1893 EDWIN MANNERS DIARY (MDP)

First Word and Request

Although this journal was begun for private business and professional reasons, it was found to be less serviceable in this respect than my docket and desk memoranda. Accordingly its references of this kind are but occasional and sporadic, while it drifts naturally toward self and topical expressions of a character more unique, yet of wider interest. In looking back through its pages today, many passages struck me anew as being of characteristic intimacy, of fresh contemporary view and significant, such as might prove to be of present or after time worth and entertainment. It is therefore my desire that the journal as a whole, or competent selections therefrom, be edited by some sympathetic hand and published with a brief memoir of the diarist prefixed. As I ask in my Editor a sympathetic hand, I leave it free to choose and act, merely suggesting that minor business notes be omitted and perhaps the too warmly colored episodes, personal or so imputed, unless they be deemed essential or peculiarly vital and representative.

Edwin Manners
Jersey City, November 25, 1900

Lawyer's Diary 1893.

After all the diary, the life-like and intimate diary, tells best the story of man and his time: it is the clearest reflection of the age - an age whose complexity and stress render its seizure for reflection difficult in the extreme.

January 2, 1893

Unwell: confined to the house; yes, to the bed.
Marie reads to me.
How few of us have made our individual declaration of independence, and until we do that, we are not free.

January 3, 1893

Ditto.
L.M. Crosby: business.
M. and B.

January 4, 1893

Reading.

January 5, 1893

Reading.

The present age welcomes a
Beautiful sound,
Blown round
but it is more characteristic of it and it appraises more highly that, whether perfect in form or fragmentary, which is suggestive, provoking thought or stimulating to action. Hence its poetry is more often met with in prose form than in verse. It works out great things and shadows forth greater from mirror incidents and details. It perceives the significance of everything.

L. M. Crosby

January 6, 1893

Mr. L. B. Ward here.

January 7, 1893

Mr. Crosby called.
Only write a few lines gracefully, feelingly, greatly, only inform them with beauty, passion and dramatic truth, and you are an author; write a hundred volumes mechanically, without life, and you are only a hack and not worthy.

January 9, 1893

H.
Little one needs say to give his quality, to reveal himself; a few sentences that are their own excuse for being, a sticking phrase or bright round word.

January 10, 1893

Reading.
Those who do not know distinction, the shadow and mystery of greatness, would better hold their peace and be credited with wisdom; yet how much noise they make! Especially in literature, where so much fineness is, and about that veiled maiden poesy, how great a babel of tongues is heard! Yet out of all this confusion at times come clear voices, speaking beautifully because they know.
Letters galore.

January 12, 1893

There should be a common-law of home, a finer law for its difficulties, and Judge Wisdom to administer it. In a large class of cases involving the domestic relations and most delicate, trying situations, the municipal law is wholly inadequate. Legally the home is now not much better provided for than was society at large in the early time when justice was comprehended in a few writs devised in Chancery and meted out by their rigid times. Where there was no writ there was no remedy. What a blessing a family court might prove to be with Solomon as judge and the proceedings duly censored for the public press!

January 13,1893

Made up some accounts.
J.D.P. Mount.
G. and D.

January 14, 1893

Mr. Crosby.
E.J.

January 16, 1893

Too unwell to leave the house.
Paid the balance of the taxes for 1892 by check, this being the last day of grace for the taxpayer. L. M. Crosby took check and bills to the collector's office and returned the latter receipted.

January 17, 1893

S.R. Vass.
T. Kelly.

January 18, 1893

At times, how unsoft are the ways of them; how hard are the ways of men! With all our comforts, scientific or other, with all our civilization, a something, though tentative and relative, we still must walk with tender feet on paths of flinty broken stone; the unseen briars brush athwart our unsuspecting faces, the thorns tear, the stakes pierce the quivering flesh; we halt or fall back; we struggle on; we strive to clear away the material obstacles and smooth the paths, while the soul grows more subtile* and multiplies its wants and questionings, sublimating its ideals and torturing with a more exquisite cruelty: - for the body read soul; how unsoft are the ways of them, how hard are the ways of men!
*delicately formed, ethereal

January 20, 1893

Annie Gooman, Executrix etc. of James Gooman, deceased; conference.
Much can be gathered from the look and bearing of a man. Something can be gained from portraiture, however imperfect, though the divination or introspection be somewhat chanced. A glance at the Sovian* front of Daniel Webster gives an impression of his massive eloquence. The poetic temperament has its face: action and thought and others have theirs in kind. Study the faces; they will give you insight into what is hid. And to our questioning, how finely Peter (First, iii, 4) answers, "Let it be the hidden man of the heart."

January 23, 1893

D. Lane.
S.M.
Farm moneys.
H.

January 24, 1893

Provident Institution for Savings.
Helen took the afternoon train for the country - Rutland Farm.

January 25, 1893

Wilson Totten.
Gabriel Mastres.

January 26, 1893

United Gas Improvement Company.
Letter and check to Dr. Morrow of New-York.

January 27, 1893

Leggat Brothers.
Wrote and mailed several letters.

January 28, 1893

L.M. Crosby called. Notices served by him today on P. McCarthy, Eliza Crimmins, and Frank Allen.

January 30, 1893

Now wrapped in stone and silence, his seeming part in life and nature played, in other form and different, he still acts on unseen. There is the body and there is the spirit: they seem temporal; they are eternal; for matter is indestructible and the soul is immortal. The former is deathless on the earth and in the universe; the latter is deathless in time and eternity, and together they form the one. Many are the influences, evident and subtile, that emanate from man, many and enduring and his value is inestimable.

Unwell during January; out of doors but a few times; at the office but once or twice.
D. C. McNaughton.

February 1, 1893

The Seeming Dead.
They are not dead, but having dipped beneath the perpetual flow or elemental sea are seen again far off and shine on there!

February 2, 1893

Frank Brown.
James Palmer.
Emil Schuellhardt.
Bernard Max.
Ellen Jamison.

February 3, 1893

Mary Conly.
F. B. and J. P. also today.

February 4, 1893

Jacob Man.
L. M. Crosby.

February 6, 1893

H. M. Deaton.
Fred. Edmunds et ux*.
*

February 7, 1893

Palma Club.
United Gas Improvement Co.
Myers + Underhill.

February 8, 1893

John D. P. Mount.

February 9, 1893

T. L. Tuxbury; check.
Hon. Gilbert Collins called in the evening.

February 10, 1893

McKnight. Chichester Company, J.C.
William W. Drake, Hopewell, N.J.
Wood + Menagh, J.C.
Brooks Brothers, N.Y.
Checks.

February 11, 1893

Letter to Virginia Manners Beekman, enclosing check for her balance of the 1892 account, Manners Estate.

February 13, 1893

Bernard Frank notified: called and settled some accounts and rent.

February 14, 1893

Called as Vredenburgh's office in regard to claim.
Cawley.

February 15, 1893

Mailed my application papers to Secretary Hatfield of Newark for membership in the N.J. Society of the Sons of the American Revolution; also initiation fee.

February 16, 1893

John J. McElroy called.
Howard C. Fisk was paid for painting rear of 287 Barrow Street, as per contract.
Over the river: first time since my recent serious illness; made some purchases.

February 17, 1893

Closed the Treacy matter, conveyance of title, with Cornelius Christie.
N.J. Title Guarantee and Trust Company.
City Collector O'Neill.

February 18, 1893

Charles H. O'Neill.
Walter A. Wood Company.
Charles K. Long.

February 20, 1893

Give me a fine personal freedom, and when I feel assured of that, I will consider your systems of ethics, philosophy, and theology, and adopt them in part, in so far as they fit. No system or code will fit completely mercurial man; still they all have a value pro tauto*.
And yet freedom is a fearful thing without wisdom in its use, without a due sense of its reciprocal responsibility.
*

February 21, 1893

Received from James B. Vredenburgh, draft of the Pennsylvania R.R. Company for $1000, for damage to No.411 Third Street, in settlement of claim.

February 22, 1893

Received acknowledgment of S.A.R. papers.
L.M. Crosby.

February 23, 1893

Louis Sherwood.
James Palmer.

February 24, 1893

Mailed Jonathan A. Hunt a letter in re State of N.J. vs. Hunt.
Received from R.B. Seymour warrant for satisfaction of judgment in the same: warrant executed by C.H. Winfield, prosecutor.
Filed affidavits and notices: issued summonses against Frank Allen, Eliza Crimmins and Patrick McCarthy, returnable March 1st next.

February 25, 1893

Dr. Witt C. Grimmell, 368 W. 116th Street, New York, called, in regard to forming a corporation.

February 27, 1893

Filed papers; issued summonses against Michael Capoano, three, and Peter Ward.
Received voucher from S., duly executed.
Requested by Adjustment Commissioners to furnish a description of our property south of the Morris Canal.

February 28, 1893

Received fee from Hunt.
Mailed to Hunt satisfaction piece.
Mailed clerk Fowler of the Adjustment Commissioner's description of property as requested.

March 1, 1893

(First) District Court:
Self vs. Patrick McCarthy. Adjourned one week.
Self vs. Eliza Crimmins. Judgment for plaintiff.
Self vs. Frank Allen. Adjourned one week.

March 2, 1893

Notified tenants in No.12 Railroad Avenue and Nos.131 and 133 Steuben Street, to pay their rent hereafter to me, and not to Mr. Capoano, lessee.

March 3, 1893

Gabriel Mastres, to call at 4 p.m.
Frank Capoano, ditto at 3 p.m.
Frank Jourdan called to lease Nos.12 and 18 Railroad Avenue: to call next Monday.
Mrs. Westervelt called to have her will and testament drawn. Next Monday.
Mastres called.

March 4, 1893

Three causes against Michael Capoano at 10 a.m.; also Self vs. Peter Ward.
Judgment entered for plaintiff in each of the four cases.
Mailed a letter to Williamson, Harlingen, N.J.

March 6, 1893

Another birthday. Eleu, fugaces*!
Frank Jourdan, 12 ((m.)) lease, called. Thursday next.
Margaret M. Westervelt: 3 p.m., will and testament. Called and executed the will.
Mailed several letters and packages.
Gabriel Mastres: 4 p.m., lease. Here.
Letter sent to Senator John R. McPherson.
Capoano cases opened and set down for the 8th.
*

March 7, 1893

Received guaranty and deed for Mrs. Treacy. Acknowledged.
Antonio Capoano and Gaetano D. Elisa paid a deposit of $45 as security.
C.F. Long.
Letter to Lieut. Henry H. Ludlow, Washington Barracks, D.C. mailed.
Sent word to Mrs. Treacy to call.
Issued summons against Gabriel Mastres.

March 8, 1893

The Capoano cases called in the (First) District Court: the judgment of the 4th allowed to stand. Judgment also entered against Frank Allen and Patrick McCarthy. Warrant issued against Allen.
Mrs. Treacy called to receive deed and guaranty and took them; Frank Capoano, to lease No.18 Railroad Avenue; Eugene Sullivan; Garret Vreeland, et. al.

March 9, 1893

A pouring rain.
W.H. Lewis called for a confab.
Frank Jourdan, to lease property.
Frank Capoano, ditto.
Mailed a letter to Hon. George B. Fielder, in behalf of Lieut. Henry H. Ludlow.
Breutano's.
Mr. L.B. Ward: State Water Board Act.

March 10, 1893

Received word from the Cassell Publishing Company to the effect that they would publish my book of verse, entitled Wheat Candles and Other Poems.
L.B. Ward and I spent a large part of the day making marginal references or index for the State Water Board Act.
W.H. Lewis; deeds acknowledged.
Capoano; F. Capoano, and G. Mastres, and others called on business. Miss Peck. D. Lane.
Rent collections.

March 11, 1893

W.H. Lewis.
Frank Brown. Accounts settled. Orders. Deposit.
Several tenants called to pay rent.
L.B. Ward and the water bill.

March 13, 1893

Antonio Capoano called. Self v. Mastres to be called Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock, (First) District Court.
Prepared leases. Read proofs and made annotations, state water bill, with L.B. Ward.
Called at Cassell Publishing Company's office: Mr. Dunham had left for the day.

March 14, 1893

L.B. Ward.

Marie bought a little oak table as a stand for brass kettle, cups and saucers. Over the river. Called on the C.P. Co. Loafed about the city, my eyes and thoughts lighting too often, I fear, on the butterflies of joy!
Fortnightly Book Club Auction, at 287, this evening; Mr. Black, auctioneer.
Frank Allen; Laura Allen; Wayt White.

March 15, 1893

manners v. Mastres on; adjourned to Friday morning at 10 o'clock on motion of Mahnken representing the defendant. Wm. Stoord to rent premises. F. Brown, in regard to plumbing work. W.H. Lewis. ((L.)) Bowen.
At the DeVieme* Press Office, afternoon.
L.B. Ward, in the evening; Water bill for state water supply gone over.
Received a letter from Senator John R. McPherson in re Lt. Ludlow.

March 16, 1893

Cold, windy. Brown at house.
Capoano. Gabriel Mastres.
Louis M. Crosby. Fred. Edmunds.
James McCormack.
Plumbers putting in closet at the house.
Henry Manhuten paid Mastres's rent--$45.

March 17, 1893

Jacob Wirtz called at house: settled with him. Manners v. Mastres called in the (First) District Court - the rent having been paid, the case was discontinued.
Wrote to Paul Vogel. Marie went to the farm.
Interviewed several applicants for situations on farm. Philip Landmesser. L.B. Ward.
Called on Mr. Dunham, of Cassell Publishing Company, and had a pleasant chat with him.
Fred. Edmunds working at house.

March 18, 1893

Received of Hon. George B. Fielder, M.C. a letter in answer to mine. James Mannix. Halsey Clark. Sent a letter, enclosing letters from Senator McPherson and Congressman Fielder, to Lieut. Ludlow, Washington Barracks, D.C.
Gave the J.C. and B. street railway company permission to put up an electric pole at No.297 Grand Street, on eastern boundary line; the company to pay for all damage done in erecting or in consequence of said pole, and this permission to be revocable on a thirty-days notice.

March 20, 1893

Asked by President Dean of the Board of Trade to accompany a special committee to the Board of Tax Commissioners, next Thursday morning; in re* railroad tax exempting; relief of the citizens.
Settled accounts with Crosby.
L.W. Bissell, atty, about Tony.
Dr. Miller: L.B. Ward. Tenants galore.

March 21, 1893

Letter from farm: grass seed, garden seeds, potatoes, help wanted.
A morning session with Mr. Ward on the proposed water act.
Went over to New York: ordered seeds and potatoes sent to farm. A lovely young daughter of joy, of only eighteen springs-peaches and cream!
Paid Dr. McGill's bill; consulted him about C.
Lebbeus Ward, in the evening. Carpenter.

March 22, 1893

Received word from Mr. Henry E. Hatfield, Sec'ry, that I had been elected a member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
L.B. Ward. Various applicants for situations.
C.C. Black.
Plumbers at house.
Tenants.

March 23, 1893

Tax commission at 11a.m.
Health Board.
Mrs. Walsh. Applicants.
L.B. Ward.
Went over the river to the steamship wharf to see Sister V. and the Beekmans off for Bermuda.
Rainy, wet; caught cold.

March 24, 1893

Unwell: how provoking to be unwell so much of the time! and yet how much of patience and spiritual insight suffering is the mother of! It eddies one aside into a quiet cove where dearest dreams may come and stillest thought.

March 25, 1893

Withdrew or concluded to withdraw Wheat Candles and other Poems from publication; some of these verses are in good shape, but others need careful revision in more harmonious and artistic moods. And I am in doubt as to ever giving them publicity. At any rate I am now unwell, with not enough animal spirits to say defiantly with Byron, "Prepare for rhyme; I'll publish, right or wrong." Yet who is the rare, particular great man, primal and responsible - a Socrates, the Christ? In one point of view, 'tis the man who knows how not to publish.

Continue unwell.

March 30, 1893

What a pity it is that we have no great man at the head of our magazines. He would so lift them up and lift up the literature of the land. One may easily be unjust, in this way of saying, to some serious efforts done from an artistic or deeper conviction; but generally speaking the periodicals seem to give forth naught save cold photographic chronicles of the times, devoid of soul; seem to be untimely newspapers in pamphlet form, and hence superfluous. There is little in them of peculiar and distinctive style to distinguish them from the better class of newspapers. With all the affected realism, there is little from my point of view that is truly real and sincere. Indeed, it would be greatly in the interest of economy and simplicity for them to consolidate or combine with the latter, to the end that we may have papers more accurate and thorough going, appealing to the higher as well as the lower instincts, recording the news and current life as well as reflecting thought, style, advance, and the things of the spirit. Let us have simply newspapers and books, and let the books be something other than magazine books! How I long for warmth and inspiration and soul in what I read! But the aim, alas, is now for money, not literature, and while the one is gained, the other, and by natural sequence, is lost. I know there are certain cynics and practical people who may deem this top-lofty and boyish. Yet I am sincere and afraid that I must continue to remain in the respect a true boy - a character not so unenviable and stigmatic after all; for I, who conceive true letters to be the very coinage of the soul, can not bring myself to think that it be well traded for baser metal; I, who conceive letters to be the best religion of the soul, can not deem it a holy transaction to sell the same to Mephistopheles! The very idea of commercialism taints and debases the product of a writer. Again, once more, it must be acknowledged that the worldling is wrong and the thinker is right. Give a man his bread and butter to live on, but do not pay him to write; if you do, he will only report, return you the husks, the shells, not the grain, the oyster, or the essence pure. I speak shortly here, without detailing all the bearings and considerations, but the more one thinks of it, the more he appreciates the position of Spinoza, who, resorting to the handicraft of grinding lenses for a livelihood, refused to write for money!

April 6, 1893

Style like wisdom is the principal thing, but like the human face there should be about it a certain strangeness to be truly beautiful.

April 7, 1893

The simple, the sincere: how few know them to love them, how few feel them to express. How often the common and conventional seem tobe taken for them. What awkward squad firing there is! Yet better far the fantastic, the grotesque, the theatric than the vulgar. Yet what is so exquisite, so rarely strange and strangely beautiful as the sincere, as the simple!

April 11, 1893

Drew S. a check for $450.

April 13, 1893

Still feeling unwell.

Had a barber come to the house today and trim my hair and shave my chin.

April 17, 1893

Sent Mr. Tait a check for Board of Trade dues.

April 19, 1893

Beautiful day. At office for the first time since my recent illness.

April 20, 1893

(Poem glued into journal:)

Muriel
Sweet one, rest your eyes on me,
All their beauty let me see-
In the lake two stars there be:
Sweet one, rest your eyes on me.

Now the Earth gives place to heaven-
Gently, sweet one, look in love,
Bringing in the light above-
Now the earth gives place to heaven.

Am I here and are you there?
Dream I of that world as this?
Do not speak, but smile and kiss-
Am I here and are you there?

Muriel, what a witch you are!
Music, incense, colors, brewing,
All the while my heart undoing-
Muriel, what a witch you are!

You are made of magic beauty,
Whose bright rainbow spans the air,
Whilst your subtle eyes shine there,
Muriel, maid of magic beauty!

April 26, 1893

Witnessed the naval parade of American and foreign warships - an impressive spectacle set in a bright beautiful day.

April 27, 1893

Rain.
At home.
Concluded not to venture out to the Naval Review.

April 28, 1893

Sailed around the warships at anchor in the river - an experience of great interest; the rendezvous of nation-destroyers being a noble example of international brotherhood, in a real and sarcastic sense! My patriotism preferred the make and smart appearance of the American ships, where all were powerful with a kind of brutal ugliness. The English Blake had a squat, thick-shouldered, scowling look. To the imagination, the French Jean Bart was most minatory and sea-monster-like; but each had its peculiar threat and aspect. We knew they all could play with lightning and thunder-bolts, and felt the sublimity of the almighty. We were accordingly silent and held our peace.

May 3, 1893

Removed from Office No.90 to Office No.39 Weldon Building.

May 4, 1893

The majority of people seem to think that life consists in what they call business. And what is business? It is the taking in and paying out of money---a convention, perfunctory, and yet a necessary function in present conditions. I do it; you do it. 'Tis the way; 'tis an anodyne to still intensity of thoughts and blurs the too clear insight. I sometimes feel, I now feel, that I live most when I simply look right on and behold the spectacle of things.

May 9, 1893

Re-subscribed for the University Magazine.

May 11, 1893

Bought a Lop rug for my office.
Lookt at furniture at Flints' for house.
McCormack commenced work on the Brunswick Street room, with Kelly as helper.

May 12, 1893

Andrew Dingler called to rent No.297 Grand Street.
Antonio Capoano, Gaetano D'Elisa and Augusto E. Gennara, in reference to renting No.102, 104, 106, 108, and 110 Brunswick Street.

May 13, 1893

McCormack and Kelly made three days respectively this week.

May 16, 1893

Jacob Vreeland and another man, carpenters, commenced work at 35 Hudson Street.

May 17, 1893

Dispensed with L.M.Crosby's services for the present. Settled with him in full to date.
Vreeland had two carpenters with him today.

May 19, 1893

Capoano and D'Elisa executed lease of Brunswick Street property, East Side.

May 20, 1893

McCormack and Kelly made five days respectively this week, with a few hours this morning.
Lease with Andrew Dingler, to be executed Monday morning next.

May 22, 1893

Vreeland and his men finished carpenter work at 35 Hudson Street, and commenced at 131 and 133 Steuben Street.

May 23, 1893

Paid Vreeland the wages of himself and men for their work at 35 Hudson Street.
At work today: Vreeland and two assistant carpenters; two Italians cleaning sewer; McCormack plastering, with Kelly as helper.

May 24, 1893

Vreeland solus.
Two Italians till noon.
McCormack and Kelly.

May 25, 1893

Fred Edmunds. 1.
Jacob Vreeland. 1.
Journeyman carpenter. 1½.
James McCormack. 1.
Thomas Kelly. 1.

May 26, 1893

Edmunds, One day each.
Kelly, " " "
Vreeland, " " "
Randall, " " "
Fox. " " "

May 27, 1893

Edmunds. 1 day. Settled with.
Kelly. 1 "
Vreeland. 1 "
Randall. 1 "
Fox. 0 Paid.

May 29, 1893

Vreeland. 1 day.
Randall. 1 "
Kelly. ½ "
Edmunds. 1 "
Fox. 1 "

May 30, 1893

Edmunds. ½ day.
Fox. ½ "
Foley. 1 "
Kelly. 1 "
Black. 1 "
Vreeland.
Randall.

May 31, 1893

Edmunds. 1 day.
Fox. ¼ "
Foley. 1 "
Kelly. 1 "
Black. ¼ "
Vreeland. 1 "
Randall. 1 "
Peter Henderson and Co. Paid.

June 1, 1893

Edmunds. 1 day.
Foley. 1 "
Kelly. 1 "
Vreeland. 1 "
Randall. 1 "
Fox. ½ "

Julia McGee. ((check-mark))

June 2, 1893

Edmunds. 1 day.
Foley. Till 9 o"clock a.m.
Kelly. 1 day.
Vreeland. 1 "
Randall. 1 "
Settled with Fox.

June 3, 1893

Edmunds. 1 day.
Foley. ½ "
Kelly. 1 "
Vreeland. 1 "
Randall. 1 "
Settled with Vreeland, Randall, Edmunds, Foley, Kelly, et al.
John S. Fallon.

June 5, 1893

None at work today.

June 6, 1893

N.J. Plate Glass Insurance Co.
8 ((written over four lines))
None at work.

June 7, 1893

Kelly, ½ day.

June 8, 1893

Executed lease with Bernard Crowley for No.297 Grand Street corner of Barton.
W.S.M. Ryder, Sing Sing.
Set Campbell to work painting the Brunswick Street room, with Joe and Florie.
Kelly. George Foley.

June 9, 1893

Foley. 1 day.
Kelly. 1 "
Campbell. 1 "
Joe. 1 "
Florie, Florence. 1 "

June 10, 1893

Foley. 1 day.
Kelly. 1 day.
Campbell. 1 "
Joe. 1 "
Florie. 1 "
Settled with Foley, Kelly, and paid Campbell $15 on account of himself and Joe and Florie.

June 12, 1893

Foley. 2 hours.
Kelly. ½ day.
Campbell. 1 "
Joe. 1 "
Florie. 1 "

June 13, 1893

Campbell. 1 day.
Joe. 1 "
Florie. 1 "

Edmunds. ½ "

Kelly.

June 14, 1893

Campbell. 1 day.
Florie. 1 "
Joe. ½ "

Edmunds. 1 "
Kelly. 1 "

June 15, 1893

Campbell. C. $2 on account.
Joe.
Florie. 1 day each.

Edmunds.
Kelly.

June 16, 1893

Campbell.
Joe.
Florie.

Edmunds. 1 day each.
Kelly.

Sardine.

June 17, 1893

Campbell. $35 on account. One day each today.
Joe. " "
Florie. " "

Edmunds. Paid to date: to eve of date.
Kelly. " "

June 19, 1893

Edmondson, Fred.
Kelly, Tom. 1 day each.
Newell, Paul.

June 20, 1893

Edmondson,
Kelly,
Newell.

June 21, 1893

Closed our town house and went to our farm.
Edmondson.
Kelly.
Paid S.R. Vass, Ewing and Co., A.J.Sardine, Paul Newell, and others.

June 22, 1893

Edmondson, Kelly, Sardine et al.

June 23, 1893

Edmondson, Kelly, et al.

June 24, 1893

E., K., et al.

June 26, 1893

E., K., et al.
Moneys for farm wages and expenses.

June 27, 1893

Returned from the farm to Jersey City.
Settled with Edmondson and Kelly to eve of date.
James Mannix.

June 28, 1893

Letter from V.
N.Y.
Paid Newell in full.

June 29, 1893

Settled E.M. ads. L.C.
Kennedy called.
Paid H.M. Denton, Gopsill and Vanderhoof.

June 30, 1893

Paid Clark $50 on account.
Contracted with Henry Campbell to paint No.297 Grand Street, two coats, and trim show windows to suit; also, roofs and awning, for $30, I, however, to furnish the materials.
Conference with Gennaro, Capoano, and D'Elisa. Letter to farm.

July 1, 1893

Drew lease of No.297 Grand Street for five years, to Crowley and McNulty.
John D.P. Mount.
Rents. Repairs. Dividends.
Jacob Weart called. Joseph Moore.

July 3, 1893

Dividends. G. and D'Elisa called. Moore.
Notices drawn. Annie Baker, Ex'x, served personally. Brunswick Street tenants served. Hilton, Hughes and Company.
Mrs. Johnson, for bail: denied.
Although tired making collections, I hastened over the river to make some purchases for the farm. It began to rain before I got back. I went to bed fatigued.

July 4, 1893

Feu de joie*! I had written to Virginia that I would spend the "Glorious Fourth" in Perth Amboy with her. Sudden attack of typhlitis; sent for Dr. McGill; telegraphed to "the farm" for some of "the girls" to come home: Marie and Helen came. Alone in the house at the time, I managed, though suffering great pain, to get out of bed, scrawl off a note, drop it out of the window to a boy playing with firecrackers on the sidewalk, directing him to take it to the doctor's at once, and hastening his steps with a little silver. When the doctor came he gave me a hypodermic injection of morphine. He kindly went for Mrs. Russell to come and sit in the room and attend me; telegraphed as mentioned; called again about three o'clock in the afternoon, and also in the evening after my sisters arrived. Strange, to see the old colored woman, with her head done up in a red bandana, sitting there by my front windows, looking out on the street; strange too myself and everything.

July 6, 1893

Put through a course of calomel.

July 7, 1893

Dreams, dreams, beautiful, exquisite, entrancing: can such dreams come from nowhere and go nowhither! They seemed a deeper piercing of the veil, a peep into the border-lands of Heaven. I believe they were the effect of calomel, but none the less real and significant for that. As the body is purged of dross, the mind, the spirit, becomes clear and free. How suggestive of immortality!

July 10, 1893

At times I feel icy cold and dream that I live on an icy river.
((two pages glued in of poem written on paper with the following letterhead:))
Office of
Edwin Manners,
COUNSELLOR AT LAW,
31 MONTGOMERY ST,
Jersey City, 188

The Icy River.
Have you known the icy river at night,
The dim flowing icy river?
Have you felt its deep chill and seen the dread sight,
Looking over the icy river?

Ay, tonight, I lay in a trance alone,
Far out on the icy river:
I shuddered with cold, I heard the weird moan,
And wept with the weeping river.

My thought - oh, could I tell you my thought,
As I rocked on the dark dream river,
The depths of its pain, the awe it brought,
The quivering mystic river,

Why tell, to disturb thy loving breast,
The gloom and form of the river,
The muffled sob of a heart oppressed,
The misery wail of the river?

Its form I saw arise as in
The trance I lay on the river,
As of one whose soul ceased not with sin,
But sobbed in the icy river.

Ah, black the spectral waters rolled,
Glooming the wayward river,
Whose very creep and soughing told
Death lurked in the icy river.

A cruel, hard relentless woe,
Sang in the dirge of the river,
And pall-like blackness hooded the snow,
Wide-cradling the icy river.

Strange mystery, quaint, grim and dree,
Held fast my soul to the river:
Where'er I turned, naught set me free
From the spell of the icy river.

Till at length the vale and shadow of death
Seemed one with the icy river:
And my heart grew still - but I caught my breath,
And broke from the dream of the river!

July 13, 1893

While I am feeling so unwell, so forlorn, and taking things quite seriously, my brother-in-law Beekman bluffly but wittily remarks, that "the Manners family is a good one for the physician, but a bad one for the undertaker!" This makes me smile, but fills me with mixed feelings that look in and out different ways.

July15, 1893

Board of Health cases.
Simmonses received.
Ellen Cawley and Henry Campbell paid.
S.

July 17, 1893

Up and about the house: not very steady yet, but improving.
Frank Rogers.
Crowley and McNulty.
Tullock and Company.

July 18, 1893

Emil Schnellhardt.

July 19, 1893

Doctor thinks it will do for me to go out to the country to-morrow.
James N. Braden, Clerk, District Court.
Shoes, Taxbury, Marie.

July 20, 1893

Went out to "the farm" this afternoon.
Provident Institution for Savings. Monahan. Dean.
Saw Judge Davis in regard to the Board of Health cases. He will dismiss complaints tomorrow morning, if no objection is made. This before I left for "the farm" was arranged.

July 21, 1893

Health Board cases dismissed.
M.,
B.,
C.,
The World.

July 24, 1893

(First) District Court: Self vs. Costella: judgment for plaintiff.
Renewing insurance with Wm. H. Seward. Notified the Greenwick Insurance Company of fire loss, 307 Grand Street. See August 7th next, correct date.

July 25, 1893

(First) District Court:
Self vs. Thompson.
" " Baker, Admix.
Judgment for plaintiff in each case.

July 26, 1893

James Satchel paid for opening and repairing drain leading from the store cellar at Harlingen.

July 27, 1893

Vegetating on the farm.

July 28, 1893

I wandered down to the brook-field this morning, and there picking up a small flower that grew alone in the wide field, gazed at it attentively for some time, puzzled at the meanings that came and went, impressing, yet not clearly crystallizing in form, the subtle secret of it all. I almost wept. Then I continued down to the brook, and sat upon the bench beneath the hickory trees, again in childhood's land.

July 31, 1893

Emma White.

August 1, 1893

Marie.

August 7, 1893

Returned with Marie to the city.
Renewing insurance with Wm. H. Seward.
Notified the Greenwick Fire Insurance Company of fire loss, 297 and 307 Grand Street.
Walter A. Wood Co., N.J. Plate Glass Ins. Co., et al.

August 8, 1893

Tullock and Co., Whittico, Schnellhardt, Greene and Donnelly, Edmondson, Kelly, et al.

August 11, 1893

Went with Marie down to Perth Amboy to visit the Beekmans.

August 14, 1893

The Beekmans took us for a charming drive through Staten Island yesterday afternoon. The atmospheric conditions were so perfect, that I felt it was delicious simply to live and breathe. There were besides some beautiful things in land and water to look upon, accompanying the never-failing human interests in doorway or hammock, on foot and wheel. We turned into the Moravian cemetery, which is well kept, and drove up to the Vanderbilt tomb, from which there is a fine prospect.

August 15, 1893

Returned to town from Perth Amboy.
Appointment with Capoano and D'Elisa at 11a.m.

August 18, 1893

Took Marie this evening to Eldorado to see the grounds and spectacle. The latter, though similar in character, was not up to the shows presented here the last two or three years. It was funny to have Biblical themes and sacred scenes broken in upon by variety feature, acrobats, leaps from towers, ta-ra-ra, leg displays and all that; it was all so synchronous and harmonious, you know! The ballet, though still large, was smaller than usual at Eldorado. The audience too was less numerous, and I fear not quite up in appreciations.

August 21, 1893

Returned to Rutland Farm.

August 31, 1893

Of late I have been reading to some extent speculative philosophy and what is called the higher criticism, and all the while I proceed I have a weight in my heart and seem to be traversing a barren desert. I look for some oasis or form of relief, but my eye falls on no spot of verdare* or happiness, only one vast expanse of level sand, stretching out to the horizon and lost there in a dull dead sky. But when I return to faith, faith in Christ, in God, in the after-life, to the verities, the eternities, I am again in a land of life, a land of beauty and promise. Misgivings may come as shadows, but all the trees bear fruit here; the gardens are bright and redolent; the fields, joyous in green and grain, and in the tree-tops surely the birds are singing. I too sing: it is a psalm of thanksgiving!
* freshness

September 7, 1893

Returned to town.

September 8, 1893

Marie and I went to the Broadway Theatre tonight. There was a light opera, very light, but prettily staged, Panjandrum by name, with Dewolf* Hopper and Della Fox in the principal roles. How similar all these light comic operas are! What little variety after all there is in variety! Still there is some medicine in it, and it does to while away an idle evening. What real interest and variety there must be in the everyday shows of things, in men and women, when we think how we live constantly among these, and still not tired with all these, for restful death we do not cry! We hardly yet realize, it seems, the alphabet, or at most only a few sentences, of the wonderful story of life; beautiful, even in its malign aspects with a kind of phosphoric beauty.

Between the acts Loie Fuller danced her skirt dance. It was more refined than others I had seen. The color schemes, the movements, were delicate and graceful, with accesses to angelical homes; but when the camera began to throw faces of some of the presidents and the flag upon La Loie, I began to feel for my hat, my dream was disturbed. It was meant tobe patriotic---patriotism for the crowd, but it was patriotism misplaced.

September 21, 1893

Bought this afternoon at Putnam's, Twenty-third Street, "Princeton Sketches: The Story of Nassau Hall", by George R. Wallace.

After all what so dear as college days! I was happily interested in looking over the portraits and pictures in this book, clearly printed with broad margins, and reading its brightly written chapters. The latter, however, not withstanding the title, are over sketchy and loose, not well conjointed, but wobble like separate marbles in a bag. It is not ungracious to say this, when one thinks how few books are woven of a piece and, internally considered, how difficult is the mastery that transmutes local details into a universal poem. Moreover, the author is young. He is on a familiar ground; the facts and incidents narrated are familiar to me, but it is refreshing to have them restated in this rapid and engaging review.

My spirit has sometimes rebelled against Princeton. I believe more in the beauty of holiness than in the dogmas of righteousness. Not that the University itself is in any wise sectarian. It is not, both by its charter and in fact, and no student there need blush for his faith, or find himself, in this respect, put upon the defensive from covert or direct attack. It is perhaps too strong to speak of a phase that is so altogether non-existent. The tone, on the contrary is tolerant and broadly religious, making for the truth that all should know. The instruction is literal and scientific, but still confined, I fancy, too much to the letter and not given enough to the spirit and allusion of the thing---to the tone intime*. Yet my feelings have sometimes rebelled, because its trend was not sufficiently toward warmth and light and color and beauty: because it stood nearly immovable upon the hard ground, dealing with solemn voice in a cold and unrelieved doctrine, whether secular or divine. Still freedom was recognized and much fine intellect displayed, and although my complaint is of the heart, I heard more frequently than I anticipated the sympathetic word of love. I feel also that my counts may be traversed, that I may be wrong. I feel that Princeton does move toward grace and beauty, as it has always made for character and strength. It is a precious, cool retreat, a scholarly and restful haven, off from the main road, and less spoiled by the world than any other of our leading universities. It has already shadow and perspective, a kind of antique beauty and grace. Time has softened it; history has made it memorable; footstep and heart-beat, ay, holy thought, of students and professor have sanctified it, and its research and learning command for it an enduring veneration!

September 28, 1893

Filed affidavit with notice, First District Court. Summons issued, returnable October 3rd next, at 10 o'clock a.m.

manners
vs.
Landmesser.

This week's Social Season contains a brief sketch of my life, with portrait - the human document! By the way, every human document, picture or text, is grist to the human history mill, but then one star differs from another in glory.

October 3, 1893

manners vs. Landmesser adjourned to the 10th instant, same hour.

October 10, 1893

manners v. Philip Landmesser.
Called: judgment for plaintiff.

October 11, 1893

Started this morning via the Pennsylvania Railway for Chicago and World's Fair.

October 23, 1893

Returned early yesterday morning from Chicago. The trip was of great advantage to me in many ways. At the Fair my eye mainly was enlisted. I did not hear much music - there was too much to see. Music seemed suffocated in the splendid visual effects. The strains of the musicians came on the air to me like bursting puff-balls in a forest or foot-falls in a soft white snow, as I feasted my eyes around the Court of Honor. The eye surpassed the ear as the great interpreter. All realized Kubla Khan's palace and park: -

"The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!"

Chicago itself seemed somewhat crude, except when clad in a mantle of mist, yet it impressed me with a sense of largeness and civic power. Lake Michigan, however, came out beautifully in the sunlight, with an over-soul of variegated and dreamy color. Strange experience it was to stand upon seashore and hear sea surf a thousand miles inland!

October 30, 1893

There has always seemed to me something lacking, a certain defect, a want of relation, proportion, perspective, in fine, of truth, in the observations and reflections of scientific men, men of business, politicians, or to be more generic, that practical cast of mind that affects the utilitarian event, when engaged upon subjects that are eminently mystical and sacred, such as life, suicide, death, the soul, God, immortality. When men of this class move within their own peculiar sphere, inventing the material comforts and conveniences, keeping in action the wheels of traffic, or setting in order the facts and principles of law, political science, sociology and physical phenomena, we can not withhold our admiration from the sure skill, the masterly generalization or specialization, the power to martial the stubborn and complex materials into a working camp or place them upon dress parade: we admire the clarity of mind. This is their function and it is well done. But when they turn to the things of the spirit, the touch is clumsy and inadequate; there is a lack of sympathy and insight; for these things require the subilty* of the poet and he produces the just effect more by suggestion and atmosphere than by elaborate expression and detail. The poet's treatment is open-eyed, wondering, with a due sense of awe and boundlessness. While, what may be called the institutes of science and theology are properly qualified, productive of a measure of good, yet in their assertion, complacency, hardness, dogmatism and confinement of knowledge, they are positively superficial and hurtful, and give at best but a segment of truth. In a high sense religion and life will continue to find their true image and interpretation in poetry. In this connection it may be successfully maintained that as the imaginative quality declines, the age becomes frivolous, shallow, or cold, calculating, indifferent and agnostic; while along with increase of imagination come depth, seriousness, grace, light, real joy, and marked accessions of faith. Nay, ye complacent ones who affect the utilitarian event; 'tis not of you we ask. 'Tis of those with the spiritual sense we ask about the spirit. To feel, to make others feel, to avoid the cold, hard, artificial, the sophisticated, to be true, to show the thing that is in its just milieu* and cause others to see it and feel, to see it clearly and feel it sincerely - ah, that is to be great, if one thinks of that; but the event - ah, the event is beautiful!

*subtilty or subtility: fineness
*surroundings, environment

November 7, 1893

Again the fall elections are upon us, and all sorts of incompetent persons are trying to get elected to something. What poor material after all answers practically for making politician and office-holder of, and they manage somehow to get along, not very well to be sure, but still to get along. Ideally what a rare combination of qualities it takes, what looking backward, what comprehensive present knowledge and prevision of the future, to make up the statesman! Ah, idle tongue, why babble thus away? Fall into the breach at once; the hounds are straining for the start; sound but the right note, the right word, and lead them on! Why not, you ask? Alas! I wear the "bridle of The ages".

November 11, 1893

Settled with Schnellhardt, to date.

November 13, 1893

Filed affidavit and notice, M. vs. Frederick Edmondson, First District Court. Summons returnable next Saturday at 10 a.m.

November 18, 1893

Self vs. Edmondson, First District Court.
Judgment entered for plaintiff.

November 21, 1893

Directed clerk to issue warrant to dispossess Edmondson.

November 23, 1893

One morning at the World's Fair, I ventured on the Ferris wheel in the Midway Plaisance. After looking out widely for a while, my eyes fell with interest on the red roofs and not unpleasing effects of the academic halls of Chicago University. The day I left Chicago, before going to the station, I strolled over the university grounds. They had a disordered unrestful appearance and I contrasted them unfavorably with the beautiful repose of the Princeton Campus. Some of the buildings were still unfinished and all of them too new. Yet here, thought I, is the beginning of a great institution that is destined to eclipse many an older foundation. I place my foot upon its threshold. I touch its lintels with humanity!

November 30, 1893

Man of 1893

To be extreme and yet to be balanced; to strive for ultimation; to express, in material and institute, charity and social betterment, this rather than symbol and form of the beautiful, the ideal - and rest largely in averages, in commonplaces; to like the people, to differentiate, to mark the individual, the distinctive, the stocks and the stones, cut and bruised by the latter, yet to love the people, all of the people; to run the gamut and flash out here and there, and then come to an equilibrium or stand-still, and, whether serving an unconscious purpose or not, feel inutile and like dropping out of it all; to have superstitions and prejudices, to cling lovingly to them and yet find them to your sorrow slipping one by one away and yourself plainly and awfully just to the general average - a machine of candor and habit; to have subtle doubts, perplexities, anxieties, misunderstandings with oneself, the other man and society, to see and feel the difficulties in the way of simplicity and sincerity, the torture of the life of compromises, of conventions, the ail and rack; to be soulful, sad and eerie, with a personal religion, a religion of one's peculiar soul, binding it as with a ligature to the star above, yet never made out in creeds or indoctrinated, free and unchurched; to be angel and beast, to be super-refined and finical, sensitive to the very air of suspicion, touch or vulgarity, white-blooded and dying up there in the clouds or ether beyond, for the want of warmth, color, love and an atmosphere, dense enough to breathe, and then to revert to animalism and the gross, to become a satyr for the sake of living - ; to know the full joy of life, the deep pity in life, its complexity, the vision - yet in the end only the relative, nothing certain, only a-going, only a movement somewhere, even as the planets move: - this, alas, this, all too imperfect and brief, reflects in part the man of 1893.

December 7, 1893

Loose I lie, plastic and free,
To the forces and fingers of life,
Moved by the soul of the time:
Mould they the form that I see,
Latest in aeons of strife,
Eddying the cosmic rhyme:
Write they this mottled page,
Impression-like of the age:
Only I open my eyes,
Open to let in the skies,
Picturing truth.

December 14, 1893

Unwell again.
Several attacks of illness this year and in recent years indicate appendicitis; indeed two or three of them were severe cases of typhlitis. Dr. John D. McGill who attended me, was eminently successful in their treatment, avoiding an operation. From this cause and from other causes, although formerly less defined and troublesome, I have suffered for sometime. For several years I have been living, I now feel, in a certain state of invalidism, with enough of energy to get along with but not much to spare and that little, I fear, has often been recklessly, although it is consolatory to believe, humanly expended. But these recent sudden and prostrating attacks of illness have given me a quickened sense of Nemesis of life's uncertainties, and added a shadow and gravity to thought. And yet withal, sensitive and proud, with many things I could do so well, with strength, left undone, ambitions suppressed, repugnance to weakness, and, pardon the truth! that strange fatality genius, baffled of its high ends, I have become wont with time, and regard death with a degree of indifference, yet not coldly or thoughtlessly, for I appreciate the full value of life. I have already lived a fair measure of years, more perhaps than those years indicate. At times I fancy myself a very old man, and glance back upon childhood or even adolescence and women-to-win, very much as one would dip into Grecian or rather Egyptian antiquities, and how many simplicities and complexities, of which I was a part have intervened! As a whole my life has been fortunate and well circumstanced. It may be I have had my due allotment of the happinesses and joys, with my share likewise of the blows and discouragements. Yes, I have been happy, very happy, and yet - I do not know nicely whether I like this way of telling you, but you will know what is meant when I say that I look at my hand now writing and think how pathetic it is, and then taking the hand glass and looking into my eye, see there such pathos and tragedy that it dims with tears.

December 22, 1893

Sat up for a short time.

December 23, 1893

Feeling much better.

December 25, 1893

Unlike last Xmas, spent in bed, I dined with "the three sisters" in the dining room. A merry Xmas, yet sobered at times with a touch of gray, especially when I found myself caught in a tangled revery.

December 28, 1893

Yes, I have heard appreciation and depreciation of the late World's Fair and both in abundance; but I take my own feeling to be better for me than what the critics think and say. After many days I find it has a power to fascinate. All unaware I find myself at times falling into a daydream or casual muse, and there beside Lake Michigan I walk, beside the lake within the white city. I try to move toward the gates, but am held back by the greatness, by the strange completeness of the beauty. The white swan broods upon the lake; its whiteness seems pure and unwonted; I feel that it is not meant to be here. I see its wings quiver; they lift and it floats away to the eternity whence it came.