7.30 P.M. W. on bed—dressed, of course—but not asleep. Not out today. Felt bad. "If the dinner was tonight," he said, "it would have to to on without me."—but he smiled and added—"But it is not tonight—these are usually not bad bad nights: somehow I seem to crawl out in season every time."
Read him notes I received from Julian Hawthorne and John Boyle O'Reilly. "They are fine!" he said, "both fine! They sweeten an old fellow's bones, ease his aches!" And perhaps they would be good "paragraphs" to print "sometime" if "the spirit moved." Though W. was perceptibly disappointed at the many "impossible" friends, he now said: "If Ingersoll comes, he will make up for all the rest: but I suppose he won't." I refused to give him up. "To not hear is a good sign: he is thinking about it!" I said. W. then: "I guess you hit it there—and we will wait." Asked if Bonsall was home? Then answered himself—"No I am sure not. He might come."
Said he had sent Warren over to Weir Mitchell, "to get some points on massage, or learn from Mitchell of some one who could give it to him." Adding, "Warren is rather set upon learning it, and I encourage him. There are none too many massagers, as I call them—especially male massagers,—nor good male nurses, for that matter. Yet no men are more needed, more important."
I expressed regret that the Springfield Republican had enclosed the Victoria piece in other matter, and managed thus to weaken it. W. said: "What you point out is true, every word of it—it is the ineradicable habit of editors to make things different from the way they are written. The point anyhow was, to print the poem on the 24th." Spoke definitely of his condition. "This seems the turning-point—whether for the grip or not remains to be seen: I feel on the borderland, not knowing which side I may be faced."
Referring to Ellis again and expressing some disappointment in the Heine essay, W. asked: "Did you say you had read Arnold's Heine? No? I have it here—you should take it—read it." The Times note had turned out [to be] an inch, no more. "Which does no harm anyhow. My theory is, that the boy wrote it out fully enough, but [it] was not accepted beyond this length."