5:25 P.M. Found W. reading the afternoon papers. Keeps in excellent condition, though complaining of heat and flies.
Warren came in and kissed him good-bye, W. explaining to me, "He is going over to Mr. Watson to get his violin lesson: he goes every Monday."
I showed W. proof of Kennedy's piece, "The Quaker Traits of Walt Whitman." Proposed leaving it for him to look over tomorrow, but he was so interested he put on his glasses and read it at once. The printer had spelled "attar" with one t, W. pointing out, then saying, "I hesitated for a minute, was going to say, perhaps better out. But I suppose in that case it ought to be inserted. I am in favor of short spelling whenever that will do. I like the modern tendency that way, and in punctuation, too. I have followed it right along, myself—often to the horror of my friends. Of course there may be an extreme, but a wise economy is becoming necessary." Then read on and on, quickly. "It is very fine, a choice bit. I think Kennedy has done it wonderfully well: the great simplicity of it, too! It is striking, direct. I hope you will give me plenty of copies of the paper when it is out. The cutest thing of all is, what the damned fellow knows! He has a thousand pigeon-holes, each one with some unsuspected testimony. I don't know if this point, the Quaker point, ever has been made before. I have not seen it. Now there ought to be someone to write up about my Dutch forebears. I may say I revel, even gloat, over my Dutch ancestry. Burroughs? Yes, perhaps, or some other. I was trying to think of Brooklyn, someone there. Yet I don't know why Kennedy himself shouldn't do it. I want you to tell him when you write that I am pleased with the article, that it hits us off at a point where we are susceptible, sensitive."
He asked me, "What book have you under your arm?" and when I said Gosse's "Northern Studies," W. laughed and remarked, "Oh! Gosse! I don't take any stock in him!"
Said he expected Harry to wheel him out in Warren's absence.