5:30 P.M. W. continues in his rather ill condition. Does not complain, but says he feels "under a great weight of oppression." Anne Montgomerie described to me W. as he sat in Harned's hallway yesterday morning while Furness spoke. "It was the most beautiful face I ever saw," she said, "an expression I have never seen in any other human being. I wished then we might sit there just in silence—that nothing at all might be said," etc. A description fine in itself, which I could well appreciate.
I had word from Truth Seeker folks today that they would print Ingersoll address in a little pamphlet. W. advised me: "You might write to them; tell them if they are going to print an introductory, they had better let us furnish them with something more accurate than they published before." Spoke of some people "who still fear the Ingersoll contagion," then with a hearty laugh, "But there's no harm done or to be done," adding, "Ingersoll is a fact, I am a fact—we all are facts—set in our own courses: that is enough."
Returned me Harper's Weekly.
Said he had been reading the Arena. "I find it all that it need be for a magazine of its kind. And look," turning over some of its pages, "it prints verses, too—poems. Do you suppose that would be another market for us?"—laughing, however; the idea seeming to have some amusing features for him.
He joked about "the temporary suspension of the mails," that he had received no letters today. Wished Conservators when they came out tomorrow. Would "send some here or there." Had read Law's Prologue for Scotch concert the other night: "It is very good—I like the fellow."
James R. Gilmore has been writing him about the "Encyclopedia of American Biography," sending specimen page [requesting W. to contribute an autobiographical sketch].
And W. called attention to Manchester Guardian extract:
Fifty Poems of Meleager. With a translation by Walter Headlam. London: Macmillan and Co. Pp. xx. 101.
In the "Studies of the Greek Poets" there are some pages of fervid enthusiasm for the poet, who flourished half a century before the Christian era, was born at Gadara, lived at Tyre, and grew old in the island of Cos. Walt Whitman has informed us that the future reputation of New York will rest on the fact that he did that city the honour of being born there. The fame of Meleager's birthplace has been dimmed by other associations. Mr. Headlam plainly shares Mr. Symonds's admiration for the "noblest of all the amatory poets" and "the most mellifluous of erotic singers." . . .
(Manchester Guardian, England Oct. 28/90)