File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 9, page 15, October 16-18, 1857.jpg

Transcription:

ordinate fondness for beer. (He [Mortimer Thomson] had sent out for some, of which they were partaking.) [Fitz James] O’Brien came in subsequently.

Met Helmsmuller in Broadway and drank with him. He complained of the hardness of the times, which affects all who cater for the amusements of people. In the evening [Frank] Bellew, O’Brien, [Frank] Cahill and myself were assembled in [Jesse] Haney’s room — Haney having brought the two former to sup with him. All talking, smoking and drinking gin-and-water till past midnight, when as the rain fell in torrents, Haney bunked with Cahill, abandoning his room to O’Brien and Bellew — the first of whom extemporized a bed on the floor.

17. Saturday. Down town in the morning, to Haney’s, the Pic, and the Post-Office. Bellew up to my room. In the evening to Edwards [745 Broadway], whither Cahill and Haney had preceded me.

18. Sunday. A health-ramble to Hoboken with Haney and Cahill, returning by noon, when they went to Edwards’. Drawing during the evening, being favored with successive visitors. First O’Brien came up and adjourned to Whelpley’s, over the way. Then [A.F.] Banks came. He sat himself down on the bed, as usual; wanted to know whether I’d come out and call on some agreable fellows of his acquaintance; said he had lived a very hard life — in the American sense — during the past year, seldom getting to bed before three o’clock; declared that Walt Whitman’s book was the greatest production that the world contained, not at all excepting [William] Shakspere, with regard to whom he, Banks, was above being humbugged by the common cant, for if Gifford hadn’t brought him to light, nobody would ever have heard of the author of Hamlet! He also spoke of larger literary labor to which he was devoting himself