July 18 Wednesday – Sam was in NYC. Isabel Lyon’s journal (Dublin, N.H.):

What will this day bring?

The grass is down! It was so ripe, so ready, and willing, to be slain. (3 men have been working at it all the morning.) It began to be so tired; & when the scythe swept through it, it lay so still, as if glad and full of rest—like other deaths.

This afternoon Mr. Paine came out & after we had talked of many things we walked over to the Roger place again & he talked to me again of Life, & the Concreteness of the Past. I like his thoughts, for back of them there is soul I know. I know it today [MTP TS 98]. Note: once again Lyon lined out the passage about Paine.