5:40 P.M. To W.—in his room—reading local papers. Very cordial. I had but a few minutes to stay. Was all well? "Very, for me. Yet abstractly pretty bad. But we are not here to complain." Letter from Bucke? "Yes, a lively one, too. He is back, and busy. And he seems to regard his Montreal trip as a great success. Certainly, he enjoyed it, whatever of the others. No doubt it had important meanings." He thought Bucke's "opinions"—yes, "even his notions"—on these special lines "must carry great weight." I had two letters from Wallace. He is now on his way South— expects to be in New York tomorrow. W. saying, "We are then almost at meeting-point again. Well, let him come, to be"—with a laugh—"disillusioned."
The room full of smoke from the fire, yet he seemed oblivious. Even his smarting eye hardly told him. Yet on my reminder he said, "I did notice something, yet did not know what. Of course, it's bad." Yet would not let me open door or window. Chafes under McKay's delay. "Why the devil couldn't Dave have gone on. We can come to terms anytime, but the book itself ought to be out." Pan-American Congress in Philadelphia next week. "Have you your poem finished?" I asked. "What poem?" "Oh! the one announced last week or week before in the papers." "The papers? Oh! the papers be damned! A big lie in a little paper—or in a few words—will girth the world—go everywhere: the meaner the lie, too, the more perverse will people be to swear to it! But, however, tell me about the Congress, Horace. Is it all fallen through about the Colonel? Will he fail them?" But I insisted, "I am for the present interested in the poem." He then, "But I tell you there's to be no poem—from me. I am interested in the Colonel," laughing, exclaiming. For, he said, "The Colonel would set them on fire, if he were there—were to let himself out." But the Colonel is not likely to be there.