Skip to main content

Friday, November 6, 1891

Friday, November 6, 1891

8:45 P.M. Rather late for me to get to W.'s, but Warren opened door and W. was still up. Reading Stedman's "American Literature"—spoke of it as "an everlasting resource." I was on my way to Unity Church to hear Wande speak about King Lear. W. remarked, "I should like to go—I should like to have something to say about that myself." Wande would read some. I went for the reading, mainly. Don't like explications. W. at this, "I see—nor do I. And yet they have an interest, too, perhaps a value—if not for us, then for others." And then, "Arnold is a good reader—quite good." "Did he read here, in this room?" "Yes, he read here—at great length, too. Indeed, threatened to become tedious. But luckily, someone pulled him up short. I think it was Young. It was a good deed." "Then you did not read or recite any poems yourself—yours or his?" "You know I never read my own poems." "Or recite?" "I don't recite because I don't know them. Could not recite." "And of course you did not recite any of his poems?" W. laughed outright, "No, no, no indeed. Oh! Horace, all that account you find in the Press is fabricated: a few outline facts, the filling-in thorough falsehood." "I have heard it said Arnold himself must have had something to do with the making of that report." W. smiled, "I think Stoddart would say that. Joe don't seem to care for the Sir—says some raspy things about him. Dramatic? I suppose would call him melodramatic—thinking of melodrama." And after a pause, I saying nothing between, "You are well enough aware that I don't sing my own songs." "No, you don't. But I have heard Murger often from you." "Well, I like that poem, in the first place. Then again it is often a good escape for me, when I am pestered for recitations."

I told W. that no one at McKay's remembered the book last week. First he asked, "Is that so?" After which he remarked, "Then it must have been a dream," adding, "But if it was a dream it was a real one." Said he had sent the book to Prof. Hale (the Garland book) "care of Garland."

Wallace up, W. "hoping" he is safe. Counted on his fingers, "Let's see, he's been out one, two—oh! nearly three days—it means a great deal." He had a letter from Johnston, "but it did not seem to give us any new points." I asked him more specifically about the Cooper novels he had touched upon Monday. "Yes, I meant 'The Prairie,' 'The Pilot,' 'The Spy,' 'The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish,' yes, with 'The Last of the Mohicans' added to make a fifth. 'The Pathfinder'—do you remember that? It is descriptive enough, but devilish dull. Did you find it so? But Cooper is always a stirring breath of fresh air, full of buoyant worth, genius." Spoke of George Sand as "a wonderful woman, cute beyond her time."

Back to top