10.45 A.M. W. reading paper. Paused, invited me to the lounge, talked freely for a while. When I asked him how he was he said: "Well—I am here, I am up!" But looked rather pale. Is evidently still laboring with his cold. "I have not been able to write or do anything towards the book," he said, apologetically— "neither last night nor this morning have I written a word: but I shall try to get at it today: it should be done; we should not encourage delay: if we do not find the portraits, we must in some other way make up the three hundred: I have others, of another sort—enough of them." George's wife
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was in this morning. W. gave her for one of her friends (endorsing it) a copy of the Rossetti edition in red cover. W. spoke of Winter as "one of the intellectual aristocracy of the Sam Johnson order to whom smartness is above all things the truth."
Subject of Booth's sickness at Rochester (reported paralysis night before last) introduced. W. had read accounts in the papers. "But I wait for further reports: I know Booth is a notionate man—full of odd turns and twists: he must have felt very bad, dull, numb—and this it is, often, that the Doctors call paralysis." Barrett had "evidently" been "too greatly alarmed" at the moment, so that his speech to the audience "was overanxious and despairing." W. said: "I have seen Booth—the present Booth—and seen him often: he is a man of bright parts, interesting: you can enjoy him: but he is not a genius of the first class—not anywhere near first class, indeed: I have read the Press sketch this morning: it is right good, too. They say very clearly there, the public are agreed that Booth is a great actor—demand to have him—but that the critics are by no means so agreed, though in the end the public has had its way. That is pretty well stated: the public, perhaps, is justified in its position. Booth is a man who has had a great many troubles on his back: his first wife was a bad one—then there was the brother." "At that time, there in Washington, Booth was inclined to withdraw from the stage, but he wisely abstained—went on with his work."
What was W.'s impression of Wilkes Booth? "I saw him several times: he was a queer fellow: had strange ways: it would take some effort to get used, adjusted, to him: but now and then he would have flashes, passages, I thought, of real genius."
Reference to Edwin's "intellectuality." Was it so marked in the father?
"I should not say it was: Junius Brutus was intellectual enough, but was more, too—not intellectual in the conventional way, to be sure. The prime good point in the elder Booth was his all-aroundness: he was big, grand, in his style: he cohered well (can it be said that way?): all his parts were related: as an actor he always seemed to me to be consistent with himself. He had beautiful personal points: take his treatment of the niggers, of the lower orders so-called, everywhere: was quite noble—to me was wholly convincing. I know he would get drunk—get as drunk as the devil: but in spite of that he always appeared to be equal to his job: besides, I think he escaped that devil demon in
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his later years: it seemed rather to have connected itself with a certain period—burned itself out there." Then after one of his slow pauses: "It is very hard for the present generation anyhow to understand the drinkingness of those years—how the 'gentlemen' of the old school used liquor: it is quite incommunicable: but I am familiar with it: saw, understood, it all as a boy. At that time such things as prohibitions, pledges, abstinences, could hardly be said to have been known: a good deal of the difference consisted, I suppose, in the fact that the whiskey, rum, gin, of those days was genuine—thoroughly genuine: not adulterated, as it nearly all is in our time."
Professor MacAlister, when he came back from Glasgow a couple of years ago, described to me the terrible drunkenness, especially among the women, there. I asked W.: "Was that bad whiskey or bad economics?" W. said: "I guess the economics play a part: that's rather your cue than mine: I have heard about Glasgow: the women all over the British Isles—even on the continent—drink much more than our women." I put in my question again about economics. W. said: "I am willing to allow you your economic theory." I stuck to it. "You say bad whiskey: I say bad economics." W. said: "Say anything you please: I'll not deny you that joy, consolation." I asked W.: "How much have you looked into the subject of the economic origin of things we call vices, evils, sins?" He said: "I have done some thinking in that matter: I suppose I have not gone very far—or far enough: the more I have looked into these problems the more I find myself impelled in the direction you are so peremptory about." I said: "For a first lesson that'll do very well." He smiled. "You know how I shy at problems, duties, consciences: you seem to like to trip me with your pertinent impertinences."
7.30 P.M. W. reading one of the Stedman volumes. "It's getting to be my steady diet," he said. Did not look well or feel well. He said: "I feel weak: I've got a cold." "See," he said: "here is a letter from Doctor: see what he says: though there is nothing particular in it: he argues for the alcohol bath with which to baffle a cold." Would he take the whiskey bath? "No—neither inside nor outside: I think I shall fight it off as I am, in my own way." He had tried to work. "I have attempted to draw up a sketch of the title page." It was there on the table. "I have done nothing: what I've done I'll have to throw away." Then: "But, surely, I must gather myself together, make a
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spurt—a heroic effort: it will not do to tarry in this way with so little time left: bellyache or no bellyache, headache or no headache, anything or nothing, I should do this little job: I know it: May 31st is looming ominously close ahead!" He wrote two postals. One to O'Connor. One to Bucke. He said: "We were talking of inquiry—the habit of looking into traditions. Our age is the age of inquiry, de novo: no age in history transcends ours for such cuteness—may I not say integrity?" Cooler tonight. A comfortable little fire in the room. Strong odor of apple. W. pointed to the table. A couple of beauties there.
"Don't they look luscious?" Odor of burning wood. Very warm but not close.
"My sluggish blood forces me to appeal to outside fires." He said: "I sit by the open window every early evening for an hour or so to sniff in the fresh air." Ed says he sees in W. a growing indisposition to move about. "He is thinner, too." I got up to go. W. said: "Before you do that I want you to read a letter to me." I wondered if he could stand it. "Oh yes!" he said: "as I mean for you to take the letter away, depositing it in your archives, I thought I'd like to make a sort of mental note of what it contains." I read.
W. was greatly interested, "almost as if I heard it for the first time," he said. He said: "It's newsy, breezy, with pith and moment: it contains history, our history—valuable bits of it: shows a situation: charts some of the turns on our devious road."