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brands of wine for an hour after dinner — a subject on which, as Waring suggested, I probably could not afford much valuable information.
I don't mean that any considerable amount of wine was drunk; men talk about wine still, but hardly taste it. One of these (Boker the “poet” ) complained, “Nobody drinks now-a-days — they only sip.”
July 29
Parton [the biographer, and husband of Fanny Fern] expressed greatest delight in Howells's “Wedding journey” ; thought it would live, and wished he had an income of two thousand dollars to settle on H. “It is no matter about me,” he said; “I have n't the gift -I am a drudge, but Howells is capable of something better.”
August 27, 1871
Afternoon saw M. Coquerel.... He described George Sand, who had sent for him to talk Protestantism.
Both times he saw her she was sitting in a dark corner for eyes, with a dozen guests or visitors, all smoking cigarettes.
She lighting one every ten minutes, asking questions and never saying a word — says she never does.
At Nohant she has guests all evening; then at twelve walks alone in garden, then writes all night, takes another turn, and goes to bed in broad day and sleeps till noon.
Never writes by day.October, 1871
Lecture at Medford.
Stayed at Hallowell's; tea with Wasson.
H.'s guide in the Adirondacks said, “Do you know Jim Lowell?”
