Nicole
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From April 8th 1891 to Jany 1st 1892 April 8. Much shocked this morning to find out new station and post office burned to ashes. A great calamity to the neighborhood
Weather continues bright, dry and cold; freezes the ground hard every night; the furnace takes the same am't of coal as in winter. So far spring has been cold, no warmth at all yet: only one day up to 60 degrees.
Plowed the garden yesterday. Owing to some peculiarity of the sunlight, or to the position of the sun I can now at 8 am see the great body of the river slide along. It is rarely that the movement of the water can be seen.
1[crosed out: 0]1 Slow rain from South, and a little more warmth.
--The saying of Jesus that the kingdom of heaven is within you if it means anything means that the kingdom of heaven is a subjective condition and not an objective reality, a state of the mind and spirit and not a place to which we are to migrate when we die. His other saying also that my kingdom is not of this world is to the same effect -- not of the world is to the same effect; not of sense and objective reality, but of the world of spirit, of inward experience and attraction. Are not these things real then, only shadows? Real as mind is real, as ideality is real, as love is real, but they do not exist apart from us and independent of us. When the last man perishes, they are no more. When the last man perishes God is no more, as he is something projected by the spirit of man, something supplied for the mind finally to rest upon. To explain the enigma of the universe we must suppose a cause from which it all starts, otherwise life is like a pair of stairs that begin and end in the air.
13. Very lovelyday getting warm; drive to P. and to A Rhodes for peach trees, the stir of work beginning on the farms and in the vineyards along the road. The plough going here and there the grass greening [crossed out: on] in the richer and moister places. Just before reaching Highland meet two ladies in a buggy, the face of one haunts me like a dream Somewhere in life I have looked into that strong sympathetic face. It turns out to be Miss Peck from Northhampton (Smith College) whose acquaintance five years ago this april. She is on her way to see me, and this is the only sight we have of each other.
14 Julians birth day, a perfectly delicious april day, mercury up to 75 at last, air vapory and hazy soft, wooing. Every heart expands. I drive up to Esopus in the morning, and then up to Ulster Park in the afternoon. How delicious everything is. The long-drawn tr-r-r-r-r-r of the toad is heard in the land, a most soothing and welcome sound no bird voice more so. Turtle doves courting along the road; the male flies with a peculiar flapping motion of the wings, and then sails toward the female. How conspicuous the motion of the wings, and then sails toward the female. How conspicuous the red patch on the shoulder of the starling as I drive along. He uncovers it and parades it on such a day. What sudden rushes and outbursts among the robins these days, such spuealing, shouting, and flutter of wings [crossed out: as] three or four of them rush pellmell across the lawn and into the evergreens. The matches are being made and sealed now. The males have been [crossed out: sparring] engaged in that curious peripatetic fencing and sparring for several days.
17 Matchless april days, warm, clear, dry. The bud all swelling, and every heart swelling also. Wind-flower to-day, arbutus in the woods. Shad in the river, birds building their nests, and I setting out the peach trees. The high-holes long repeated welcome note comes up from the fields.
19 April fairly outdoing herself. Days like a benediction; all things are blessed. Warm (from 75 to 80 degrees) still, with a milky film in the air. All things rejoice. The farmer can find nothing to grumble about. A slow long continuted thunder shower last night. This morning the grass seems to have grown an inch or more. There is a mist of foliage on the elms, the willows, currant bushes, lilacs, and tamaracks, and on other trees the buds are bursting. Is this smoke in the air or is it the warmth the breath of spring taking visible shape? How vivid the rye fields show here and there!
Sat a long time this morning watching the flights and rivalries ofthe blue-birds. Two males lay upon the ground in a squabble for nearly two minutes. Then the femals went at it and faught with equal desperation. The swallow yesterday, the house wren to-day.
20 These days are a wonder and a delight. Clear, warm, exhilarating. Grape buds starting before we can get the vnes tied up. Currants shaking out their stems nearly ready to bloom. Maples ditto. Julian painting his boat and fixing his net ready for fishing or "scapping".
Yesterday in my walk I sat down in the woods and said there is nothing in the woods. Then I lifted up my eyes and behold a crows nest on a hemlock. In a moment or two the water thrush chipped smartly and came and alighted on a branch above me. His chip is like the click of two stones struck smartly together in the water. I noted the curious tertiary motion of this body from which he has got the name of wagtail. The motion is not a wag, it is like the motion of a conductors baton. The bird seems to be beating time for some invisible orchestra. It is a soft, gentle, graceful motion up and down.
22 Warm, dry, summer heat, and a summer thunder shower at 6 P.M. fell about 1/2 inch water. Finished Dr Nansens "The First Crossing of Greenland"
an honest, vivid, delightful work. A real bit of experience, even to read it. The book is pervaded by an admirable spirit; a book of travel I shall long remember. That inland ice -- the last great remnant of the old ice age, can not easily be forgotten. Such pictures of the Esquimo are also novel and refreshing.
27. Enchanting April days. Cherry and plumb trees in bloom since Saturday the 25th. A light frost yesterday morning. A [crossed out: ye] mist of yellowish green over all the trees. A drive to Sherwoods yesterday P.M. Very beautiful. S. had a lot of young lambs; how good they looked to me. The swamps and water courses along the way yellow with marsh marigolds.
Now at 11 A.M. a fitful wind starts up from the S.W. and comes to my nostrils laden with the perfume of cherry blossoms, a delicious bitter-sweet or almond scent. I never remember it so noticable. Standing under the tree if pours down upon you. Clear, warm, a film in the air. The perfection of shad time, and plow time.
A writer in Forest and S. says he has seen a white birch cut off by a beaver in such a position that the tree could not fall. It stood perfectly sraight in the snow. Then the beaver cut it again, with the same result. He cut it four time and the four sticks stood straight side by side. The beaver must have thought the tree bewitched. How does the beaver make the wood sink that he lays up for his winter food? It is said he does it by sucking the air out of its pores and letting the water in. I doubt this.
29. Bright cool and dry. The river this morning dances and sparkles like a thing of life. Pear and peach trees in bloom. Kingbird came two days ago.
May 1st A warm, soft, smoky almost voluptuous day, clad in the white and pink of the fruit blossoms, and the tender green of the young leaves. A day like a dream. Cat bird, wood thrush, orchard starling and a cuckoo here, and several warblers A visit from Douglas Sladen a harty, modest handsome young English author and poet, an Oxford man Looks like Gilder, an English Gilder. Has lived in Australia and been to China and Japan. We have a long talk and then a walk to the woods and gather many wild flowers. We ate our dinner alone, but ate it in peace. His visit did me good, and made me forget for a few hours the domestic furies that beset my way.
5 Our brief summer is followed by a young winter. Frost night before last and still more severe frost last night. Formed ice like a window pane. Apple and pear trees in bloom since last week. Grape vines showing the fruit buds; fear for the currants and cherries.
6 Cold continues; severe all over the country, snow in some
places, a little spit of snow here this morning. As it was over cast all night, frost was not so severe. My early potatoes badly cut by frost of Monday night. Maples in full leaf. Season about as forward as 5 years ago, but this cold is a set back. Fear more frost to-night.
8. The cold spell spent itself yesterday. To-day warm and genial. But little damage seems to have been done here by the frost after all our scare. A few grapge sprouts wilted on lower edge of vineyard. Apple trees full of warblers in the morning. The row-jaw in the house continues.
9 Go to Roxbury to-day. Walk up to Curtises with a big shad in my arms. The day warm and lovely. No foliage yet on the mountains, very glad to see Curtis and like his place much.
10 We go over to the old home. It is hot. The old place green and fresh, but dilapidated. George is doing all that can be done. Mariah with a babe 2 weeks old, repeating the life of her grandmother of 50 or 60 years ago. Abigail is there, and Ursula, Janes girl. In afternoon I walk up through the woods, and up to the old Clump. Again the old landscape o'er; then down through the woods to Curtise's house just at sunset; The peace and beauty of the fields and hills were very soothing.
Monday, the 11th, I go fishing up Montgomery Hollow, an old haunt of my boyhood. Take a fine string, nine of them from 9 to 10 1/2 inches. Return to Curtises at one P.M. In aternoon go over to the old Home again and walk about the fields.
12 To day go out to see Jane and Homer. The latter very feeble, trembling like an aspen leaf. He is near his end, shaking palsy. Jane was papering her bed room and was well. In afternoon I go on to Edens at Hobar; all well. Hiram there and rather silent. Wednesday the 13. Willie and I go
fishing, but poor luck; too bright and cold. Home by afternoon train. 16 Rain last night and this morning. Start for Jersey. Meet Mr. Fernn the artist in N.Y; and then to Pt. Pleasant. 17 Sunday. Go up the Manasquon river with Fenn to Allair. A cold windy day. Many pleasant views, back at night. 18 Spend forenoon on the beach with Fenn, a good time. Back to N.Y. in afternoon. 19 Home this morning. Still dry. The rain did not amount to much.
24. Sunday still dry. To Sherwoods to-day to see Marsh hawks nest. Five eggs in it, a pleasant day.
27. Cool and dry, dry. Grape vine shoots from 1 to 2 feet long. Rain much needed. No rain this month to wet the ground. It is 17 years this day since Chancy B. died. We finish spraying the grapes the 2nd time.
28 Go to H. Dry and warm.
29 A slow rain all the forenoon. Need ten times as much; freshens the grass a little.
30.
Cloud and mist in the morning. Pretty warm. The clouds seem to want to rain but there is no will or purpose in them they look soft and irresolute, mere masses of fog. Wind S.W.
Decoration Day; I ought to be at the graves of my dead, but here I am pottering about home. Go to Ulster Park in forenoon.
31.
The last May day, warm and bright and motionless. at 3 PM I sit here in summer house facing the posished river. A thunder cloud rises up in the east about over Myron Bentons and pours down rain. Its upper, great vague mother cloud pushes out far in this direction. I hear mutterings of the thunder. Well, there is comfort in knowing it can rain and can thunder. The scent of the honey locust heavy upon the air. In the woods over the river the locusts make whitish patches amid the vivid green. The scent of white clover also upon the air. A sloop drifts
by on the glassy surface. The passing train is doubled by the mirror of the river. Birds just beginning to peck the half ripe cherries. No grape bloom yet. --The religious mind is necessarily subjective like the artistic or literary type of mind. The scientific mind is necessarily objective. The objects of science are real; the hopes, aspirations, certitudes of religion are real to the mind that experiences them but they are not true, as the facts and deductions of science are true; that is, they have no objective reality. Pauls light and voice from Heaven and his conversio, were [crossed out: ???] real to him, it was a subjective experience but had no objective reality like the facts of science; that is the voice and the light had no existence apart from Pauls emotional nature. The trouble the Church has with the unbeliever is when out of its subjective experience, it formulates a creed, when it seeks to give objective reality to the objects of its adoration etc.
June 1st Warm, with a milky tinge in the air. Light showers in afternoon, seems unable to really get to raining. But it has made a beginning.
4 Terrible thunder shower last night from 8 to 9 1/2 The heaviest rain fall I ever saw in this place; probably 4 inches of water; [crossed out: done] did irreparable injury to my vineyards; tons and tons of soil carried away
the thirsty earth could do nothing with such a deluge. A night of agony to me, slept barely an hour; after the rain the wind arose and I feared the young arms would all be stripped off the vines; wind continues to-day and the havoc with the arms is very great; some vines lose half. The worst blow I have yet had. I fear the vineyards will prove the death of me yet. Blessed is the man who has nothing.
9 Lovely June days, calm warm, hazy. Clover and daisies and wild strawberries in the meadows. Young birds calling early grapes just blooming, cherries ripening. It only needs youth
to make the world very beautiful and winsome. Busy carting earth to repair damages done by the deluge, make but slow headway. Finished our 3d spraying this am.
14 Sunday. The past week clear and dry and pretty warm. On Friday P.M Julian and I go over to Sherwoods and spend the night and Saturday, fish, pick wild strawberries, and lounge about. Visit the hawks in the swamp. An interesting sight. A delicious bath in the lake
Cherries ripe: first mess of peas to-day, grapes nearly done blooming, weather very favorable for grapes. Thermometer to-day about 86. No rain since the deluge of the 3d.
15. Very warm, 90, and dry, not a cloud.
16 Still hotter, 94 in the shade 92 on north end of my house, showers in the distance in afternoon: cooler at night. In morning while in the cherry tree picking cherries I see a stranger approach mopping his face with his handkerchief. In a quiet way he tells me he was a school mate of mine at Ashland 37 years ago and that his name is DeWitt. I come down and we go to the summer house and talk the matter over. I do not remember him. Says he was in the Logic class with me. He proves an agreeable and intellgent man a farmer, has kept track of me through the public prints etc.
Spends the day with me and we have pleasant talk, looks at the Mulford farm with view of purchasing etc. Am glad he came; it is a ripple in my monotonous life. At night he goes to Catskill on the train. -- In Central Asia near the river Oxus there is, according to travelers a famous rock called the Lamp Rock, from a strange light that seems to issue from a cavern far up in the side of the rock. The natives have a superstitious fear of the rock and ascribe the light to some dragon or demon that lives in the cave. Recently a bold English traveler climbed up the rock and investigated. The light was found after all to be only the light of common day The cave was only a tunnel, and the mysterious light came through the rock from the other side, making a striking glow or nimbus at the mouth of the dark cavern. Nearly all our provinces and mysteries will clear up in the same way if explored. There is no light more mysterious than the light of common day.
18 Quite a rain last night, and slow rain and drizzle all day to-day, and very cool. The first rainy day since early in April.
19 Still cool and rainy, tho' not much water has fallen as yet.
23 Light rain the past week. Several days of cloud and drizzle. Cleared off yesterday which was hot and muggy. Began shipping currants to-day, a cool clear, lovely June day from the north
24 Still clear and cool
25. Currants half off to-day. A hot wave arrives in afternoon. 26 Hot again, with cool waves at night. 27 Cool, clear and very windy; finished the new currant patch to-day. 2400 lbs of Fay. 28 Sunday. Still clear, cool and windy. 29 and 30 Pleasant June days. July 1st Cool and pleasant. Currants nearly all off. 2d [crossed out: H] Light rain till P.M from S.E. Not nearly enough rain.
3d Over cast from S.W. but no rain.
4 Light shower last night very cool to day, with shadow and sunshine. A dull fourth for me. Plant a little corn and read and loaf. As I write this the young hawk is on my lap picking at my buttons.
5 Very cool, with masses of black and gray clouds. A little grape rot discovered the past week in Niagaras, Concords, and Champions.
Yesterday Julian, van Benschoten, Ethel and I went to see what van thought was a cuckoos nest in Gordons orchard. We filed along wading through the timothy grass waist-deep to an apple
amid the alders and bushes besdie the little brood. brook? There on a limb, ten feet from the ground was the nest, a large loose mass of twigs. I saw at once it [crossed out: did] was not a cuckoos nest and thought of the turtle dove. A little scrutiny showed it was not that either. Rising up from the twigs we saw a mass of blue-gray down surmounted by three heads, all pointing in different directions. Then we saw the three necks, then the yellowish bills and curious eyes. It was the nest of the little green heron or shitepoke. We each by turns climbed up in the tree and had a nearer look. It was a curious spectacle. The young sat there motionless like little sphynxes. Van said they had a froggy look, and that he had seen that eye in the human countenance.
10 An ideal summer day, cool brilliant, placid, sky very blue, clouds stately and innocent-looking. Cool all the week, [crossed out: not] the mercury has not reached 80 this month as yet. Finished spraying vineyard on the 8th. I work a little, read a little and loaf a good deal. Health good, but spirits dull. This P.M Mr. Mason and friend drop in on me in my summer house and do me world of good. They make me see and feel my want of some one to talk to and what a tonic it is. It lifts the dull weight of prose of my days here in this wilderness among these philistines a good deal. I find the hawk a help too, for all Mrs. B's tirades against such folly as she calls it. Try to read "God and His World" by Aldine, but am disappointed in
it. It is a kind of echo of Mulford's "Republic of God" a really noble and beautiful book that has a hold on the future. "God and His World" is nothing as science or logic, and it is feeble as literature or religion. The old religious jargon is there, and not much new life or meaning has been put into it.
11 Warmer to-day with more haze and southerly winds. Mental skies suddenly all gloom, and life hardly worth living.
13 Warm and dry, A pleasant afternoon in the woods by the falls with Julian and three bright young ladies from Mrs. F's 14 Very hot, 90. 15 The middle of summer, hot and dry [crossed out: that] till one P.M. when a sudden shower comes up
followed by a series of showers, or else many installments of one shower. It is now nearly three and the rain is still pouring, more than one inch of water has fallen. Twice it seemed done and then thickened again in the west, the thunder rolled and down came the rain. It was much needed. Streams and springs very low, and ground very hard. Ploughing the vineyard but find the soil very hard. This will soften it up, and may be also start the grape rot which seems to have stopped.
Except the deluge of June 3 no such rain as this since early spring. -- The rain proved almost an ideal one; heavy, to the verge of washing the vineyard, nearly 2 hours, about 2 inches of water; just enough
17. Cool and delightful.
19 Sunday. More rain last night and in afternoon, about an inch of water. To-day bright and charming day. I drive down the road looking for my dog Dan, but get no clew of him.
21. Cool and beautiful, finished spraying for the 5th time to-day.
23 Go to Onteora Park to-day. Reach there about 10 A.M. Johnson comes in the afternoon Very pleasant life in the camp of Mrs Wheeler. J and I sleep in a big tent. We take most of our meals at the inn. I meet here many people whom I shall not soon forget, mostly women. We are dined and wined and driven about and walked for 6 days. Sleep very poor. Miss Taylors trouble weighs me down. Saturday we drive to the Platterkill Clove. Monday to the mountain house. The scene here is a great surprise. You drive swiftly along a good road up an easy grade till you alight in the rear of a great Hotel. You walk straight through the hall and there lies the world below you as if seen from a balloon. [crossed out: The
y] A young lady walked by my side, a Miss Watterson, a N.Y. journalist. After a moment I turn to her to make some remark and find her in tears. The grandeur and unexpectedness of the scene had overcome her. She wept like a child. I could hardly keep my own tears back, which an inward grief of my own had for days been brewing. We walked away from the rest and sat down on the brink of the precipice and gazed upon the wonderful panorama. I felt tenderly toward that girl during the rest of my stay, and think she did toward me. The night before I came away she found me in the sitting room and lead me one side, told me she was to be married in Sept; and was coming up to Onteora for a few weeks and would be so happy if I would come too. She pressed and stroked my hand and clung to it till I promised. She is a tender and true woman. On Tuesday we went to the top of Round Top over 4000 feet. It was like a view from the clouds 11 Very hot, from 90 degrees to 95; been growing hotter and hotter for several days; grape rot pretty bad. Early grapes nearly ripe; have to seek refuge from the heat on the floor in lower hall. Very well these days, but sad
13 The heated term broken yesterday by a fine shower. Very bright and beautiful and cool to-day.
16 Eventless days, lovely, not too hot. To-day particularly fine and cool, after the light rain of yesterday morning. The white fleecy clouds float indolently across the sky. How my thoughts follow them! The land very green the river placid. -- It seems as if God must be blind and deaf and halt and lame, all he does is brought about with
so much blundering; so much groping, such waste and failures. Every step forward of the race is at an enormous cost and after many failures. The grape vine reaching out blindly for support, feeling here and there, exploring all the surrounding for something to cling to, clinging to itself, to anything its tendrils touch[crossed out: es], is a type of all the efforts of man toward bettering his condition. In science in invention he simply gropes; there are more failures than successes. In Nature the same groping and experimenting goes on.
Lowell died a few days ago. His death gives me a pang I owe him little, yet he was one of the men who help adorn life. He had no message for me, yet he spoke brave and stirring words for the country and for the higher life. The first and only time I ever saw him was in N.Y. [crossed out: in the] in April 1887 I thinkf first in the Century office, where he was very cordial and complimentary, and then [crossed out: to] at Walt Whitmans lecture in the evening. He and Norton and Gilder and his wife and I sat in the same box. The only service I ever did was to hand him his hat on that occasion.
27. The weather for a week or more past has been very diagreeable -- muggy, hot and infernal, some grapes cracked badly. Well and very busy. There is nothing drives the fumes away like brisk occupation, It clears the air like a breeze. Outlook for grapes better than at first. First Delawares August 20.
Oct 15. A big break in the record of my days. Very busy with the grapes till Sept 20. A fine season for shipping, for the most part. Sept. dry and fine. Shipped 21 tons, over 4 tons Del, over 4 tons Niagaras, 5 tons and over of Wordens, nearly 5 of Concords, etc. Brought 2100 dollars. Shipped mostly to Boston. Am convinced that small baskets pay best. In future, keep clear of N.Y. market. Keep clear of Durling and Fredericks, and beware Bishop and H. In Boston C.E. Morrison and Co. did best. R and H, and E and E about equal.
Last half of September very warm, nothing like it since the fall of '79, mercury up to 90 many days. In Wis. and Mich. from 90 to 100.
Sept 24 we all went out to Curtis's The first ten days still hot and delightful. Enjoy myself much. Could see half a township from my window. Gain 7 1/2 pounds in 10 days. Julian fishes for chubs, threading the old streams of my boyhood. I loaf and take my ease. Amid these hills I have a feeling of being sheltered that I have no where else. What is it? The people of my youth are mostly gone, but there is in some way a background of association in the mere topography and geography that shuts out the great void.
Surely I ought to go back there to live. A change in the weather came about Oct 4 or 5th with rain, and a severe cold
snap on Sunday night the 10th. On Saturday we went over to Jones B. One brilliant day I went up to Old Clump. On the 13th we came back home and surrendered ourselves up again to the domestic furies and imps. One bright afternoon I went down across the hill to Uriah Bartrams. Uriah is 83 years old. He looks more pale and
worn than I had ever before seen him. He seemed very restless and frequently sighed deep and long or uttered some half articulate exclamation. Evidently his days are vacant and he feels the end is near. I got him to talking of old times, and again heard the old names I so often had heard from father's lips, Martin Lyon, Sheebe Rundall, Tim, Rundall, Lewis Bouton, Zeke Preston, etc. Martin Lyon lived on the Jerry Bouton farm there in the orchard by the tanzy. Nat Bouton used to live up in our field above the sap-bush
19 Weather dry and cool. No frost yet to affect the foliage.
20 Heavy rain, with thunder in afternoon. Rain began last night.
29 Cool and dry. The hardest frost last night of the season. Wells and springs very low. Two inches of rain the 20th did not affect the water supply. Eventless (days?) with incessant rattle of an abusive tongue in the house.
Paused ashile this morning in returning from P.O. to see the stems of the leaves of the ash fall. The leaves were off some days ago, and this morning the stems were falling in the still air, coming down swiftly one by one.
Clear this P.M. with southerly winds. Getting warmer.
Oct 31. The last day of a golden October, warm, 62 degrees southerly winds, partly clear, leaves covering the ground.
Nov 1st Cool and dry, partly overast, air full of smoke, clouds blue and dry looking; trees more than half stripped of their leaves, cold wave approaching.
2d Light frost last night; cool clear and dry this morning It seems to me that life never had fewer attractions for me than it has now.
3 Election day. Clear and sharp, growing cold all day. Not a cloud to be seen, very dry.
4. Mercury down to 20 degrees this morning, the coldest of the season. Still clear, with north wind.
6.
Still clear and sharp, no cloud, no rain. Walk up to Terpennings for butter in afternoon. Pause in the cemetary on my return. Already the names of so many people here who I knew, quite a throng of them. I linger long about their graves. Consider
whether or not I want to be buried here. The old Baptist burying ground at home is offensive to me. So is this. No kith or kin of mine are here. Had rather be burried beside my dogs, or else in one of the old fields at home.
7.
Cold and clear still. Every storm that starts from the West comes to naught before it reaches us Several degrees
below freezing every night. A water famine threatened in Eastern states.
Some of the pine trees just shedding their leaves. Some seasons they shed them in August.
Noticed in Sept. The woodpeckers drilling their rings of small holes in the bark of the apple trees; found some of the
holes filled with gummy like exudation. The birds are feeding upon the tree and not upon insects. Think they usually make
these holes in the fall. Of course insects are not distributed with such regularity and in exact rows under the bark. There are no insects in live bark, any way. The woodpeckers eat this gum and sap, or else the soft inner bark of the tree.
27 Since my last entry, the weather here on the whole, has been mild; only once down to 20 degrees. Several rains from S.W. Enough to affect the wells and springs. The water famine relieved nearly all over the country. Quite a streak of mental activity a few days ago, but nothing valuable came of it, as it was mainly misdirected. But it revives my hopes.
Yesterday, Thanksgiving I went to N.Y. with Anthony Gill to see a football match between Princeton Yale. The spectacle fills my minds eye yet; The great well-dressed, well-behaved crowd -- 35000 people, mostly all young, the flutter of flags and colors, the cheering and horning, and a glamour of romance or sentiment in some way about the college youths struggling there against each other. Alas, that I have no college association. It is a great loss. A gray day with slow rain after 3 o'clock. Got back home at 11 1/2 P.M.
Sunshine to-day with flying clouds. Weather acts rather jerky. Sudden changes -- feebleness? Doubt if we have a severe winter.
Nov. 30 A big cold wave, mercury down to 6 above this morning. Snow on the mountians and on the cars that come from the
1891 North and West.
Dec 1. Bright day but sharp, mercury at 20 this morning
2.
Milder, clear and lovely. Go to P. in P.M. boat.
3.
Still bright and warmer, no wind. Much haze, late Indian summer
I do not see mind in Nature. Mind is human, and in Nature we see the unhuman, or not human. We see the raw material of mind, as it were; we make mind out of it. A bird sings; its song is not music, but music can be made out of it. Or is calls, and we say it says this word or that word, but it only suggests the word. When we try to imitate it we say the word. The intelligence of Nature is like that. It is inseparably mixed with that which is not intelligence. There is no morality, no virtue in Nature. Nature is non-moral. Nature is not inhuman, but non-human. Nature is conscious of herself in man alone. When I see a boat going by on the river I see something that looks like design or conscious intelligence, but when I see the river itself going by to the see sea, I am impressed quite differently. There is no kinship between the two facts. If there is mind in nature, it is blind, it can not see the way, but feels for it and experiments endlessly. The law of variation is this groping of nature. She will hit the mark because she will each time vary the direction. [crossed ou: It is] The progress of Nature
in her lower or her higher forms is precisely like a lost dog trying to find his way home; it tries all directions, and finally hits on the right one. Or it is like the grape vine in the vineyard. See how it reaches out its arms in every direction feeling for support. It will cling to anything it touches, friend or foe, it will cling to itself just as eagerly as to the trellis.
The progress of the race has been like this, endless failures and then by and by the lucky hit. The forces of Nature have literally fought themselves into their present equilibrium. The incomprehensible thing is Life, this something we call life which builds up these structure before our eyes by a process which we cannot imitate or [crossed out: institute] initiate.
3d In P.M. Julian and I take a turn through the woods back of Irishman Rileys; see 3 grouse and 1 gray squirrel. An interesting tramp, air so still one could have carried a lighted candle.
5. A cyclone passed north and west of us yesterday; heavy winds and rain in afternoon, becoming very violent in early evening. Clear to-day and mild; bees out the hive; still looks like open winter. Storms are going north of us.
10 A morning like Oct. or Early Nov. Clear, still, mild, only a little frost last night. A very mild and lovely Dec. so far On Monday the 7th, came Adelbert Allaben, an old friend and student of mine at Polo, Ills, 35 years ago. Now Congregational minister; rather a fine fellow. Brought a big bunch of M.S. to read to me, a novel, called "Old Chronicle." On the whole a powerful story, think it will be a success maybe a great success. It is written under pretty high pressure and has in it. Lacks humor, and probably lacks charm. This last is peculiarly the gift of the man, if there is not something winsome and attractive about him as a person, [crossed out: and] charm will not attach to his book or discourse.
My pleasure in his visit much marred by Mrs B's shrewish temper and inhospitality.
"He who knows how to lead well" says Plutarch, "is sure to be well followed."
My honey bees humming in the air to-day. This hum of the bee in Dec. often proves the requiem of winter. We will see if it proves so this time.
11. Still mild and delightful. Only a mild frost last night. About 10 1/2 Mr Booth and Mr Lown of P. appear with their haversacks over their shoulders and we presently start off for a tramp and a Dec picnic. Back through the woods by Irishman Rileys and to the Old Mill by black creek. Here we have our lunch. [crossed out: An] A fire of dry sticks make us at home. Here we spend the hours with much talk, the fire more for sociability than warmth. Then back through Brookmans woods home. Mr Booth has an eye for Indian relics. Mr Lown is a botanist. Coming through an open field, Mr. [crossed out Lown] Booth? suddenly turned sharply to one side like a dog when he scents game. He went a few rods and picked up a stone that proved to be an Indian pounding stone. The two dimples or thumb and finger indentations on each side were very plain, and it showed use. "Did you really smell that stone" I asked. "No" said he, "I saw a stone there. I kicked it over, and it was not what I wanted but just by it lay this, the one I did want"
13. Indian summer weather still. Froze but little last night. The moon was nearly full and what a night it was. Roads dry and hard and white. Fields dry, streams and springs low for this time of year. This morning is like Oct. or Early Nov. nearly clear with light S.W. wind
Prof. DuBois's article on Immortality in last Century seems pretty conclusive. It is very ingenious and does not assume the points to be proven. Yet why does it not produce conviction in me? Surely not because I do not want to be convinced. Is it not because one cannot conceive of the things after it is proven? Life and consciousness without the body, without limitations of time and space. It is unthinkable and therefore incredible. We cannot sum up nature, we cannot say it is all for this or for that, we cannot say it is all a failure unless man is immortal. We think in straight lines, so to speak, from point to point, but the universe is symbolized by the
circle or the sphere. We think Nature must have had a beginning and must have an end, that it must have had a creator, but when we look deeper we see this is not true; the sphere comes to our aid and we see how we cannot set bounds to creation. I am convinced there are no terms by which we can express the truth of these things. Creation is infinite and we cannot prescribe its end or its bounds without contradiction. It is too large for the mind to grasp. What is life for? Well, whom then is immortality for?
Now at 2 P.M. not a cloud, mercury at 60, bees humming like Sept.
Dec. 14 Bees still humming. Some [crossed out: lay] lazy, slow moving clouds; a light rain said to be coming from the West. Columns of smoke here and there. River unruffled.
16 Light rain yesterday and last night. Windy and colder to-day with sunshine.
To a lady correspondent who asked doubtfully about my faith, I replied: "My faith is not like yours. The man never has as much faith as the woman. He must find his way step by step and in the light of reason. She leaps or flies and is there before him. I think God meant that a man should earn his faith by the sweat of his brow, by toil and struggle, and often may be, go without it entirely. I have not earned mine yet, tho' the sort of vague blind faith of my little poem "Waiting" I have and have always had, because it seems to be a law of nature. What is mine, what belongs to me by my constitution I shall get. I shall find it, or it will find me."
19 Bright mild day. Walk up from P. on R.R. a cold wave since last entry, but not severe. Mercury down to 14 two days ago. A little floating ice this morning for the first
20. A sharp, frosty morning, tho' not very cold, day hazy and still. River like a mirror. Sun shines through smoke and thin clouds. Skating on the ponds for 3 days past.
The 11th anniversary of mothers death. Gave some magic lantern views last evening over at the rooms of the new society.
21 Off to Roxbury this morning. Day proves to be very fine, not a cloud in the sky and temperature mild. Take dinner with sister Abigail. Meet Curtis in the street. Go up home with him and spend the night. Old Mrs Grand then gone a long way down the hill of life since I saw her last, 81, not much longer has she to stay, a very bad cough, the consumption of old age; reminds me of her father Uncle Krum.
22 Go up and settle with George this morning. Cloudy to-day. The old home looks very forlorn.
23 Down to the station in a slow rain, warm, and take train out to see Homer and Jane once more. See Homer iand Jane once more. See Homer in a milk wagon with another man and know him at a distance. He shakes like
a man of 90. He jumps out the wagon and greets me, voice feeble and whining. I go up with him. He sits behind and amid the empty milk cans. I sit in seat with the driver; he goes like Jehu and I fear H. will be bounced to death or thrown out over the rough road. You fool! why drive this way! I speak and he slows up. Jane glad to see me getting stout. Take dinner with them and then back to the train at 2 P.M. and so back to W.P. at night, with plan to take train in the morning for Camden, where Walt Whitman is sick unto death, the papers say.
24. Go to Camden to-day; reach there about 3 in a pouring rain, but the sun presently comes out. Find Walt still alive. Dr. Bucke and George W. are there.
go up to his room. Such litter, such an accumulation of dust and dirt, such disorder! Piles of papers, books, and every thing else. Walt lies on a broad dirty bed with eyes closed. But he knows me and speaks my name as of old and kisses me. He asks me to sit beside him a while. I do so holding his hand. He coughs feebly and raises a great deal of phlegm. Asks about my family and sends his "best" love to wife and Julian. Gives me two copies of his complete poems, just out. He tells me where to find them. After a while I go out for fear of fatiguing him. He says "it is all right John," evidently referring to his approaching end. He said his brother George had just been in and "has quite unnerved me, for the first time."
25 Xmas. Expected to find Walt dead this morning, but he is not, and rallied considerably during the day. I see him again and he speaks of Mrs O'Conner, of Eldridge and his wife etc. His voice is natural and strong; looks much better than yesterday. I dined at Harneds and spend evening there. A murky foggy day.
26 Walt had a bad night, doctors think he may live a day or two yet, or may go any hour. I go up and look at him long and long, but do not speak. His face has steadily refined; no decrepitude or breaking down never saw the nose so beautiful. He looks pathetic, but how beautiful! At 11 I take a silent farewell, and leave; reach home at night. How green the patches of witner grain were in New Jersey!
28.
Monday. Warm and clear, lovely day. Walt little better.
29.
S.W. wind and rain in afternoon and evening. Walt still better, so say the papers.
Weather continues bright, dry and cold; freezes the ground hard every night; the furnace takes the same am't of coal as in winter. So far spring has been cold, no warmth at all yet: only one day up to 60 degrees.
Plowed the garden yesterday. Owing to some peculiarity of the sunlight, or to the position of the sun I can now at 8 am see the great body of the river slide along. It is rarely that the movement of the water can be seen.
1[crosed out: 0]1 Slow rain from South, and a little more warmth.
--The saying of Jesus that the kingdom of heaven is within you if it means anything means that the kingdom of heaven is a subjective condition and not an objective reality, a state of the mind and spirit and not a place to which we are to migrate when we die. His other saying also that my kingdom is not of this world is to the same effect -- not of the world is to the same effect; not of sense and objective reality, but of the world of spirit, of inward experience and attraction. Are not these things real then, only shadows? Real as mind is real, as ideality is real, as love is real, but they do not exist apart from us and independent of us. When the last man perishes, they are no more. When the last man perishes God is no more, as he is something projected by the spirit of man, something supplied for the mind finally to rest upon. To explain the enigma of the universe we must suppose a cause from which it all starts, otherwise life is like a pair of stairs that begin and end in the air.
13. Very lovelyday getting warm; drive to P. and to A Rhodes for peach trees, the stir of work beginning on the farms and in the vineyards along the road. The plough going here and there the grass greening [crossed out: on] in the richer and moister places. Just before reaching Highland meet two ladies in a buggy, the face of one haunts me like a dream Somewhere in life I have looked into that strong sympathetic face. It turns out to be Miss Peck from Northhampton (Smith College) whose acquaintance five years ago this april. She is on her way to see me, and this is the only sight we have of each other.
14 Julians birth day, a perfectly delicious april day, mercury up to 75 at last, air vapory and hazy soft, wooing. Every heart expands. I drive up to Esopus in the morning, and then up to Ulster Park in the afternoon. How delicious everything is. The long-drawn tr-r-r-r-r-r of the toad is heard in the land, a most soothing and welcome sound no bird voice more so. Turtle doves courting along the road; the male flies with a peculiar flapping motion of the wings, and then sails toward the female. How conspicuous the motion of the wings, and then sails toward the female. How conspicuous the red patch on the shoulder of the starling as I drive along. He uncovers it and parades it on such a day. What sudden rushes and outbursts among the robins these days, such spuealing, shouting, and flutter of wings [crossed out: as] three or four of them rush pellmell across the lawn and into the evergreens. The matches are being made and sealed now. The males have been [crossed out: sparring] engaged in that curious peripatetic fencing and sparring for several days.
17 Matchless april days, warm, clear, dry. The bud all swelling, and every heart swelling also. Wind-flower to-day, arbutus in the woods. Shad in the river, birds building their nests, and I setting out the peach trees. The high-holes long repeated welcome note comes up from the fields.
19 April fairly outdoing herself. Days like a benediction; all things are blessed. Warm (from 75 to 80 degrees) still, with a milky film in the air. All things rejoice. The farmer can find nothing to grumble about. A slow long continuted thunder shower last night. This morning the grass seems to have grown an inch or more. There is a mist of foliage on the elms, the willows, currant bushes, lilacs, and tamaracks, and on other trees the buds are bursting. Is this smoke in the air or is it the warmth the breath of spring taking visible shape? How vivid the rye fields show here and there!
Sat a long time this morning watching the flights and rivalries ofthe blue-birds. Two males lay upon the ground in a squabble for nearly two minutes. Then the femals went at it and faught with equal desperation. The swallow yesterday, the house wren to-day.
20 These days are a wonder and a delight. Clear, warm, exhilarating. Grape buds starting before we can get the vnes tied up. Currants shaking out their stems nearly ready to bloom. Maples ditto. Julian painting his boat and fixing his net ready for fishing or "scapping".
Yesterday in my walk I sat down in the woods and said there is nothing in the woods. Then I lifted up my eyes and behold a crows nest on a hemlock. In a moment or two the water thrush chipped smartly and came and alighted on a branch above me. His chip is like the click of two stones struck smartly together in the water. I noted the curious tertiary motion of this body from which he has got the name of wagtail. The motion is not a wag, it is like the motion of a conductors baton. The bird seems to be beating time for some invisible orchestra. It is a soft, gentle, graceful motion up and down.
22 Warm, dry, summer heat, and a summer thunder shower at 6 P.M. fell about 1/2 inch water. Finished Dr Nansens "The First Crossing of Greenland"
an honest, vivid, delightful work. A real bit of experience, even to read it. The book is pervaded by an admirable spirit; a book of travel I shall long remember. That inland ice -- the last great remnant of the old ice age, can not easily be forgotten. Such pictures of the Esquimo are also novel and refreshing.
27. Enchanting April days. Cherry and plumb trees in bloom since Saturday the 25th. A light frost yesterday morning. A [crossed out: ye] mist of yellowish green over all the trees. A drive to Sherwoods yesterday P.M. Very beautiful. S. had a lot of young lambs; how good they looked to me. The swamps and water courses along the way yellow with marsh marigolds.
Now at 11 A.M. a fitful wind starts up from the S.W. and comes to my nostrils laden with the perfume of cherry blossoms, a delicious bitter-sweet or almond scent. I never remember it so noticable. Standing under the tree if pours down upon you. Clear, warm, a film in the air. The perfection of shad time, and plow time.
A writer in Forest and S. says he has seen a white birch cut off by a beaver in such a position that the tree could not fall. It stood perfectly sraight in the snow. Then the beaver cut it again, with the same result. He cut it four time and the four sticks stood straight side by side. The beaver must have thought the tree bewitched. How does the beaver make the wood sink that he lays up for his winter food? It is said he does it by sucking the air out of its pores and letting the water in. I doubt this.
29. Bright cool and dry. The river this morning dances and sparkles like a thing of life. Pear and peach trees in bloom. Kingbird came two days ago.
May 1st A warm, soft, smoky almost voluptuous day, clad in the white and pink of the fruit blossoms, and the tender green of the young leaves. A day like a dream. Cat bird, wood thrush, orchard starling and a cuckoo here, and several warblers A visit from Douglas Sladen a harty, modest handsome young English author and poet, an Oxford man Looks like Gilder, an English Gilder. Has lived in Australia and been to China and Japan. We have a long talk and then a walk to the woods and gather many wild flowers. We ate our dinner alone, but ate it in peace. His visit did me good, and made me forget for a few hours the domestic furies that beset my way.
5 Our brief summer is followed by a young winter. Frost night before last and still more severe frost last night. Formed ice like a window pane. Apple and pear trees in bloom since last week. Grape vines showing the fruit buds; fear for the currants and cherries.
6 Cold continues; severe all over the country, snow in some
places, a little spit of snow here this morning. As it was over cast all night, frost was not so severe. My early potatoes badly cut by frost of Monday night. Maples in full leaf. Season about as forward as 5 years ago, but this cold is a set back. Fear more frost to-night.
8. The cold spell spent itself yesterday. To-day warm and genial. But little damage seems to have been done here by the frost after all our scare. A few grapge sprouts wilted on lower edge of vineyard. Apple trees full of warblers in the morning. The row-jaw in the house continues.
9 Go to Roxbury to-day. Walk up to Curtises with a big shad in my arms. The day warm and lovely. No foliage yet on the mountains, very glad to see Curtis and like his place much.
10 We go over to the old home. It is hot. The old place green and fresh, but dilapidated. George is doing all that can be done. Mariah with a babe 2 weeks old, repeating the life of her grandmother of 50 or 60 years ago. Abigail is there, and Ursula, Janes girl. In afternoon I walk up through the woods, and up to the old Clump. Again the old landscape o'er; then down through the woods to Curtise's house just at sunset; The peace and beauty of the fields and hills were very soothing.
Monday, the 11th, I go fishing up Montgomery Hollow, an old haunt of my boyhood. Take a fine string, nine of them from 9 to 10 1/2 inches. Return to Curtises at one P.M. In aternoon go over to the old Home again and walk about the fields.
12 To day go out to see Jane and Homer. The latter very feeble, trembling like an aspen leaf. He is near his end, shaking palsy. Jane was papering her bed room and was well. In afternoon I go on to Edens at Hobar; all well. Hiram there and rather silent. Wednesday the 13. Willie and I go
fishing, but poor luck; too bright and cold. Home by afternoon train. 16 Rain last night and this morning. Start for Jersey. Meet Mr. Fernn the artist in N.Y; and then to Pt. Pleasant. 17 Sunday. Go up the Manasquon river with Fenn to Allair. A cold windy day. Many pleasant views, back at night. 18 Spend forenoon on the beach with Fenn, a good time. Back to N.Y. in afternoon. 19 Home this morning. Still dry. The rain did not amount to much.
24. Sunday still dry. To Sherwoods to-day to see Marsh hawks nest. Five eggs in it, a pleasant day.
27. Cool and dry, dry. Grape vine shoots from 1 to 2 feet long. Rain much needed. No rain this month to wet the ground. It is 17 years this day since Chancy B. died. We finish spraying the grapes the 2nd time.
28 Go to H. Dry and warm.
29 A slow rain all the forenoon. Need ten times as much; freshens the grass a little.
30.
Cloud and mist in the morning. Pretty warm. The clouds seem to want to rain but there is no will or purpose in them they look soft and irresolute, mere masses of fog. Wind S.W.
Decoration Day; I ought to be at the graves of my dead, but here I am pottering about home. Go to Ulster Park in forenoon.
31.
The last May day, warm and bright and motionless. at 3 PM I sit here in summer house facing the posished river. A thunder cloud rises up in the east about over Myron Bentons and pours down rain. Its upper, great vague mother cloud pushes out far in this direction. I hear mutterings of the thunder. Well, there is comfort in knowing it can rain and can thunder. The scent of the honey locust heavy upon the air. In the woods over the river the locusts make whitish patches amid the vivid green. The scent of white clover also upon the air. A sloop drifts
by on the glassy surface. The passing train is doubled by the mirror of the river. Birds just beginning to peck the half ripe cherries. No grape bloom yet. --The religious mind is necessarily subjective like the artistic or literary type of mind. The scientific mind is necessarily objective. The objects of science are real; the hopes, aspirations, certitudes of religion are real to the mind that experiences them but they are not true, as the facts and deductions of science are true; that is, they have no objective reality. Pauls light and voice from Heaven and his conversio, were [crossed out: ???] real to him, it was a subjective experience but had no objective reality like the facts of science; that is the voice and the light had no existence apart from Pauls emotional nature. The trouble the Church has with the unbeliever is when out of its subjective experience, it formulates a creed, when it seeks to give objective reality to the objects of its adoration etc.
June 1st Warm, with a milky tinge in the air. Light showers in afternoon, seems unable to really get to raining. But it has made a beginning.
4 Terrible thunder shower last night from 8 to 9 1/2 The heaviest rain fall I ever saw in this place; probably 4 inches of water; [crossed out: done] did irreparable injury to my vineyards; tons and tons of soil carried away
the thirsty earth could do nothing with such a deluge. A night of agony to me, slept barely an hour; after the rain the wind arose and I feared the young arms would all be stripped off the vines; wind continues to-day and the havoc with the arms is very great; some vines lose half. The worst blow I have yet had. I fear the vineyards will prove the death of me yet. Blessed is the man who has nothing.
9 Lovely June days, calm warm, hazy. Clover and daisies and wild strawberries in the meadows. Young birds calling early grapes just blooming, cherries ripening. It only needs youth
to make the world very beautiful and winsome. Busy carting earth to repair damages done by the deluge, make but slow headway. Finished our 3d spraying this am.
14 Sunday. The past week clear and dry and pretty warm. On Friday P.M Julian and I go over to Sherwoods and spend the night and Saturday, fish, pick wild strawberries, and lounge about. Visit the hawks in the swamp. An interesting sight. A delicious bath in the lake
Cherries ripe: first mess of peas to-day, grapes nearly done blooming, weather very favorable for grapes. Thermometer to-day about 86. No rain since the deluge of the 3d.
15. Very warm, 90, and dry, not a cloud.
16 Still hotter, 94 in the shade 92 on north end of my house, showers in the distance in afternoon: cooler at night. In morning while in the cherry tree picking cherries I see a stranger approach mopping his face with his handkerchief. In a quiet way he tells me he was a school mate of mine at Ashland 37 years ago and that his name is DeWitt. I come down and we go to the summer house and talk the matter over. I do not remember him. Says he was in the Logic class with me. He proves an agreeable and intellgent man a farmer, has kept track of me through the public prints etc.
Spends the day with me and we have pleasant talk, looks at the Mulford farm with view of purchasing etc. Am glad he came; it is a ripple in my monotonous life. At night he goes to Catskill on the train. -- In Central Asia near the river Oxus there is, according to travelers a famous rock called the Lamp Rock, from a strange light that seems to issue from a cavern far up in the side of the rock. The natives have a superstitious fear of the rock and ascribe the light to some dragon or demon that lives in the cave. Recently a bold English traveler climbed up the rock and investigated. The light was found after all to be only the light of common day The cave was only a tunnel, and the mysterious light came through the rock from the other side, making a striking glow or nimbus at the mouth of the dark cavern. Nearly all our provinces and mysteries will clear up in the same way if explored. There is no light more mysterious than the light of common day.
18 Quite a rain last night, and slow rain and drizzle all day to-day, and very cool. The first rainy day since early in April.
19 Still cool and rainy, tho' not much water has fallen as yet.
23 Light rain the past week. Several days of cloud and drizzle. Cleared off yesterday which was hot and muggy. Began shipping currants to-day, a cool clear, lovely June day from the north
24 Still clear and cool
25. Currants half off to-day. A hot wave arrives in afternoon. 26 Hot again, with cool waves at night. 27 Cool, clear and very windy; finished the new currant patch to-day. 2400 lbs of Fay. 28 Sunday. Still clear, cool and windy. 29 and 30 Pleasant June days. July 1st Cool and pleasant. Currants nearly all off. 2d [crossed out: H] Light rain till P.M from S.E. Not nearly enough rain.
3d Over cast from S.W. but no rain.
4 Light shower last night very cool to day, with shadow and sunshine. A dull fourth for me. Plant a little corn and read and loaf. As I write this the young hawk is on my lap picking at my buttons.
5 Very cool, with masses of black and gray clouds. A little grape rot discovered the past week in Niagaras, Concords, and Champions.
Yesterday Julian, van Benschoten, Ethel and I went to see what van thought was a cuckoos nest in Gordons orchard. We filed along wading through the timothy grass waist-deep to an apple
amid the alders and bushes besdie the little brood. brook? There on a limb, ten feet from the ground was the nest, a large loose mass of twigs. I saw at once it [crossed out: did] was not a cuckoos nest and thought of the turtle dove. A little scrutiny showed it was not that either. Rising up from the twigs we saw a mass of blue-gray down surmounted by three heads, all pointing in different directions. Then we saw the three necks, then the yellowish bills and curious eyes. It was the nest of the little green heron or shitepoke. We each by turns climbed up in the tree and had a nearer look. It was a curious spectacle. The young sat there motionless like little sphynxes. Van said they had a froggy look, and that he had seen that eye in the human countenance.
10 An ideal summer day, cool brilliant, placid, sky very blue, clouds stately and innocent-looking. Cool all the week, [crossed out: not] the mercury has not reached 80 this month as yet. Finished spraying vineyard on the 8th. I work a little, read a little and loaf a good deal. Health good, but spirits dull. This P.M Mr. Mason and friend drop in on me in my summer house and do me world of good. They make me see and feel my want of some one to talk to and what a tonic it is. It lifts the dull weight of prose of my days here in this wilderness among these philistines a good deal. I find the hawk a help too, for all Mrs. B's tirades against such folly as she calls it. Try to read "God and His World" by Aldine, but am disappointed in
it. It is a kind of echo of Mulford's "Republic of God" a really noble and beautiful book that has a hold on the future. "God and His World" is nothing as science or logic, and it is feeble as literature or religion. The old religious jargon is there, and not much new life or meaning has been put into it.
11 Warmer to-day with more haze and southerly winds. Mental skies suddenly all gloom, and life hardly worth living.
13 Warm and dry, A pleasant afternoon in the woods by the falls with Julian and three bright young ladies from Mrs. F's 14 Very hot, 90. 15 The middle of summer, hot and dry [crossed out: that] till one P.M. when a sudden shower comes up
followed by a series of showers, or else many installments of one shower. It is now nearly three and the rain is still pouring, more than one inch of water has fallen. Twice it seemed done and then thickened again in the west, the thunder rolled and down came the rain. It was much needed. Streams and springs very low, and ground very hard. Ploughing the vineyard but find the soil very hard. This will soften it up, and may be also start the grape rot which seems to have stopped.
Except the deluge of June 3 no such rain as this since early spring. -- The rain proved almost an ideal one; heavy, to the verge of washing the vineyard, nearly 2 hours, about 2 inches of water; just enough
17. Cool and delightful.
19 Sunday. More rain last night and in afternoon, about an inch of water. To-day bright and charming day. I drive down the road looking for my dog Dan, but get no clew of him.
21. Cool and beautiful, finished spraying for the 5th time to-day.
23 Go to Onteora Park to-day. Reach there about 10 A.M. Johnson comes in the afternoon Very pleasant life in the camp of Mrs Wheeler. J and I sleep in a big tent. We take most of our meals at the inn. I meet here many people whom I shall not soon forget, mostly women. We are dined and wined and driven about and walked for 6 days. Sleep very poor. Miss Taylors trouble weighs me down. Saturday we drive to the Platterkill Clove. Monday to the mountain house. The scene here is a great surprise. You drive swiftly along a good road up an easy grade till you alight in the rear of a great Hotel. You walk straight through the hall and there lies the world below you as if seen from a balloon. [crossed out: The
y] A young lady walked by my side, a Miss Watterson, a N.Y. journalist. After a moment I turn to her to make some remark and find her in tears. The grandeur and unexpectedness of the scene had overcome her. She wept like a child. I could hardly keep my own tears back, which an inward grief of my own had for days been brewing. We walked away from the rest and sat down on the brink of the precipice and gazed upon the wonderful panorama. I felt tenderly toward that girl during the rest of my stay, and think she did toward me. The night before I came away she found me in the sitting room and lead me one side, told me she was to be married in Sept; and was coming up to Onteora for a few weeks and would be so happy if I would come too. She pressed and stroked my hand and clung to it till I promised. She is a tender and true woman. On Tuesday we went to the top of Round Top over 4000 feet. It was like a view from the clouds 11 Very hot, from 90 degrees to 95; been growing hotter and hotter for several days; grape rot pretty bad. Early grapes nearly ripe; have to seek refuge from the heat on the floor in lower hall. Very well these days, but sad
13 The heated term broken yesterday by a fine shower. Very bright and beautiful and cool to-day.
16 Eventless days, lovely, not too hot. To-day particularly fine and cool, after the light rain of yesterday morning. The white fleecy clouds float indolently across the sky. How my thoughts follow them! The land very green the river placid. -- It seems as if God must be blind and deaf and halt and lame, all he does is brought about with
so much blundering; so much groping, such waste and failures. Every step forward of the race is at an enormous cost and after many failures. The grape vine reaching out blindly for support, feeling here and there, exploring all the surrounding for something to cling to, clinging to itself, to anything its tendrils touch[crossed out: es], is a type of all the efforts of man toward bettering his condition. In science in invention he simply gropes; there are more failures than successes. In Nature the same groping and experimenting goes on.
Lowell died a few days ago. His death gives me a pang I owe him little, yet he was one of the men who help adorn life. He had no message for me, yet he spoke brave and stirring words for the country and for the higher life. The first and only time I ever saw him was in N.Y. [crossed out: in the] in April 1887 I thinkf first in the Century office, where he was very cordial and complimentary, and then [crossed out: to] at Walt Whitmans lecture in the evening. He and Norton and Gilder and his wife and I sat in the same box. The only service I ever did was to hand him his hat on that occasion.
27. The weather for a week or more past has been very diagreeable -- muggy, hot and infernal, some grapes cracked badly. Well and very busy. There is nothing drives the fumes away like brisk occupation, It clears the air like a breeze. Outlook for grapes better than at first. First Delawares August 20.
Oct 15. A big break in the record of my days. Very busy with the grapes till Sept 20. A fine season for shipping, for the most part. Sept. dry and fine. Shipped 21 tons, over 4 tons Del, over 4 tons Niagaras, 5 tons and over of Wordens, nearly 5 of Concords, etc. Brought 2100 dollars. Shipped mostly to Boston. Am convinced that small baskets pay best. In future, keep clear of N.Y. market. Keep clear of Durling and Fredericks, and beware Bishop and H. In Boston C.E. Morrison and Co. did best. R and H, and E and E about equal.
Last half of September very warm, nothing like it since the fall of '79, mercury up to 90 many days. In Wis. and Mich. from 90 to 100.
Sept 24 we all went out to Curtis's The first ten days still hot and delightful. Enjoy myself much. Could see half a township from my window. Gain 7 1/2 pounds in 10 days. Julian fishes for chubs, threading the old streams of my boyhood. I loaf and take my ease. Amid these hills I have a feeling of being sheltered that I have no where else. What is it? The people of my youth are mostly gone, but there is in some way a background of association in the mere topography and geography that shuts out the great void.
Surely I ought to go back there to live. A change in the weather came about Oct 4 or 5th with rain, and a severe cold
snap on Sunday night the 10th. On Saturday we went over to Jones B. One brilliant day I went up to Old Clump. On the 13th we came back home and surrendered ourselves up again to the domestic furies and imps. One bright afternoon I went down across the hill to Uriah Bartrams. Uriah is 83 years old. He looks more pale and
worn than I had ever before seen him. He seemed very restless and frequently sighed deep and long or uttered some half articulate exclamation. Evidently his days are vacant and he feels the end is near. I got him to talking of old times, and again heard the old names I so often had heard from father's lips, Martin Lyon, Sheebe Rundall, Tim, Rundall, Lewis Bouton, Zeke Preston, etc. Martin Lyon lived on the Jerry Bouton farm there in the orchard by the tanzy. Nat Bouton used to live up in our field above the sap-bush
19 Weather dry and cool. No frost yet to affect the foliage.
20 Heavy rain, with thunder in afternoon. Rain began last night.
29 Cool and dry. The hardest frost last night of the season. Wells and springs very low. Two inches of rain the 20th did not affect the water supply. Eventless (days?) with incessant rattle of an abusive tongue in the house.
Paused ashile this morning in returning from P.O. to see the stems of the leaves of the ash fall. The leaves were off some days ago, and this morning the stems were falling in the still air, coming down swiftly one by one.
Clear this P.M. with southerly winds. Getting warmer.
Oct 31. The last day of a golden October, warm, 62 degrees southerly winds, partly clear, leaves covering the ground.
Nov 1st Cool and dry, partly overast, air full of smoke, clouds blue and dry looking; trees more than half stripped of their leaves, cold wave approaching.
2d Light frost last night; cool clear and dry this morning It seems to me that life never had fewer attractions for me than it has now.
3 Election day. Clear and sharp, growing cold all day. Not a cloud to be seen, very dry.
4. Mercury down to 20 degrees this morning, the coldest of the season. Still clear, with north wind.
6.
Still clear and sharp, no cloud, no rain. Walk up to Terpennings for butter in afternoon. Pause in the cemetary on my return. Already the names of so many people here who I knew, quite a throng of them. I linger long about their graves. Consider
whether or not I want to be buried here. The old Baptist burying ground at home is offensive to me. So is this. No kith or kin of mine are here. Had rather be burried beside my dogs, or else in one of the old fields at home.
7.
Cold and clear still. Every storm that starts from the West comes to naught before it reaches us Several degrees
below freezing every night. A water famine threatened in Eastern states.
Some of the pine trees just shedding their leaves. Some seasons they shed them in August.
Noticed in Sept. The woodpeckers drilling their rings of small holes in the bark of the apple trees; found some of the
holes filled with gummy like exudation. The birds are feeding upon the tree and not upon insects. Think they usually make
these holes in the fall. Of course insects are not distributed with such regularity and in exact rows under the bark. There are no insects in live bark, any way. The woodpeckers eat this gum and sap, or else the soft inner bark of the tree.
27 Since my last entry, the weather here on the whole, has been mild; only once down to 20 degrees. Several rains from S.W. Enough to affect the wells and springs. The water famine relieved nearly all over the country. Quite a streak of mental activity a few days ago, but nothing valuable came of it, as it was mainly misdirected. But it revives my hopes.
Yesterday, Thanksgiving I went to N.Y. with Anthony Gill to see a football match between Princeton Yale. The spectacle fills my minds eye yet; The great well-dressed, well-behaved crowd -- 35000 people, mostly all young, the flutter of flags and colors, the cheering and horning, and a glamour of romance or sentiment in some way about the college youths struggling there against each other. Alas, that I have no college association. It is a great loss. A gray day with slow rain after 3 o'clock. Got back home at 11 1/2 P.M.
Sunshine to-day with flying clouds. Weather acts rather jerky. Sudden changes -- feebleness? Doubt if we have a severe winter.
Nov. 30 A big cold wave, mercury down to 6 above this morning. Snow on the mountians and on the cars that come from the
1891 North and West.
Dec 1. Bright day but sharp, mercury at 20 this morning
2.
Milder, clear and lovely. Go to P. in P.M. boat.
3.
Still bright and warmer, no wind. Much haze, late Indian summer
I do not see mind in Nature. Mind is human, and in Nature we see the unhuman, or not human. We see the raw material of mind, as it were; we make mind out of it. A bird sings; its song is not music, but music can be made out of it. Or is calls, and we say it says this word or that word, but it only suggests the word. When we try to imitate it we say the word. The intelligence of Nature is like that. It is inseparably mixed with that which is not intelligence. There is no morality, no virtue in Nature. Nature is non-moral. Nature is not inhuman, but non-human. Nature is conscious of herself in man alone. When I see a boat going by on the river I see something that looks like design or conscious intelligence, but when I see the river itself going by to the see sea, I am impressed quite differently. There is no kinship between the two facts. If there is mind in nature, it is blind, it can not see the way, but feels for it and experiments endlessly. The law of variation is this groping of nature. She will hit the mark because she will each time vary the direction. [crossed ou: It is] The progress of Nature
in her lower or her higher forms is precisely like a lost dog trying to find his way home; it tries all directions, and finally hits on the right one. Or it is like the grape vine in the vineyard. See how it reaches out its arms in every direction feeling for support. It will cling to anything it touches, friend or foe, it will cling to itself just as eagerly as to the trellis.
The progress of the race has been like this, endless failures and then by and by the lucky hit. The forces of Nature have literally fought themselves into their present equilibrium. The incomprehensible thing is Life, this something we call life which builds up these structure before our eyes by a process which we cannot imitate or [crossed out: institute] initiate.
3d In P.M. Julian and I take a turn through the woods back of Irishman Rileys; see 3 grouse and 1 gray squirrel. An interesting tramp, air so still one could have carried a lighted candle.
5. A cyclone passed north and west of us yesterday; heavy winds and rain in afternoon, becoming very violent in early evening. Clear to-day and mild; bees out the hive; still looks like open winter. Storms are going north of us.
10 A morning like Oct. or Early Nov. Clear, still, mild, only a little frost last night. A very mild and lovely Dec. so far On Monday the 7th, came Adelbert Allaben, an old friend and student of mine at Polo, Ills, 35 years ago. Now Congregational minister; rather a fine fellow. Brought a big bunch of M.S. to read to me, a novel, called "Old Chronicle." On the whole a powerful story, think it will be a success maybe a great success. It is written under pretty high pressure and has in it. Lacks humor, and probably lacks charm. This last is peculiarly the gift of the man, if there is not something winsome and attractive about him as a person, [crossed out: and] charm will not attach to his book or discourse.
My pleasure in his visit much marred by Mrs B's shrewish temper and inhospitality.
"He who knows how to lead well" says Plutarch, "is sure to be well followed."
My honey bees humming in the air to-day. This hum of the bee in Dec. often proves the requiem of winter. We will see if it proves so this time.
11. Still mild and delightful. Only a mild frost last night. About 10 1/2 Mr Booth and Mr Lown of P. appear with their haversacks over their shoulders and we presently start off for a tramp and a Dec picnic. Back through the woods by Irishman Rileys and to the Old Mill by black creek. Here we have our lunch. [crossed out: An] A fire of dry sticks make us at home. Here we spend the hours with much talk, the fire more for sociability than warmth. Then back through Brookmans woods home. Mr Booth has an eye for Indian relics. Mr Lown is a botanist. Coming through an open field, Mr. [crossed out Lown] Booth? suddenly turned sharply to one side like a dog when he scents game. He went a few rods and picked up a stone that proved to be an Indian pounding stone. The two dimples or thumb and finger indentations on each side were very plain, and it showed use. "Did you really smell that stone" I asked. "No" said he, "I saw a stone there. I kicked it over, and it was not what I wanted but just by it lay this, the one I did want"
13. Indian summer weather still. Froze but little last night. The moon was nearly full and what a night it was. Roads dry and hard and white. Fields dry, streams and springs low for this time of year. This morning is like Oct. or Early Nov. nearly clear with light S.W. wind
Prof. DuBois's article on Immortality in last Century seems pretty conclusive. It is very ingenious and does not assume the points to be proven. Yet why does it not produce conviction in me? Surely not because I do not want to be convinced. Is it not because one cannot conceive of the things after it is proven? Life and consciousness without the body, without limitations of time and space. It is unthinkable and therefore incredible. We cannot sum up nature, we cannot say it is all for this or for that, we cannot say it is all a failure unless man is immortal. We think in straight lines, so to speak, from point to point, but the universe is symbolized by the
circle or the sphere. We think Nature must have had a beginning and must have an end, that it must have had a creator, but when we look deeper we see this is not true; the sphere comes to our aid and we see how we cannot set bounds to creation. I am convinced there are no terms by which we can express the truth of these things. Creation is infinite and we cannot prescribe its end or its bounds without contradiction. It is too large for the mind to grasp. What is life for? Well, whom then is immortality for?
Now at 2 P.M. not a cloud, mercury at 60, bees humming like Sept.
Dec. 14 Bees still humming. Some [crossed out: lay] lazy, slow moving clouds; a light rain said to be coming from the West. Columns of smoke here and there. River unruffled.
16 Light rain yesterday and last night. Windy and colder to-day with sunshine.
To a lady correspondent who asked doubtfully about my faith, I replied: "My faith is not like yours. The man never has as much faith as the woman. He must find his way step by step and in the light of reason. She leaps or flies and is there before him. I think God meant that a man should earn his faith by the sweat of his brow, by toil and struggle, and often may be, go without it entirely. I have not earned mine yet, tho' the sort of vague blind faith of my little poem "Waiting" I have and have always had, because it seems to be a law of nature. What is mine, what belongs to me by my constitution I shall get. I shall find it, or it will find me."
19 Bright mild day. Walk up from P. on R.R. a cold wave since last entry, but not severe. Mercury down to 14 two days ago. A little floating ice this morning for the first
20. A sharp, frosty morning, tho' not very cold, day hazy and still. River like a mirror. Sun shines through smoke and thin clouds. Skating on the ponds for 3 days past.
The 11th anniversary of mothers death. Gave some magic lantern views last evening over at the rooms of the new society.
21 Off to Roxbury this morning. Day proves to be very fine, not a cloud in the sky and temperature mild. Take dinner with sister Abigail. Meet Curtis in the street. Go up home with him and spend the night. Old Mrs Grand then gone a long way down the hill of life since I saw her last, 81, not much longer has she to stay, a very bad cough, the consumption of old age; reminds me of her father Uncle Krum.
22 Go up and settle with George this morning. Cloudy to-day. The old home looks very forlorn.
23 Down to the station in a slow rain, warm, and take train out to see Homer and Jane once more. See Homer iand Jane once more. See Homer in a milk wagon with another man and know him at a distance. He shakes like
a man of 90. He jumps out the wagon and greets me, voice feeble and whining. I go up with him. He sits behind and amid the empty milk cans. I sit in seat with the driver; he goes like Jehu and I fear H. will be bounced to death or thrown out over the rough road. You fool! why drive this way! I speak and he slows up. Jane glad to see me getting stout. Take dinner with them and then back to the train at 2 P.M. and so back to W.P. at night, with plan to take train in the morning for Camden, where Walt Whitman is sick unto death, the papers say.
24. Go to Camden to-day; reach there about 3 in a pouring rain, but the sun presently comes out. Find Walt still alive. Dr. Bucke and George W. are there.
go up to his room. Such litter, such an accumulation of dust and dirt, such disorder! Piles of papers, books, and every thing else. Walt lies on a broad dirty bed with eyes closed. But he knows me and speaks my name as of old and kisses me. He asks me to sit beside him a while. I do so holding his hand. He coughs feebly and raises a great deal of phlegm. Asks about my family and sends his "best" love to wife and Julian. Gives me two copies of his complete poems, just out. He tells me where to find them. After a while I go out for fear of fatiguing him. He says "it is all right John," evidently referring to his approaching end. He said his brother George had just been in and "has quite unnerved me, for the first time."
25 Xmas. Expected to find Walt dead this morning, but he is not, and rallied considerably during the day. I see him again and he speaks of Mrs O'Conner, of Eldridge and his wife etc. His voice is natural and strong; looks much better than yesterday. I dined at Harneds and spend evening there. A murky foggy day.
26 Walt had a bad night, doctors think he may live a day or two yet, or may go any hour. I go up and look at him long and long, but do not speak. His face has steadily refined; no decrepitude or breaking down never saw the nose so beautiful. He looks pathetic, but how beautiful! At 11 I take a silent farewell, and leave; reach home at night. How green the patches of witner grain were in New Jersey!
28.
Monday. Warm and clear, lovely day. Walt little better.
29.
S.W. wind and rain in afternoon and evening. Walt still better, so say the papers.
