7.15 P.M. W. in the parlor, his blanket about him. Coughed considerably—reporting his cold "not a bit better"—denominating it "undoubtedly a case of grippe." Said it left him little comfort. "If I keep this way I fear for my promise to the club: still, I guess I won't: I guess there'll be a turn from this."
Asked me what I knew of Wells, the new editor of The Press in Smith's absence. "The Press threatens to be the type of the misfit in journalism: I know no paper which more surely exemplified mal-apropos-ism." There was "a vein in it so narrow" he could not forego his hate of it.
Spoke of Mississippi floods—of his own experiences in New Orleans—"the wonder and delight of the levee there: a place of places, picked out of the offerings of the world." Not what the Seine "might be imagined to be"—Paris at the Seine "probably resembling, or being resembled by, our Cincinnati, more than by any other point." But the levee at New Orleans—its own type—curious among river fronts—certainly in America." The whole Mississippi valley subject to floods—"the country low—yet with a lordly look, too."
No list yet. But had "felt too unwell for thought or application" in any direction.