[166]
when, just as the church bells are ringing nine o'clock, the idea of a poem strikes me. Go to work on that at once.
Finish it next morning all but the few last stanzas.
In the afternoon (Friday) go to C--[Cambridge, i.e. the village] to get one thing and another for our whist club, which meets with me to-night.
Play whist till 12.
J. H. [John Holmes] (who is lame) spends the night with me. Next day finish and copy my verses.
Got all done just in time to prevent the mail.
After dinner drove J. home.
Evening, read Swift, that hog of letters, who had wit enough to know the worth of pearls, though fonder of garbage and of rooting among ordure.
[We soon come to the creation of the
Town and Country Club.]
Now it is Sunday morning and here I am with you. Since I wrote to you, the “Town and country Club” has been got up. Our first regular meeting is next Wednesday, (2d May,) when E. [Emerson] is to read an address.
The Club is a singular agglomeration.
All persons whom other folks think crazy, and who return the compliment, belong to it. It is as if all the
