5:30 P.M. Only in for a brief space—W. in first-rate condition—getting ready to take his outing. Asked for "news." Left Harper's Weekly with him.
We talk somewhat of the new "Annex" to "Leaves of Grass"—but it is not ready yet for printer. Bucke urges new, even if unfinished, matter. W. is writing day by day—though as he says—"All is now in a nebulous condition," etc.—for what in the end he will include and what reject he "has not yet fully determined." But he preses it, that the new copyright this will give him on "Leaves of Grass" "will cover 40 years to come."
Called attention to page clipped from Critic August 2nd.
Had secured his mucilage bottle.
Kennedy sent me back dinner article with word that it was "too late"—saying, however—"I took the liberty to take a few sentences from it for my book." W. laughed—"That was all right, wasn't it?"
He thought Morse's doctor friend whose portrait Morse had sent, "glum"—the "great seriosity" of the man's face seeming to affect him antagonistically.
As to why Donn Piatt should "like" him: "I suppose he sees that I stand for free thought and it is that attracts him—I seem to have an attraction for many upon that same ground."