9:30 A.M. Down to W.'s with Lippincott's, last number of Conservator, several sermons by J. H. Clifford, and contents pages of "Good-Bye," which I put together last night. Just up—reading papers and eating breakfast. Did not linger. He spoke of "the fresh beauty of the day." Would he get out? "I don't know—I must see how I come to feel."
3:10 P.M. I took dinner at Longaker's—after which to Camden with him and Reeder (Reeder with his camera). R. snapped a picture (instantaneous) of the front of the house—Warren and H.L.T. on the step. Then in—I directly up, followed by Warren, to whom W. said, "Tell them to come up: it is all right." After which our two friends sauntered slowly to the room. W. in the bed. Longaker greeted him—I introduced Reeder. R. stood near the foot of the bed—L. nearer the head, after a while feeling W.'s pulse, which he found "pretty steady," etc. W. complained, "I have now for a week past felt like the devil, Doctor: no relief—none at all—except when I sleep—and curiously my sleep has been good." And again, "I do not feel nearly so well as I think I ought to." Adding with a slight laugh, "But that is nothing odd—we are never just as we should be." He said again, "I seem to get no relief—except as I come here—rest stretched out on my back. Today has been particularly oppressive, though for the past half hour or so I have felt relieved—at least so far as the head is concerned." After some little lapse of time he got up and went to the chair. Longaker offered to help him, but he refused, "No, I can get along, it is a road I often travel—I know it well—and by navigating slowly, I come to port at last." And after he had sunk in the chair, "I tell Warrie, when I get here, hawsered safely after the voyage, and we have a constant fight over that word 'hawsered.' Warrie is himself a sailor: he pronounces it just as it is spelled—with an a—but I have always heard it H-O-W-sered—as if with an o—often having found it so pronounced by the sailors, at Brooklyn and New York—with whom I fell in so much in early life." He told Longaker, "Doctor, somehow or other I took the notion—it is another of my evil whims I suppose—that the pills had much to do with this depression—so today I did not take them—temporarily suspended." Giving such reasons in extenso. L. insisted that they should be taken and that they had nothing to do with the troubles of which he complained—whereat W. said, "Well, I will resume—I will take your word for it, Doctor." (Said to me yesterday: "The ship is pretty near the end of its cruise, boy.") I found he had not touched the contents pages left in the morning. "I have not felt to do it: I am under a cloud." Would do so tomorrow "absolutely."
Gave "Laughing Philosopher" picture to Longaker and 1890 picture to Reeder (photo-engraved reproduction). They had picked up from the floor. Asked R. if he was not an amateur photographer? And consented when told by us to have R. come some evening and take flash pictures of the room. "It won't hurt to try—the good and bad of it is an accident anyway, I find." Looked for a Gutekunst to give Reeder but could not find. One bundle of pictures he unearthed was marked "dear mother (good of her)." We exhibited the Symonds picture. W. asked me to go down and get the big picture of Bucke from the parlor.