Went down to W.'s a little before eight in the evening—but the house was locked up—windows closed, no one about, not even Mrs. Davis. I sat on the step 15 or 20 minutes but he did not come. Then went home. No sooner there, however, than he passed the house. I went along—sat with him in front of 328 for some time, talking. Voice seemed weak tonight. Day very fine—"Perfect," he said, "I can imagine nothing more luminous and mild." He stood the heat "pretty well" though not "without visible effect." Had been down to the river.
Speaking of a minister who took severe views of the Sabbath—would even stop a ship in mid-ocean but for the necessity to proceed—W. said, "You might have gone even beyond that—have asked why the laws of nature should not be suspended for the one day, the action of the heart, the organs of digestion. It is part and parcel of the same logic." Just the other day he was complaining of the restrictions against bathing along the river front, and now remarked that these things belonged well together.
Hicks writes me from Boston to get him an autographed copy of November Boughs, which he wished to give to Mrs. Helen Campbell, who, he writes, "has all W. W.'s other writings.
Referred to Curtis' Easy Chair comment again—W. asking particularly after "the drift of the article"—and adding—"I don't know but he has there hit upon the undoubted weak spot—and yet the question seems easily enough asked—it would not seem to be necessary for any ghost to rise from its grave to tell us that."