Vida Scudder is a man or a
woman. I'd tell what A. Edward Newton said when he came rushing into the
office to show me the Severn death-bed portrait of Keats, which he had
just bought from Rosenbach. I'd tell the story of the unpublished letter
of R.L.S. which a young man sold to buy a wedding present, which has
since vanished (the R.L.S. letter). I'd tell the amazing story of how a
piece of Walt Whitman manuscript was lost in Philadelphia on the
memorable night of June 30, 1919. I'd tell just how Vachel Lindsay
behaves when he's off duty. I'd even forsake everything to travel over
to England with Vachel on his forthcoming lecture tour, as I'm convinced
that England's comments on Vachel will be worth listening to.

The ideal man to keep the sort of diary I have in mind would be Hilaire
Belloc. It was an ancestor of Mr. Belloc, Dr. Joseph Priestley (who died
in Pennsylvania, by the way) who discovered oxygen; and it is Mr. Belloc
himself who has discovered how to put oxygen into the modern English
essay. The gift, together with his love of good eating, probably came to
him from his mother, Bessie Rayner Parkes, who once partook of Samuel
Rogers's famous literary breakfasts. And this brings us back to our old
friend Crabb Robinson, another of the Rogers breakfast clan. Robinson is
never wildly exciting, but he gives a perfect panorama of his day. It is
not often that one finds a man who associated with such figures as
Goethe, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, and Lamb. He had the true gift
for diarizing. What could be better, for instance, than this little
miniature picture of the rise and fall of teetotalism in one well-loved
person?--

Mary Lamb, I am glad to say, is just now very comfortable. She has
put herself under Doctor Tuthill, who has prescribed water. Charles,
in consequence, resolved to accommodate himself to her, and since
Lord-Mayor's day has abstained from all other liquor, as well as
from smoking. We shall all rejoice if this experiment succeeds....
His change of habit, though it, on the whole, improves his health,
yet when he is low-spirited, leaves him without a remedy or relief.

--LETTER OF HENRY CRABB ROBINSON To Miss WORDSWORTH, December 23,
1810.

Spent part of the evening with Charles Lamb (unwell) and his sister.

--ROBINSON'S DIARY, January 8, 1811.

Late in the evening Lamb called, to sit with me while he smoked his
pipe.

--ROBINSO