He spoke of passing through the old tunnel at Salem this autumn and finding the voice of the train as wicked as ever. “It said, ‘Why don’t you now? Why don’t you now?’ in such a tempting and delightful fashion that if I had been sitting by the Cumaean Sybil I should have taken her hand in mine.”
The Doctor described having made and put up his first “shingle.” He cut out the frame, covered it with tin and painted on it: “Dr. O. W. Holmes, last door but one.” Having nailed up the sign he walked down to Tremont Street and looked down Montgomery Place to see the effect it produced. “No, that will never do!” he exclaimed. “What if it should strike the patient that if I am the last door but one I must be next door to the tomb?” He took the sign down and repainted it, making it read, “Dr. Holmes, 8 Montgomery Place.”
I told Dr. Holmes I thought it was rather hard that he was getting all the credit for my mot about Mama being “seventy years young.”
“Yes,” he said, “I sympathize with you. Many of my good things are credited to Nat Curtis or Tom Appleton.”
I repeated this to Mama. “Never mind,” she said, “you have added a phrase to the language!”
January 18th. To South Boston to make copies of Papa’s letters from the old letter books. The school journals of the early days at the Perkins Institution are very good reading. To Mrs. Fairchild’s in the afternoon where I found a sea of beaux about Sattie and Lucia. John Sargent was there. He is painting Mr. Booth for the Players Club. A gay evening. Mrs. Norman to dine, Arthur Terry and Edward Bacon, the Walker boys and Sam Hall. We had dumb crambo, charades and singing to amuse Mama, who had been headachey but was much jollied up. How she loves the gioventude!
January 20th. With Mama to see Booth and Modjeska in the “Merchant of Venice.” His Shylock greater than ever,—the art so perfect as to be imperceptible. Kate Vannah came from New York. A discussion about a personal devil, in whom she firmly believes. Agreed to ask the people we meet for the next week their opinion. Ned Elliott, Miss Lockwood and Mrs. Fairchild believe in a distinct principle of evil.
January 21. To Professor Royce’s lecture on Fichte and the German idealists who followed Kant. Very interesting. In the evening Mama talked about Papa. She spoke of her having for twenty years lived in thinking about thoughts; i.e. studying metaphysics and philosophy, on which she wrote many papers. She went one Sunday to the Parker Memorial and read a paper about the Causality of Things. When half through she realized that the audience did not understand her and moreover that it was her fault that they did not understand. Then came a period in which she determined to learn from experience, from thinking about people and life, and to think no longer about thoughts. Now she can amuse herself with philosophy, but it is not the pleasure to her that a thorough study of history is, or of the different religions of the world. She enjoys above all other reading the Greek classics, poetry, history and plays.—To a Russian dinner given by Count Zuboff at the Tremont House. Very amusing. All sorts of queer fishes and queer dishes.
January 27th. A letter from Mr. Booth thanking me for mine. I had written telling how much we had enjoyed seeing him act during his Boston engagement. He writes:
“Forgive an old man’s tardiness in thanking you for your charming note anent the plays I struggled through in Boston, it gratified me very, very much indeed, and I cordially thank you for it.”