesterday. 3 p.m. no let up to the storm, a full blown north easter, rushing by like an express train, blinding all the passengers with the flying snow, nearly a part already. 14. Clearing cold. New fall of snow about one foot - 20 inches now on the ground. Mercury at 10. Got to Julians to dinner15. Below zero in the night. Cloudy this morning an snow probable. Walk to Slabsides in p.m. to my knees all the way; only lone trait, that of a partridge. Getting milder. 16. Snowed in early part of night; then began raining, has rained all day - not hard, much fog. Mercury near 40. 17. Clearing, mild; plenty of snow left. It now seems all tacked and fitted to the ground - full of dimples and creases like mothers had guilt. 18. Still mild and fair. 19. Still mild and fair. 20. Getting cloudy and colder, May snow. 21. Raining all day, heavy at night. 22. Big rain and thaw; rarely even in summer is the ground so full and overflowing with water splash and water everywhere, mercury near 40, a high hole this morning, eating the drupes of the celtis I think. Brown creepers and Knights here and lots of blue-birds. 23. Clear, colder. Mercury 25.- We who write books today want our reward tomorrow - we want to make an instant impression and reap an instant success. (Good subject for an article - contrast the authors who have woke up on the [morowed] and found themselves famous and whose work has lived, with those who have come into their own slowly gradually) If Gilberts Whites Selbone was first published today, would it make any impression? Certainly not and yet it is as certain that in a century it would be recognized as a classic, as it is now. The great books are not all still born surely, but if a still born monk has real and high excellence it will make its way as surely as fate. 24. Cold down to 10 this morning, signs of snow in afternoon, a robin this morning. 25. Xmas, snowed all day, gently, about 4 inches. Rusten sad and oppressed. Julian, Emily and Amanda to dinner. I seem to talk very little. Walk to Slabsides in late p.m.- The electric light is a great thing, but you can't regulate it, you must have all or none. Is there any parallel to it in life? 26. Bright day. Good sleighing. 27. - More snow - 3 or 4 inches - very dry, much colder. 28. Clear, cold, down to 7 this morning. 29. Bright clear cold. 30. Bright clear. 31. Lovely winter days, fine sleighing, perfect unusually well this winter - nothing tires me, neither writing, walking or sawing and splitting wood. Have written more the past six weeks than ever before in same length of time. I what relation will two people whom I have had much in mind lately stand to me one year from now? I wish I knew now.
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Creator: Burroughs, John, 1837-1921
Date: 28 Mar 1901 - 31 Dec 1901
Text: From March 28, 1901 to Dec 31st, 1901 March 28. Cloudy cooler, freezing at sunset. March 29. Cold, windy, nearly clear, 6 degrees of frost, sap starts rapidly this morning. 30. Still bright and windy, first run of sap. Friends from P. a sugar maple picnic. 31. Sap still in the run; pierce wind from N.W. ground rapidly drying out. Ice all gone from river since 28th. April 1st. Again my natal month. No frost last night, still very windy and chilly. Still boiling sap, not quite well yet of my...
Show moreFrom March 28, 1901 to Dec 31st, 1901 March 28. Cloudy cooler, freezing at sunset. March 29. Cold, windy, nearly clear, 6 degrees of frost, sap starts rapidly this morning. 30. Still bright and windy, first run of sap. Friends from P. a sugar maple picnic. 31. Sap still in the run; pierce wind from N.W. ground rapidly drying out. Ice all gone from river since 28th. April 1st. Again my natal month. No frost last night, still very windy and chilly. Still boiling sap, not quite well yet of my cold and grip. Frederick Harrison is said to admire this sentence of a new English writen - "in the milk of October dawns her calmbrows had been dipped," How absurd, what wretched taste! Think of a critic like Harrison approving such stuff as that, anything for novelty. If even I spill milk like that in literature I will hire someone yo kirk me. 2d. Chilly, mostly cloudy; sap run over. Fox sparrow still here. 3d. My 64th birthday, cold rain from N.E. Health not quite up to par yet. 4. Rain continues, a cold drizzle clean the floor at Slabsides. Fox sparrows still here. Checking frogs on the 1st. 5. Still cloudy with light rain. H. and teills dove at S.S. 6. Rain nearly all day. 7. Rained and [blowed] blew hard all night still at it. The 6th day of N and N.E. rain and cloud. 8. Cloudy with spits of rain all day. Miss. Peck and Mr. Fuller at S.S.9. Still cloudy spits of rain, the 7th day of loud and rain. On the 4th I found a butterfly in Slabsides. One of the milk weed [birth] species I think that evidently had hibernated in the room. 10. Still cloudy and windy. 11. A fine April day at last marred only by high wind from the North. Find hepatica today in woods of P. Cemetery. 12. Clear lovely morning, near freezing last night. The ground mole has been at work for a week and more. To know how early moths and ants are active look in the sap buckets. The moths, dark grey and cream colored, are out at night; this year by or before 1st of April. Never had a known relish forbirds and the spring than I have this season. The writing of the spring poems last winter I fancy sharpened my appetite for these things. 13. The best day yet warm, still, bright. April coming to her own. Go to P. in afternoon to walk with bird club. See hermit thrushes, and song sparrow with albino markings. One girl said she had never seen a blue-bird. Where could she have lived? I showed her one - she thought it perfectly lovely. 14. Sunday, a lovely morning, quails calling up in the Mulford lots, I answer and presently one goes humming by the summer house where I stand and seeing me utters a decisive chattening note. He alights in the vineyard near the lane and utters the flock call. Others continue calling in the Mulford woods on field. 15. Cloudy and windy from N.E. threatening rain, Hiram comes today from Water Park, looks well.16. Milder, gleams of sunshine. The boys setting out the grapes. Wind still N.E. Hiram and I go to Slabsides in p.m. it is good to be there again. Clears off in the night. 17. Clear and lovely. One of the charmed days. Quite warm, a little arbutus opening in favored places. The high hole here several days. How good the world looks. 18. Cloudy and misty from the South. Hiram returns to Wester Park. The toads song by night. A robin sitting on 4 eggs. 19. Still cloudy and chilly, but no rain thus far. 20. Rain on afternoon. Arbutus today. 21. Pouring rain all night and at times all day from N.E. warm. The ground overflowing. 4 or 5 inches, water thrush this morning. Hiram and I again at S.S.22. Signs of clearing, a little blue sky; wind still N.E. The 5th day of cloud and rain. Warblers this morning. Much warmer in p.m. with sunshine and a thunder shower North of us. 23d. Cloudy with slow rain from S.E. River as red as the Mississipi, with dark streaks of floating drift, a vivid green dripping over the brim of the bank at Vanderbilt. The 6th day of rain and cloud. The lovely contest of song of the gold pinches going on in the trees by the Italians, began 3 days ago. 24. Rain and wreck continued, now from the North. It has rained all around the compress - great damage in Plaas. Storm now down the Coast.a little rain makes mud, a heavy rain kills it, it hardens and compacts the ground. The pretty musical festival of the gold finches continues this morning in the rain. The air is filled with a fine spray of bird notes over by the Italians. The finches have met and held their reunion there in the same trees for several springs, many of the males already have their summer plumage or colors, no other bird has so pretty a way of match making. Where others fight and scratch the gold, finches all join in singing overall [each] one, all others praises, apparently. 25. The abnormal weather continues, rain all yesterday and last night, heavy in p.m. and at night. Rain this morning with no change of wind but signs of exhaustion only over before, have I seen the Hudson so full or so muddy, current runs down all day. We must have had 8 or 10 inches of water. Floods everywhere, only equalled by the Eddyville flood 24 or 6 years ago. The musical festival of the gold finches still going on this morning at the old stand, amid the dripping branches. The azure butterfly on Monday, the 22d. 26. Clear at last and warm. The air full of the breath of growing things. The bumble bee, beetle humming about over the grass this morning. March Marigolds just about to open. 27. Lovely day, clear with increasing warmth. 28. The same continued. Glorious day. First swallows today. Hud and Ed and I go to the woods for arbutus.29. April is making amends - warmth and brightness continued, cool nights light. frost at S.S, on 27 and 28. "Amasa sit out much celery last week. Hard maples new packing their tassels, no fruit thus in bloom yet, mercury gets above 70. 30. Hazy, soft and warm. The maple bloom grew nearly one inch yesterday. Promises to be warmer today. One of the birds here this morning - the "Jerry Drunk" River like glass. The voices of the shad fisherman very distinct. Here and there I see them "picking up" on the glassy surface. Birds very happy and musical this morning. The perfection of spring, mercury 75. Shad push in blow and here and there a plum tree. Whippoorwill on 28thMay 1st. Cooler, wind from N. overcast, a sprinkle of rain in the night. Maple fringe all out. "The time that goes before the leaf," When birds are bursting everywhere; The sugar maples golden sheaf. The thrilling odors in the air," The willow [shows] droops a veil of green. The shad bush [shows] wears a veil of white; The orchard hints a leafy sream, ord cherry trees will bloom by [to] night. A warbler came this very morn. And whippoorwill [came yester ave] is due tonight. The purple trillium tod is born. And ferns unroll their wolly coils or and spice bush [lifts a golden spray] gold isnew and bright. Ammones [is] are venturing [for the] out. And trembling in the slightest breeze. [And violets too without a doubt] And painted like the pin of traut. The maples red show tiny keys2d. Cloudy and warm with light sprinkles of rain from W. 3. Heavy showers in the night, much cooler this morning, and clearing. Go to Quiney school. The trees begin to be outlined upon the canvas up the woods. 4. Clear and cool with North winds. Health excellent these days. Growing warmer in p.m. 5. Clear and warmer. House warm here this morning. River glittering with spangles. Just now for half on hour or more a big cloud kept my place in shadow; the clouds sprang out of the blue on the North and again faded in the blue on the South end - spun off at one end and spun on on the other. How curious to see a cloud created as it were; on the intense azure your eye sees a filmy outline which in less than one minutebecomes and the white fragment of a cloud where before was the blue sky. The main body of cloud recruited itself in this manner. Its recruits hastened up from the rear, called from out of empty space while in its front it meltled away at the same rate. Shad unusually sweet and juicy this spring. Is it because of the muddy water? Proved a lovely Sunday. Drive over to S.S. 6. Still clear and cool, mercury reached 72 yesterday. A great Carolina wren calling this morning down by the river - the first one I have ever heard here in spring, no wood thrush yet. Apple trees showing a little pink. 8. Still clear and mild. The pride and cat bird here this morning, wood thrush yesterday, I look through my study window upon Ed and Hudplowing the vineyard; back and forth they go making red hands amid the green. Beyond them the river sparkles and [denser homkles] in the sun on of even its darken suit. It wore gauze coverd with spangles. The whistle of the quails comes through the open door while wrens warble and robins and orioles call, a bluish white haze fills the air, near the bush sparrow trills near by. Mr. Smith my neighbor died yesterday morning. Now I hear the chat again. Latus trees to have ant - the mulberry locust and celtis or sugar berry. The ash is a little earlier. 9. Cloudy, a languid depression N.W. of one. King bird here this morning. Shaking out his jingles in the air or is he rehearsing his bee catching tactics? Apple trees in first stages of bloom.10. Rained 1/2 inch last night and gently all yesterday afternoon. It was one of the gentle rains [that] That bill the trees to sleep. When pluto nods in his easy chair. And out of his hand the slow clouds cross. 11. More rain last night and this morning a sluggish condition of the weather forces. breaks at 9 with gleams of sunshine. Cuckoo here yesterday. Much thunder in p.m. and several brisk but brief showers. The braggart clouds are full of sound and threaten crack of doom. They split the sky, they shake the ground and fill the house with gloom. When all areas done we turned and found the [syckle] sickle of the moon. Wonderful grass weather. 12. Clearing this morning and cooler. The matchless old blue sky again from the West - the gift of a high barometer. Many trees in full leaf.That peculiar blue of the sky, a translucent blue - not the color of something but of empty space; an unfading immortal blue, as Homer and the prophets saw it, we see it today. The fringed polygela and day wood today Libres just opening. Apple and pear bloom beginning to drop. 13. Rain last night, clearing again today at 10 1/2, cooler. A purple finch singing high in the air, drops down on motionless wing like a child's parachute and continues his ecstatic strain in a tree. How pretty it all was, why are not these birds more abundant? Indigo bird and tanager here today, young robins out of the nest - the earliest I remember ever to have seen them. Lady slippers showing the bud. Apple bloom at its height.May 14. Clear, cool. The world very beautiful. White crowned sparrow this morning. 15. Lovely day, go to New Paltz and walk with normal school pupils - find a quail's nest with 2 eggs. 16. Still clear and warmer, but nights cold. Apple bloom nearly off here; lilac at their height. Young blue birds flying about near Henry Sutcliffs. Day of great freshness and beauty, in afternoon a sort of luminous greenness everywhere; the young leaves seem to let the light through them, a green transparency. The youth of nature, when we almost see the blood in her veins, her integuments are yet so delicate and then, many nashville warblers this season for other kinds. 17. Still clear and lovely, school children form P. 18. Rain nearly all day - not heavy, nearly 70 young women with their teachers from Tarrytown. The castle, a very nicelot of girls. Slabsides can hardly hold the crowd. 19. Cloudy, wet, cold from N.E. Bad news from Eden, depresses me much. 20. Still cloudy and threatening. go home on morning train. Much mud, country very green. Find Curtis and family well. Hired man hauling manure. Curtis and Johnny sitting by the fire. Leaves about half out, maples dropping their bloom. Tops of mountains yet brown and naked. 21. Curtis and I drive over to Edens. Fog lifts and sun comes out at 9. Warm and fine, [Find] We find Hiram making garden at Stewarts. He is well. I walk with him among his bees. Over half of them dead. We find Eden out talking to a passing neighbor. He is much better than I expect to find him - better than last week he says. Looks very pale, but is slowly gaining. The day turns offWarm and lovely. Four or five bobolinks singing in the meadows near Edens house. I enjoy them much, Hiram comes down in afternoo, we sit out doors most of the time. At 5 C and I startt back. How beautiful the broad green valley looks from near the mountain top. I walk over the mountain and pluck many wild flowers; the large bellwort (grandiflora) squirrel corn with the odor of clover, a few dutchmens [britches] breeches with it, both yellow violets, painted trillium, white and blue violets and the Canada violet. Then last most noticeable, they stood in groups like tall school girls with their arms across each [one another] others shoulders. How like children all these frail wild flowers seemed in the great mountain woods with their pale sweet faces turned towards you. Such a delicate, youthful poetic touch as they gave to the flow of the primitive forest as we passed. The anemone also made white manyplaces by the road side and in the fields. 22d. Clear and warm - the first real warmth of the spring. Curtis and I go over in Mukens Hollow fishing. Catch only 6 trout, but catch many other things. Home at noon. In p.m. I wonder about the old farm or listen to bobolinks in the meadow below the barn. They sing nearly as in my youth. I hover about the old places like a ghost I haunt them. I am the spirit of other days, a walking mummy, no one sees what I see, no one sees me - the real me. I even saw the old farm look greener and fresher. 23. Rain in the night, rather heavy from S.W. Clearing this morning. Go down to Abagails to dinner; warm and lovely. Back home on afternoon train. 24. Warm and fine. Hud, Ed and I go fishing down below Centreville. I take onlyseven trout, rather fine ones. The boys catch about the same, a new country to me. Hot, enjoy the day. Find a chuwinks nest - nest and eggs a part of the ground. A heavy shower at 6 just as we reach home. One of there reckless intemperate absurd widled downpours, when the bottom falls out of the clouds and all comes down in a heap. Washes roads badly, but does but little damage in vineyard. Much cooler. 25. Cold, rainy, wind stuck in N.E. again. Kingstone teachers come, a dull day. 26. Cloudy and cool with faint gleams of sunshine. Sprinkles of rain from S.W. 27. The davenable wet continues. Wind anchored in N.E. again with mist and slow fine rain.Remarkable and unusual weather conditions all the months of April and May. Wind in the [East] N.E. when sun crossed the line and it has been there most of the time since. Promises a wet summer according to the sign. Grape arms not much over a foot long. How ones mind has its beat, a sort of round of thoughts, like a bird its particular range of trees and field, where it spends most of its time, - its habitat. The things upon which my own mind anulls most of late years, are first the old home and father and mother and all that party my youth, not a day, or hardly an hour that something does not send my mind back there; then nature about me, then Julian, the literature then women, then death - more and more I think of death and how incredible it is that I must really exchange thisfair world for the silence and darkness of the grave. Then of the mystery of the universe, I think often of Walt and all that Washington life, I still dream at times of being a clerk in the treasury and also of teaching school, I think but rarely of politics and of the great blundering world. I live mainly in the past. 28. Still cloudy and wet - sprinkles and spurts of rain from East. 29. The same continued, colder; wind still South East, much rain at 5 and 6 o'clock, mercury keeps at about 56. 30. Same conditions, cold, misty, heavy clouds, wind S.E. storm Centre stuck again West of us. 32. Fair day and warm, sun and cloud. A threatened shower at sunset flashes in the pan,June 1st. Sun and cloud, but on the whole a fair day. Vassar girls. Rain at 8 and at intervals all nigh from S.W. 2. Cloudy and threatening in morning, sun comes out at 10. Fair warm day, more Vassar girls. Locust trees not yet in bloom. 3. Fine warm day; go to N.Y. 4. Ideal June day. In Lakewood. The biggest bull frog chorus on the lake at night I even heard, like the following of a herd of bulls. 5. Lovely day and warm; Back home at night. Air loaded with perfume of honey locusts. 6. Fine day, warm - 82, light shower at 4 1/2. 7. Cloudy from S.W. Muggy; sprinkles of rain; Began rainingat 10, rained till 4, at times heavy, at least an inch of water. Health unusually good these days but not much accomplished. Many visitors - mostly Vassar girls, many thoughts of Julian, about to finish his college career, a good deal of worry about grapes and carrots. 8. Storm over colder, wind clouds with patches of blue sky. Sunshine in p.m. Company at S.S. 9. Cold, suggests frost, nearly clear this morning. Wild grapes blooming a little, clover blooming. River all be spangled this morning. So cool I need a fire. 10. Fine day, warmer. Go over to S.S. Binder comes at night. 11. Lovely day, we go to Vassar class day. Stay in P. over night. 12. Warm, lovely day. Attend commandment. 13. Stay at S.S. with Binder. 14. Company from P. heavy showerat 5 1/2 yet a good wetting. 15. Cloudy and cooler, Mrs. Telmage and Ruth Berkly, stay all night, cool. 16. Clear ideal June day. Grapes about ready to bloom. 17. Perfect day. Grapes blooming. 18. Perfect day go fishing. 19. Still fair, start for C. today in company with Miss Gentry a Vassar girl from Mo. Reach Mrs. Langs at 9 1/2. 20. With Julian today in the beautiful college town; see the Yale - Harvard base ball game. 21. Class day - a fine and novel spectacle at night. The yard illumined by thousands of Chinese lanterns. A shower in morning. In p.m. Julian gives a little spread in his room and announces to the company his engagement to Emily MacKay. 22. Light showers - go out to ReveesBeach with Julian Emily and Laura, a fine pebbly beach. 23. Sunday. Go to Wellesley to hear Lyman Abbott preach the [Rulla] laments sermon, a clear sensible discourse. 24. Getting warm. Go to Wellesley cmmencement. A fine lot of girls. 25. Getting hot; Julian hears that he will get his degree. 26. Hot; Harvard commencement. See J. in his cap and gown fill into Memorial Hall with a thousnad others. He graduates Cuns Laude, much to his surprise and to mine, very happy. 27. Very hot. Hear the Mrs Batu Capa post and orator, McVeigh very impressive, on the value of ethical ideas in A, politics, a grand discourse, but to long by 1/2 hour. Santyanna reads apoem mostly moonshine - nothing concrete and real in it. 28. Very hot 9 1/2 Go to Nantasket beach in late P.M. 29. A hot dusty ride home. Emily with us, a purgatory of dust and heat; reach home at 5 p.m. A heavy shower one week before had washed things some. 30. Fearful heat, 92. July 1. Hot, hotter, 94, 96 - 100 in some places. 2d. Fearful heat, boat races today, mercury 98, much higher in places. Hosted for 30 years. 3. A little cooler. Miss Brown of Wilkes Barre Pa. 4. At Slabsides today, weather bearable. 90 swimming in big pool with the Booths. 5. Light rain last night, light showers with low lazy thunder in p.m.Girdled Delawares today. 6. Slow rain in the night, stay at S.S. Alone, muggy and cloudy today. Finish girdling. 7. Fine day with brisk brief shower in afternoon. 8. Lovely day, pick and can cherries. 9. Fine tranquil summer day. During the great heat of last week, unfledged birds leaped from their nests in desperation. Two turkey buzzards were seen a few miles below here and one of them killed and brought to me. 10. Warm quiet day, rather muggy, most of the birds yet in song. A warmer July so far than last year. Staying at S.S. Warm tranquil summer days, the yellow butterflies dance and zigzag along the road before you, the call of the quail comes up from the fields, the meadow lilies ring their colored chimes here and there above the grassthe bird songs grown a little languid still fill the morning air, the landscape dreams under a soft shining milky haze. 11. Fine warm day; go to H. increasing cloudiness with slow rain at night. 12. Cool from N.W. clearing and warmer in p.m. 13. Julian and I start for Roxbury on noon train from K. warm; reach the old home at 3 1/2, all well and glad to see us, the haying well under way. Bobolinks still in song down in the meadow as in June. 14. Hot day; walk down to the Suters in p.m. 15. Getting very warm; go up on clump and clean out the spring - nearly dry. 16. Very hot, lonage about and read all day. Light thunder shower at night. 17. Cloudy this morning with low lazy thunder and light rain. Country very green, quite happy again at the old home - feel at times as if I could stay here and spend the rest of my days.18. Hot with thunder all around the horizon in afternoon and light rain at night. Go up on old clump. 19. Much cooler. In p.m. Julian and I go to the village and then to Suters. 20. Cool, wear my coat this morning, a hint of fall in the look of things, clear a nice rain down home on the 17th, Hud writes. 21. Much warmer, showers around us in p.m. a light dash here - the fringe of a shower, Eden comes over; looks and acts himself, seems quite well. A shower at W.P. 22d. Warm, gusty, cloudy in morning. 23. Clear and fine and dry, not very hot. 24. Warmer and nearly clear. Great heat in West still continues - the 36th day - mercury from 95 to 108 in shade - all records broken in some places. Great heat all over Europe - unprecedented in places, 108 in Siberia at Odessa. Getting very dry here.July 2425. A quiet change to cool, need a coat this morning, change came at mid night - first with gale of wind from N.E. then slow rain for an hour or more - only wet the surface of the ground. Cloudy and misty this morning with N. and N.E. wind. Bobolinks ceased to sing yesterday. Finished haying yesterday at 4, a good crop 136 loads. 26. Very cool with mist and fine rain from N.E. Rained a little all night - a dry rain. The abnormal heat continues in the West. A hermit thrush singing divinely this morning up in Cloverlat woods apparently for his own edification. His young must certainly have flowers long ago, a true post be, most birds sing for mate and young and cease when there are grown or before. This is true of the nightingale. But the hermit sings for the songs sake. Many other birds seem to do this27. Very cool last night, clear this morning after the fog lifted and signs of warmer. Go up to old clump in p.m. with Suter girls and spend the night, 4 boys and 5 girls an interesting time, but pon sleep for me. The old clump had not been made up since I slept there in 85, and it near hard hand. The wind blew too and I was cold in the night, the Molly Hunt was on the windward side of me. Light rain and much fog in the morning. Hermit thrush sang very early. We came down at 10 into a much warmer air. 28. A warm day with sun and cloud - dry showers in afternoon and night, thunder with only sprinkles of rain. 29. Warm with fog clouds; the dust wet down this morning. A fine rain at home Thursday night the 25th and on Friday. Fine shower at 4 over 1/2 inch30. Rain in the night - about 1 3/4 inches in all, greatly needed. Curtis and I drive out to see Jane and Homer once more. Find them as usual, H. almost helpless, Jane burdened with all the work and lane of the farm and of H. too, too much for her or any woman, but she does not complain, or only mildly. It is a sad house to me. In p.m. we drive to Eden's. He and Mag are well as usual; very warm, with shower at 9. p.m. 31. Go up and take dinner with Hiram at Stewards and home in afternoon, cooler at night. Aug 1st. Cool day with much cloud. Spend the night on old clump with Julian, Molly Hunt and Suter girls. Fine moon light, but supper some with cold. 2d. Clear fine day, Julian goes home.3d. Cloudy and warmer this morning. A little rain in the night. As easy as cloud shadows climb the mountains. The fleet winged swallow. Swallows were skimming over the top of old clump after sunset. Two hermits sang at 4 in the morning, their voices a little cracked. Lambs bluting in the night. Voices of the farmers at 4 a.m. all over the dine valley below us getting their caros. All over this part of the country I notice the leaves of the thorn bush are covered with yellow spots - some fungus disease, the tops and the sides [of] or East sides of the bushes are the yellowest; The fine black specks are in the middle of the birds - eye spots.4. Cloudy, still, warm. - The teasel head with its band (zone?) of bloom. - Vernom with its creeping flame. - The spiny urn of the thistle a foam with purple bloom. - The crimson plume of the balm (monarda) above the ranks of lusty weeds. - The spreading burdock shows its hundred brown and purple beads, above the fence, - Every morning the evening Primrose has renewed its canary yellow above its purple stalk. - The clematis begins to hang its wreaths upon the wayside bushes. - The stubbly meadows are touched again with green5. Bright day, all afternoon on the high hill sides, gazing upon the land - and looking for woodchucks. 6. Cloudy in morning with S.E. wind, boring rain. Go to Abagails to dinner with Curtis and Ann. In afternoon a tall gray bearded man of gentle manners appears at the door and asks for me. I know him at a glance, James Oliver my old teacher of 50 years ago. We had not met in all that time, but had corresponded and he had sent me his picture a few years ago. Greatly pleased to see him and his son and daughter who were with him. He lives in Kansas. He seemed hale and vigorous, though nearly 80, I was not one of his favorite scholars, I was eclipsed by Jay Gould and Andrew Coubin and others, and his appreciation now was very pleasing. My old master had at last said "well done." He was the best teacher my youth ever knew.Began raining in p.m. and continued all night - hard at times - an old fashioned rain, much needed. At West Park about 4 inches of water fell. 7. Fine cool day. 8. Start for home this morning. Reach home at 12, 15 stay at S.S. Country very green. Well full of water. 9. Warm day and fine. 10. Hot and muggy, with showers at night - over one inch water in the night; too much wet. Grapes look fine. 11. Cool and bright, an ideal summer day. 12. Fine day, light showers at night. 13,14,15,16,17. Warm moist days of sun and cloud without rain. 18. Rained nearly all night, slowwithout wind. Shipped first grapes yesterday. Drove at Pangyang in afternoon. Muddy, muggy, cloudy, [miles] acres upon [miles] acres of purple loosestrife over in marshes near Clintondale, at a distance the eye saw a purple lake or sea - very effective. Pangyang rough and forbidding - all bone and no meat except little dabs in the hollows between the rocks. A quails nest beside the road under the weeds or bushes, 23 eggs; the bird kept her place for some moments while Amasa wa standing within one foot of it. Amasa and I walk back on West side of peat swamp - only a 3 mile walk. 19. Cloudy, warm, rain threatened from the East.20. A big broad of thunder showers last night from 9 to 12, about 1 1/2 inch water. On the hill in the woods near my path saw where the lightning had come out of a hole under a stone and crept around over the ground like a blind warm and apparently as slowly. It is the only case I have even seen where the lightning came up out of the earth. It burst up under a big stone that stand on edge beside a little oak tree. It threw the soil and leaf mould away from the stone then made a path or furrow through the dead leaves about an inch deep or more, for about 20ft, there dived under the ground and burst out the bank scattering the soil all about. Its path was like this;21. Hot, muggy, air recking with moonshine shower at 6 - 1/2 inch. 22. Vapor and heat again - rotten weather. 23. The same continued; shower at noon a week of steaming recking rotten weather. Everything mildows. 24. Began raining at noon; rained heavy nearly all afternoon from N.E. a weather debauch, cooler. 25. Clearing, cooler, wind N.W. looks as if the bad weather devils had withdrawn, a really fine August day. May Cline says this of my books [style], "you have the best style in literature today. How do I know? Why, because I can read 60 pages of it and not know I'm reading at all. It is a pure expression - offers no resistance," Would it were trueAug 26. Superb August day, slow sailing clouds with level keels, warm, nail up crates all day. Red eyed birds still in song; hear bobolinks flying over. A freshet in all the streams from Saturdays rain. 30. Ideal August day, since my last entry, clear, warm, gentle. Elbert Hubbard here yesterday. Looks like a man of genius with his intense black eyes and long hair and smooth face - a little too intent probably to look thus, called me John and brother, I like him. Sept 1st. Slow rain last night and this morning. 2d. Clears off reluctantly. 3d. Fine morning, start for Twilight Park. Stay with Miss Dwight and her sisters till Friday p.m. warm and lovely.6th To Onteora, stop with Mrs. Custer. The day hot, a fine time, stay till Monday the 9th. The shooting of the president the one item of exciting news. 17. Warm lovely Sept weather since my last entry, with occasional rains. Everything very fresh and green. Health better than usual this fall. On the 13th came Lunis and Kellogg from Phila stay till Sunday night. Fine fellows Kellogg and prodegy, wonderful powers of reproducing bird songs and calls; quite astonishes me, never heard anything like it. Then he is a very winsome lovable man. I take to him at once, as do all who meet him. A heavy shower this morning at 9; followed by a rainy day.18. Julian off for Cambridge this morning and Mrs B. for Hobart. Clear and cool. 20. Rain part of the day. Clara Barrus from M, - a bright woman. 21 and 22. Lovely Sept days. No frost yet. Sister Abagail sick with typhoid. 23. Bright lovely day. Robins and sparrow much in evidence this morning - coming out from their retirement during moulting Katy-dids, reduced to "Katy" last night. 27. Rain today in p.m. [Dr. Barrus comes] 28. Clear and bright, off for Roxbury at 6.20 to see Sister Abagail. Reach her house at 9 1/2. I meet the Dr. on the way. He thinks she will pull through, I go up to her room. Shelooks up and speaks my name and takes my hand. I am stuck by the look of father in her face and more specially of fathers sisters - aunt Betry and Anut Abbey. The ancestral features on fathers side - the women - come out strong. We talk a little, she is rather stupid and her eyes soon close, she says she is very sick, but cannot tell me how she feels - she don't know herself - thinks she will not get well, asks me if her eyes do not look bad (they look very heavy and strange to me) I keep the flies off her and sit long in her room, while she lies silent with her eyes closed. I try to cheer her up. After dinner I go up to Curtises. There are no unfavorable symptoms the Dr. says, fever not high (102 and 3) 29. Bright warm day, rain in the night; pretty heavy. In afternoon I go down to see Abagail again. She is a sleep and I do not see hernot so well, the nurse says, running off at the bowells, but I say to her that always comes in typhoid. I am uneasy but not much alarmed. Had I seen the Dr. he could have told me different. I walk back up through Helen Goulds Park, heart pretty heavy. A quarter after 10 that night I am awakened by someone outside knocking and calling. I finally get the window up and ask what is the matter, filled with deep foreboding, it is George Brandow, he says Abagail is worse and that the Dr. says she cannot live till morning, and he has come for me. I am crushed by the news, but do not go with him. Perspiration comes out all over me. I go back ,to bed and toss till 2 when I get 2 or 3 hours of sleep. a night of great nervous strain. On that rapping at the door in the night, when thoseOct 1st. 7a.m. after breakfast, burdened with the thought of Abagails death I walk out the road and over the hill, still clear cool, a resonant out morning. Fog in the valley creeping up toward the heights. Every sound very distinct, to the car as objects are to the eye in the far West. The rumble of a wagon comes across the mountain from the head of hardscrabble .The cawing of the crows almost echo as if in a great hollow dome. 2 p.m. the clown lot woods I hear one uttering that land ... mr. Thoratin Law. Chipmonks chipping and checkingin the Deacon woods as I knew them in my youth. The air streaked with the plaintive autumnal calls of wondering blue birds. I count 12 in one loose flock. The few threads of dying spiders glisten upon the road and stream from the tops of bushes by the way side. They show the mullion of the currents of air. The woods all touched with the flames of autumn - many maples all ablaze, yellow, orange, crimson, green paint the mountains. A thin blue mist or haze, over the hills nuthatches and jays calling in the woods. I sit long over on the hill and gaze upon the scene, then down to the houseand into the appleless orchard and then back, with long, long sad thoughts.near to one are dying; In the morning Curtis and I hurry down to find that Abagail died about the time George was calling us, or at 10 1/2. We arrange for the funeral and go back home. So soon and unexpected had death come to our dear sister. Oct 1st. A day of great beauty - clear- still golden, all the maple woods breaking out into yellow and orange flame. The thrashers come to thrash the oats and buckwheat. At 10 I go up to the old clump - a kind of religious walk - so beautiful the world - so sad my heart. The long camel-backed mountains blanketed with many colored forests. Our old camp looked desolate enough and the place of our mild moonlight dance very forlorne, I stood long in the little grove where we had our picnic a few years ago, and reflected that four of the girls and women whowere with us were now dead, and the men all living. In the afternoon I walk many times up and down the old road and over to Chauts, Eden and Mag and Hiram come in p.m. 2. Abagails funeral day, cloudy from S.W. threatens rain. Curtis and I drive down together. I look upon Abagail in the coffin, almost girlish look upon her face, very peaceful; the ancestral looks gone, oh. the repose of death, it almost breaks one heart, John Hubble preached over her body in the N.S. Baptist Church next door, a hit and miss kind of sermon no real thought in it. Then we drove to the old Baptist church yard, and in the autumn weather and in the autumn of our days placed her body besides that of her husband. The wind swept by the falling leaves as we drove along the road. Jane came in the morning and wasdissolving in tears. I met her and Hatty below Abagails house, no one else wept so copiously. Besides the coffin when we all took a farewell look and besides the grave, her sobs and murmurs were very audible. Five of us left, the youngest gone before all our hairs are white and our graves are not far off. I grieve less than I should, I grieve because I can't grieve more. Why am I so insensible? Abagail was very dear to me, and yet my eyes are dry. We all returned to Curtisis to dinner and there I come home on late train. - After while at Curtisis, now and at other times I have gone out and taken hold of some of the old jobs - haying, husking, potato digging and C. but have soon found it a bore. What I mostly long for I suppose is to gather apples or husk corn again back there in the old days when I was a boy and the world was youngand father and mother were alive, and we were all under the paternal wing. It is that lost paradise that I long for, Today is trivial and prosy. 8. Beautiful bright days since I came back, with severe frost two nights back at S.S. Julian still in Cambridge reloving from Quinny or something like it. Have been greatly worried about him. Warmer in p.m. Katy dids rasping away in the woods, as the season advances the fiddle in afternoon and not at night, nights too cool. 9. Still fine and warmer, staying at Riverby. Abagails form and looks are constantly before me day and night, yet I do not feel the acute grief I should. The blow seems to fall upon a benumbed surface. 10 and 11. Warm lovely October days. Katy dids in woods in p.m.12. Warm and lovely - wind S.W. Trying to work a little. 13. Warm, sultry, light dashes of rain during the day; Company at S.S, no frost along the river yet to hurt even corn. Woods getting yellow. 14. Ruby crowned knight and white throats in song this morning. Rain in the night, cooler this morning. - Slow rain nearly all day. 15. Clear and cool this morning - river placed air with a soft haze. The thin tremulous whistle of the white throat about my study. Birds very social and frolicsome now. Now is the time of the illuminated woods; they have a sense of sunshine even on a cloudy day like yesterday; given by the yellow foliage; Every leaf glows like a tiny lamp; one walks through their lighted halls with a curious enjoyment. - While at home the day before Abagails funeral, Eden said he wantedto read me a hymn and then from Fathers old S.B. Hymn book read me the identical hymn father had read me seated in the same chair by the same window, one autumn day 25 years ago, prefaced and followed by about the same remarks. He read it in fathers curious sing-song tone. It was a hymn comparing old age to autumn. Eden is a very good old school Baptist. His notion that he cant die, till his time comes, prevents him, I think from taking necessary precautions about his health. 16. Lovely warm day, Katy dids in afternoon. Make rhymes in forenoon and a start at S.S. in afternoon. 17. Light rain sets in at 8 1/2. 19. Fine day, and mild -a gypsy day. Julian comes at 8 p.m. nearly well. Rejoiced to have him home again. 20. Lovely day - poetry and romance at SS. 21. Lovely day and warm22d. Mild bright day, Julian and I go to Black Pond after our boat. A great comfort to have the boy back again, yet a mild pang comes when I think that in all that beautiful student life at Harvard he has no longer any part or lot. I went through college nearly as really as he did, and I perhaps have a tenderer feeling for the place. Think of the generations of boys [who] that will come and go in the future and no boy of mine among them! But I do hope that he will sometime have a boy or boys among them. To me there is a sort of half around all college boys. 26. To Black Creek again with Julian, no ducks. Two days ago he killed 6 there. 28. Fine weather the past two days, with one heavy frost, clear and dry. I am well and fairly happy- A young man writes me that he wants to enter journalism with only a common school education; How shall he master the language? Read the best author and practice writing. Some people are born with opaque minds - they see nothing clearly, sharply, vividly. They can never become masters of the language or write good English. See clearly, think clearly, feel clearly - advise impossible for all to follow, a colored glass is one thing, a smoked glass another. We all see through colored glasses - some through smoked glasses. 30. The sun came up red as blood this morning - a dense veil of white vapor over all. Here and there a maple still turns a flushed cheek to the sun. The leaves of the dogwood are red and ripe like Japanese plums. The light comes through the leaves of certain oaks as through red stained glass. The maple leaves now seem fairly to have wetted and hold the sunshine. They send a soft glow into ones room.Nov 1st. Still cloudy, mild with sprinkle of rain at noon, clearing off at 3 p.m. fine. 2d. Glorious day; to West Paint, Julian and I to see Yale footlball [team] game. 3. The wonderful weather continues, all gold by day and all silver by night. Frost last night, no rain for three weeks. 10. No rain yet, fine every day; some quite severe frosts during the week. Bright and windy this morning with cold wave. 11. Light rain; start for N.Y, stay at Brookryde in P. 12. To N.Y, some rain, attend meeting of A.O.W. Pass the night with Mr. Childs at Floral Park. 13 and 14. Attend meetings of A.O.W. 15. Stay at the Castle school in Tarrytown. 16. Home this morning, Quincy school at Slabsides. 20. Dry and cold and clear. 20 degree this morning.Two Vassar graduates at S.S. 21. Cold and clear, down to 20. 23. [Cold rain] Cloudy and chilly. Two more Vassar girls. 24. Cold rain and sleet from North, much snow at Roxbury and all through the North. 26. Cold and clear. To Kingston to Van Slykes. 27. Cold and clear down to 14. 28. Cold and clear down to 10. Thanksgiving day. Binder comes on morning train. Domestic divinities in rebellion and resulting, B and J put some grub in a basket - bacon conned soup, eggs bread and butter, celery, honey - and go to Slabsides and cook and eat our dinner in peace - thankful for the peace, after dinner a long philosophical talk in front of the open fire.29. Down to 14. Cloudy with a red sun rise, "hollow air" expect snow. Finished poem on "Downy Woodpecker" yesterday, like it fairly well, a white wash of snow. 30. Bright day; go to Middletown. Dec 1. At the State Hospital with Dr Barrus; soft Indian summer like day, called on Capt. Cox last night, a great sufferer, soon to die, but bright and vivacious as even; talk of all the time. 2d. Mild overlast, walk about M. with long sad thoughts. Dear dead Channy was with me here 28 years ago, nearly all my old acquaintances dead. 3d. Rain, sleet and snow. Talked to the Tourist Club last night - 12 or 15 women in reception room at hospital to please Dr. Barrus. What would I not do to please that bright and delightful little woman.4. Home this morning. Good sleighing. Bright and clear. 5. Mercury down to 4 this morning. Full blown winter upon us at a bound; too early, will not hold, premature children seldom develop well. A wonderful sight in the western heavens during Nov, the three planets Jupiter, Saturn and Venus close together. Never saw the like before, shall never on it again. 6. Still clear and cold - down to zero. 7. Clear and colder - 4 below this morning 10 below at the station. 8. Cloudy and milder. Stay in P. with Kellogg, last night. 9. Milder thawing rapidly. 10. Rain last night and this morning, snow nearly gone. 11. Mild and nearly clear - spring like, 5 blue-birds - all males. 12. Still spring like, more blue-birds,13. Mild still day, cloudy, sit a long time under the pines in the Highland woods. 14. Milder up to 60, light rain. Go to Vassar with Binder. 15. A tempest of wind and rain all night, heavy, ground well filled with water this morning, colder, a severe cold wave in N.W. 16. Clear and cold; down to 15. River, roughened by the wind, looks red in the bright sun light. 17. Cold down to 10. Clear still. 18. Cold down to 12. Clear still. 19. Cold down to 14. Cloudy. Blue birds still here. 20. Clear and cold - down to 8, nine blue birds this morning. No hint of my real life in these pages for a long time, a change has come over the spirit of my dreams, during the past two months. 21. Down to six, nearly clear. 22. Still cold and dry. 23. Milder and cloudy, Spencer Van Cleefsfuneral day; died the 19th I attend the funeral. He was not much to me, but it was very sad to look upon his face for the last time, have known him since 86. 24. Three inches of snow last night. Mild and still today with some sunshine. 25. Mild fair Xmas, the usual Turkey dinner with Julian and Mrs. B. 26. Mild, cloudy. Go to P. to dine at Van Klucks. 27. Four or five inches of heavy snow last night. Clearing today and sunshine. 28. Mercury at 22. warmer in p.m. and clouding from S.W. 29. Rain in the night. Fog and rain all day. The wet dismal side of winter. 30. Mild and misty, off to N.Y. today. 31. Clearing and colder. At night out to Floral Park.
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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

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