Perfect temperature—sunny—cool enough—some breeze—I am pretty comfortable while I sit quietly & dawdle over papers &c. as the last three hours—but my head more or less thick & floundering (dull ache) when I read with purpose—or write—
Two letters rec'd from you to day—Mrs Harned sent me a first rate broiled chicken for my dinner & supper yesterday—I enjoyed all—Did I tell you I rec'd a long letter from O'Connor yesterday bright & cheering as ever—nothing very special—(I think O'C is better)—I wrote last evening to Burroughs—Traubel writes him the news—Maurice how late down to are the proof pages you have? Write me without fail in your next & I will send you at once—And how long to you get a letter hence—say [it] is mail'd here (Phila) say at 8¼ Monday night—when do you get it?—bowel dejectures quite mark'd, twice the last four or five days—appetite fair—4 p m—Tom Harned brings me a nice homely cake-loaf from Mrs H—young Dr. Mitchell is here, gives me a dose for the cold-in-the-head thickness feeling I have so much of (has something with the suppressing of the free perspiration & heat of days previously)—I have not the slightest anticipation from it—we are closing the most perfect day of this summer—I am taking some calomel this env'g—I am feeling fairly—
Sunday, early afternoon—July 15—much the same—weather pleasant—not hot—quiet—head little thick—am sitting here in the big chair—have eaten breakfast 10½ relishing fairly—no operation yet of last evening's calomel (every thing acts very slowly & lagging on me, even a day or even two)—Have letters from friends of long ago—have just answered to an old N Y Broadway driver—also just a word to my friend Sylvester Baxter of Boston—Harned has just come in with a mug of peach ice cream from Mrs. H—& Tom has just gone off with "Hamlet's Note Book" to add to Donnelly's Cryp[togram] with which T H is just wrestling—
Walt Whitman