- Barry William
- Adams Isaac Hull
- White Franklin
Showery day, which still detained me from visitation of my grounds, and
from exercise abroad— Mr William Barry was here with
a bill for four years subscription to the common school journal. He
asked me if I recollected that in the summer of 1809 just before I
embarked for St. Petersburg, the hatters of
Boston applied to me to draw up for them a memorial to Congress— I
remembered it well— He said he was the person who made the application
to me— It is noticed in my Diary of 26 June 1809., but the name of the
person applying is not reported and I did not now remember that it was
Mr Barry.— Isaac H. Adams was also here and Franklin White the painter to whom I
gave a second sitting of an hour— It must be extremely difficult for any
painter to take a favourable likeness of me now—for I cannot sit five
minutes or three or even one, with out, falling into a doze— This
propensity which I have long observed grows upon me to such an extent,
that I ought to be deeply alarmed at its progress—for its termination
may overtake me every day, and every hour of my life— It benumbs every
faculty of my body and soul. It portends a moment of Sleep from which
there will be no awaking upon earth, and of which I am in constant
expectation— When I ask myself why I do not make immediate and effective
provision for instantaneous departure whenever that summons shall come,
I have no answer to make other than the frailty of my nature— This
irresistible spell has made it impossible to take a good daguerrotype
likeness of me, and it baffles though not in equal degree the skill of
the portrait painter, who cannot give life or animation to a countenance
all the muscles of which are all the time lapsing into slumber— It
deadens alike all the faculties of the mind, and is a continual warning
to me of the decays of my powers native and acquired— Shall I ever take
it?— This evening I visited Mr
and Mrs Thomas Greenleaf my
neighbours each four score years of age— I requested him to mention to
their son E. Price, that I
wished to see him— My time is now almost entirely consumed in bringing
up the arrears into which my journal had fallen in the course of my
month’s excursion; and with the most intense exertions, I cannot recover
more than one day in a day. Many of the Newspapers have reported the
proceedings at the places, where I was received with honorary notice— It
began at Saratoga Springs on the 12th. of
July— I escaped it not without difficulty at Burlington Vermont— Then
after a suspension of one week in Canada, the display was recommenced at
Ogdensburg and continued to Pittsfield in Berkshire County,
Massachusetts.