Alcott worked all day, lacking three hours [in constructing a rustic
seat at the foot of our hill]. I went on the hilltop with my husband
for a long time. Ineffable felicity.--A perfectly lovely day. I read
"Christ the Spirit." Rose had a discourse from the Sermon on the
Mount; the four verses about giving alms. We have very nice discourses
[my mother's]. Una went to church.--Mr. George Bradford came to see
us. Una and Julian went to the Emersons' in the evening.--Read again
"Leamington Spa." Inimitable, fascinating.--Thanksgiving Day. We
invited Ellery Channing, but he could not come.--Julian and I went to
Boston. When I came home I found my husband looking very ill. Julian
has gone on a visit to the Fields's.--My husband quite ill.
Everything seems sad, when he is ill. I sewed all day.--My husband
seems much better. He went up on the hill. Papa and the children
played whist in the evening, while I read Charles Reade.--Celia
cleared the old attic to-day. I found my dear hanging astral, that
lighted my husband in his study at the Old Manse, and also Una's baby
socks.--Judge Hoar came to invite my husband to tea with Mr. Eustis
and Mr. Bemis and Mr. Emerson. He would not go.--I read ominous news
of the war, which quite saddened and alarmed me. I read "Christ the
Spirit."--I read about Alchemy and Swedenborg. Ellery Channing came to
tea and spent the evening. He asked me if he might bring General
Barlow to tea on Tuesday.
It was almost immediately after our return home that the first notes
of the requiem about to envelop us fell through the sound of daily
affairs, at long intervals, because my father, from that year, began
to grow less and less vigorous.
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