Without any embarbassing self-consciousness, W. was aware of his true character, of his significance, and of his mission. Where others veil or efface the ego, he [crossed out: ???] unveiled it and thrust it forward. To do this was a part of his scheme "To effuse egotism and show it underlying all" as he says in his poems. To exhibit "the quite changed attitude of the ego, the one chanting or talking toward himself" as he says in his prose.
May 28. Warm and over cast; hope for rain. Went yesterday and looked up a cuckoos nest. Arthur Sherwood directed me where to find it. I met him at the station the other night. "What bird is that" he said, "brown in color, with a long tail and rather long bill and a red ring around its eye?" Cuckoo I replied. "Well there is one got a nest up on the hill. It is in a small hemlock beside the road, just where the road breaks down the hill -- left hand or east side." So I walked straight to it. The bird did not leave her nest till I was lifting myself up into the tree. Nest about 8 feet from the ground, a loose rude structure of small twigs; three pale blue eggs. The mother bird made no demonstration at all, but sat on a near branch regarding me intently. Once I thought I heard a low, com-plaining note. I must visit it again.
28 Another fine rain; rained nearly all the afternoon; over an inch of water; quite enough for the present. What delight to sit on the porch here at Slab sides and see and here it rain -- with no woman about to molest or make us afraid
June 1st June comes in cool and stately -- the bluest of blue skies flecked with drifting clouds that gave us sudden spurts of rain yesterday. Another good rain on night of 30th
ground well wet up now. Clovering and grapes beginning to bloom.
2d A blue high dome regal June day. How fresh and new and vital the world seems. The air like clear cold spring water. Not a film or taint anywhere. Spent the day at S.S. as usual. In afternoon went and hunted up the chats nest. After beating about the bushes a long time I spied the nest about 4 feet from the ground, a massive structure of leaves, dry grass stems etc. 3 speckled eggs. The owner did not appear or [crossed out: ???] make any sound. Found a catbirds nest near by.
8 A warm, pleasant week. Dr Buck came on Thursday, left last night. Mr Chapman came last night; a fine interesting fellow. Light Rain this morning and cloud and mist all day. Grapes done blooming.
9 Warm, moist, cloudy from S.W. Light rains elsewhere. Still at S.S.
10 Light rain again to-day. Clearing off in P.M. and very cool at night. -- The cimetar-winged chimney [crossed out: swallow] swift; the hollow-eyed chimney swift; the thin winged chimney swift.
11 Bright and very cool. Celery blight begins to show in the celery.
12 A perfect June day; daisies and butter cups and tall grasses nodding in the meadows; the sky an illuminated blue with light slow sailing clouds, cool, fresh wonderful. As I walked over from the station to S.S. at 10 1/2 I thought I had never seen a more perfect day.
13. Go to H. rain in P.M. 1/2 inch water.
14 A cold driving old fashioned N.E. storm; rained all day, heavy at times. Hiram and I sit contented in doors at S.S. with an open fire. 2 inches of water since yesterday
I am better in health and happier than for a long time. I thrive best when let alone.
17 more rain. Go to P. (last night) to hear Julian and the boys speak. J. does well. 18 More rain last night with thunder. Too much rain now. Ed came yesterday returns to-day.
21.
Fine shower this P.M. with destructive wind south of here. Very hot the past few days.

22.
John Muir came last night. J. and I met him at Hyde Park. A very interesting man, a little prolix at times. You must not be in a hurry, or have any pressing duty, when you start his stream of talk and adventure. Ask him to tell you his


famous dog story (almost equal to Rab and his friends) and you get the whole theory of glaciation etc. thrown [crossed out: ???] in. He is a poet, and almost a seer; something ancient and far away in the look of his eyes. He could not sit down in a corner of the landscape as Thoreau did; he must have a continent for his play ground. He starts off for a walk, after graduation, and walks from Wisconsin to Florida, and is not back home in 18 years. In Cal. he starts out one morning for a stroll; his landlady asks him if he will be back to dinner; probably not, he says, He is back in seven days. Walks 100 miles around Mt. Shasta, and goes 2 1/2 days without food. He ought to be put into a book; doubtful if he ever puts himself into one. He has done many foolish, fool hardy things I think; that is, thrown away his strength without proper return. I fear how he is on the verge of physical bankruptcy in consequence. Probably the truest lover of nature as she appears in woods, mountains and glaciers, we have yet had.
23. Cooler; finished picking over the currant patch to-day.
30 June goes out like a queen, as fine a June as I ever saw.
July 1st Pretty hot. Miss Merriam and Miss Eaton came to-day. Two pleasant women; we saw a green warbler feeding a cow bunting. 2d Hot; first celery shipment to-day. 3d Go to Twilight Park. 4th To Onteora Park; meet many pleasant people; heavy rain at night. 6 Back home to-night. Clouds and light rain 9 Third cloudy day without rain. Hiram and I still at S.S. 10 Two or three thunder showers last night -- about 1 inch water Hiram and I sat here with lighted lamp
and heard it come down; blew blowed my corn flat in places.
13 A hot wave the past 3 days, 88 degrees. Celery outlook very dubious -- Have about finished Whitman book.
16 Rain again last night; hot wave apparently ended.
18. Home to Roxbury to-day -- all of us; reach Curtises at 5. All well -- done haying; hay light as last year. Pastures very short. Grasshoppers thick, army worm here and there. My appetite for the old place not as keen as usual, probably because I have had a piece of the old home with me all
summer in the person of Hiram. Hiram has kept my homesickness in abeyance. Mid-summer signs: the orange lilies, the golden rye fields, the swallows in rows on the
telegraph wires; the circling undulating flight of the gold finches calling to his sitting mate in the maple; the sycamores shedding their thin outer bark from their branches, or bearing their white arms to the elbow, the shrill brassy crescendo of the harvest fly, flying grasshoppers stationary in the air above the dusty highway, on shuffling wing. Daisy has grown pot-bellied and ragged and dirty blurs the field.
24 Very cool after a pretty muggy hot spell and light rain; feels like fall. P.M. Rain set in mid-forenoon, a cold slow rain from N.E; promises to be copious. -- Cheeney in a July poem in The Dial makes the clover and yellow lilies [crossed out: cr] characteristic of the month, but June is the month of the clover in the northern and middle states; the daisy too is faded and pot-bellied in July.
Why do the critis hesitate to call Mrs Stowe an artist, and her 'Uncle Tom' a work of great literary merit? I suppose it is because, first, that she never produced another work that approached it in general interest; her subsequent books fall far below it; second it seems to have been the result of moral and humanitarian fervor rather than of esthetic and artistic fervor. The subject mastered her. A man may make an eloquent speeech at some crisis in his life who is not a great orator. But the true orator is eloquent on many occasions and on many themes. The great artist does not commit himself as Mrs Stowe did, his work has a flavor and a quality which hers has not. Tolstoi, though he wrote with a purpose and with a deep moral conviction as Mrs S, is much more surely an artist. He is not confined to one theme; his range is vastly greater. Mrs S. plays almost entirely upon our more common, external, or animal feelings, as pity, mirth, fear, anger etc. The deeper and finer chords of the soul she is not master of, and no Beecher ever was. The pure literary or artistic quality which can stand upon its own ground without the aid of voice, manner, or any [crossed out: any] laughter or tear provo-king circumstances, was not among [crossed out: the gifts of] the gifts of this gifted family. They had the eloquence of passion, action, earnestness but not of the still small voice, the deep inner voice of pure art. No one can read Uncle Tom, without tears, laughter, indignation; it is one of the books that lays strong hands upon the common emotional nature, but no one I fancy would ever get that deep, tranquil pleasure and edification from it that works of pure art give. Mrs S's, inspiration was from without rather than from within; when she took a [crossed out: th] subject or a field that presented less violent and tragic contrasts and that did not make the same appeal to her sense of wrong and injustice, she was far less effective. If Hawthorne had written the book, how much less exciting and arousing to the average man it would have been, how much less animal heat there would have been in it, but how much more of the pure gold of true literature [crossed out: there] it [crossed out: w] would have [crossed out: been in it] held. Something as deep and calm as the light and the sky. Nothing [crossed out: deserves merits being called] can take high rank as a work of art that does not touch and thrill the soul. To excite the feelings, or to enlist the moral nature is not enough; the man within the man who sits calm and impartial, who sees more in the [crossed out: small] silent stars than in the roaring tempest.
more in limpid brooks than in raging torrents must be reached and moved.
The saying "art for arts sake" has truth in it, but each of us attaches a different meaning to the words. Mrs S. did not write Uncle Tom from an inward, imperative, need of expression, or creation, but from a patriotic and humanitarian impulse. The hunger for creation is what moves the true artist, not to do good to somebody.
What constantly strikes me in Howells is the workmanship -- the cleverness with which the thing is done, -- his people make little impression. It is like exquisite carving on very ordinary material. Am just reading his Saratoga Novelette; it is like a photograph and lacks just what a photo lacks -- charm, illusion. But how clever. He is a master in painting ordinary people. Can he paint the extraordinary? I doubt it. Does he increase our love for men and women and for things? No. A talent so fine that it is almost genius.
25. Very cool and clearing; after an old fashioned slow all day rain from South or S.E; ground pretty well wet.
28. Pretty warm again; a fine shower last night, nearly an inch of water. Days pass pleasantly at the old home. I sit on the hills by the hour gazing upon the landscape. Do I gaze upon the past through the present, or upon the present through the past? -- The fashion of fun passeth away, as do all other fashions whether in dress, art, or letters. Where is Dosticks? How long will Ward, Twain, Billings be remembered? The great humorists have no fashion and no trick. The new great man in any field is only a new fresh growth of the same old traits. -- The swallow -- the skater of the air -- skating about and over the mountain tops. He differs from other flyers as the
skater from other pedestrians.
30.
At Edens; very warm, 85 degrees. Came over yesterday with Ann and Curtis. Eden greatly improved, nearly well. Go fishing, no fish. Very hot along the stream. Fine shower last night. Back home late in P.M.

31.
Very cool and clear as a bell. Go up on Old Clump in after noon. How vividly the landscape stands out. [crossed out: not] The air is as clear and cool as spring water, streaks of light yellow green here and there in the fields. I prowl about the summit an hour or more.


Aug 1st Clear and very cool, with increasing cloudiness in after-noon.
2.
Fine rain last night -- nearly an inch of water, no thunder

Cool and fresh to-day -- clear in afternoon. Sit a long time on the side of the mountain above J.S. Carroll's, and gaze upon the broad landscape patched with yellow, vivid green, red, and greenish brown. In the pastures the soil shows through the verdure, as the wood through the first coat of paint.

3.
Clear and getting warmer, dreamy dog-day weather. Visit the grapes of my dead in the old church yard. Our country cemeteries are perhaps the ugliest in the world. At least I saw nothing abroad that compares with them in this respect. I laid my hand upon the marble slab at the head of each grave in silent greeting, and farewell.


6. Very hot. We all return to W.P. on morning train
12.
The great heat continues -- very severe all over the country -- from 90 to 100. Many deaths everywhere. Hiram and

I at S.S; nights fairly comfortable. Began shipping grapes (M. E) on 10th

13.
A little cooler. Drive to H.

14.
Light rain in morning. Promises to be cooler. -- The sweating of the rocks is on quite a different principle from the sweating of a man.


17. Shower last night. Much cooler this morning
-- It seems to me that present state of the civilized world is just as much the result of the conflict of forces -- imper-sonal forces, as is the present state of the physical world. The present equilibrium and adjustment of the forces of nature are the result of conflict and waste and time of which we can form little conception. God turned the forces forth and let them fight it out. And now after infinite ages, they have settled down into some sort of harmony and agreement, and grass grows, birds sing and life continues. So in the human sphere, the same cosmic law prevails. Oh, the defeats, failures, wrongs delays of which history is the record. Not the moral law, but the cosmic law shapes races and nations. What is there moral in the present attitude of the European nations? now or in the past? Always a struggle for supremacy as in the physical order. -- While home I helped Curtis thresh a little rye out in the "new barn" (now very old) where we used to thresh 45 or more years ago. Father used to send me out to thresh out a few bushels of the new rye to take to mill. Harvest apples were usually just ripening and we would have a nest of them in the hay to which our hands would find their its way between the floorings. I took but some apples this time and tried to bring the old days back again, but there was something that would not come back.
A swallow had her brood in a nest on the rafter over head and her goings and comings and twitterings were the same as of old. The sun-lit meadow through the big open door was un-changed, but something had changed and the world looked different. Johnny and Chant were plowing on the hill side above us -- both new comers into the world since last I swung a flail in the old barn. I treshed a few sheaves -- found no mroe fun in it than when I was a boy, munched an apple and then went to the house, thinking the long long thoughts of a man of sixty.
-- The elm beetle will probably kill all the elms and thus destroy itself; the potato beetle, if lest to itself, would exterminate the potato; the currant worm would exterminate the currant; in each case, the pest would destroy its own means of support. How like nature this is, endless, aimless waste, self-devouring, self-defrauding, getting up and lying down only that the game may go on. There is nothing like human prudence, foresight, calculation in the cosmic processes. As the tree or the plant scatters its seed, blindly, such are the ways of nature. She takes all chances and is sure to win sometimes. If one race or species devours another, what cares she? She will play the game over again endlessly. We think we see the wisdom of the Providence in particular cases, for instance in the fact that ice floats instead of sinks; but in the latter event the fall of the earth would have been different and things would have adjusted themselves to that. There is no wisdom in nature; there is tireless energy and experimentation.
Aug 27. Rain to-day -- much needed -- Cool and lovely days most of this week. The grape racket on -- 2 1/2 tons daily. I spend most of each fore-noon here at S.S.
P.M. Rain only light.
30. The third of the cool bright tranquil August days -- the perfection of weather. Suggestions of frost at night. Sept 1. Sept comes in cool and bright, and dry. 3 Light shower at 6. Days cool and fair -- the best of weather for the grape racket. 5500 lbs off to-day. Prices very low.
4. Cooler, clear, wind from N.W. Hiram and I sleep every night at SS. Dinner and supper we have taken with Mrs B. for 4 days past.
6th Rain began at 5 P.M. rained all night heavy; and till late in the morning; the heaviest rain of the season; warm, from the South.
A heavy shower at noon -- 3 or 4 inches of water in all, but the gound takes it, and could take more.