Agreeableizing

1835 January Sunday 18 8 25/.. 11 1/4 No kiss. Very fine morning – Hard frost – F 35° at 9 20/.. a.m. in my study – Breakfast at 9 25/.. in 1/2 hour – From 10 5/.. to 11 1/2 wrote 3 pages and ends to M- [Mariana] – Almost fear she will begin to think me long in writing – Hope poor Watson is recovered and that she , Mariana, did not suffer from the fatigue of her journey to London but was better for it, and found Dr. Foley’s opinion of Pavey favorable and that he had no serious apprehensions for the future (from consumption to which M- thinks she has an hereditary claim) – M-’s better account of herself a great comfort to me – ‘It matters little who or what it was did the good, medicines or I, so long as the good really was done – My visit was altogether very well arranged; and, trust me, you will be more and more satisfied about it – I am quite sure Louisa would be of this opinion – Now everything looks well, and everything will go well – The door is closed against e...

1835 January Saturday 17 8 1/4 11 40/.. No kiss. Fine morning.   Ground covered with snow, but not deep – F 39° in my study at 9 1/4 a.m. Breakfast at 9 1/4 to 10 1/4 – at which hour Holt came, and also Mr. Washington, to whom I just spoke in passing and went out with Holt up the fields to Walker Pit, where had just set out the gin -race – The gin would be enough – No engine would be required – And coals could be pulled at this pit for 50 years to come – About 2 acres already loosed – While this coal was getting, the water wheel could be set up near Tilleyholme Stile (would not cost £500) and the 2 drifts might be driven from there to the pit – Would be above 800 yards long – But the coal got in them would pay for driving – There would only be rails to pay for – That, said I, would be easily calculated – Suppose 1 ton to do 60 yards and rails to be had for £8 per ton – Suppose 2,000 yards of drift = 4000 yards of railing that is 4000/60 = 400/6 = 66 4/6 tons of r...

1835 January Friday 16 9 11 40/.. No kiss . Very rainy night and rainy morning – F 44 1/2° at 9 55/.. a.m. in my study – Breakfast at 10, and afterwards as I could – Ann had William Keighley in during breakfast, and told him to go and look after the damage done by the snow in Holcans wood – Will go on Monday – A little talk about the Spiggs Colliery business – Advised them to settle it with Hinscliffe – I would certainly stop the loose, if we could not agree – but I was sorry for them, William Keighley and his brother, and did not wish to be hard upon them – But what I took for the loose for coal to be bought would not be taken out of their pocket, but out of that of the seller of the coal – Then had Joseph Mann – Paid him £8.6.0 in full of £30.5.11 cost of driving the drift to get water to John Bottomley’s – It looses at the far end – J. M- thinks it had better be puddled there – Will do all that is wanted for 20/. – Agreed – And it is to be done or begun on Monday – ...

  1835 January Thursday 15 9 25/.. 11 55/.. No kiss. Ready in 3/4 hour, and breakfast at 10 10/.. – Ann very poorly during the morning, sickish and I think bilious.   Pain in her stomach and tendency to bowel complaint, but it went off. Charles Howarth as yesterday putting up oak wainscot in north parlor passage – From 11 to 2 10/..(but Ann very poorly about 12 and this interrupted me) wrote Tuesday and the first 22 lines of yesterday – Ann not having been out since Saturday (except church on Sunday) thought a little fresh air would do good, and got her as far as Park farm (in spite of small rain and disagreeable wind in our faces) then returned and walked a little on the flags in front of the house out for 1/2 [hour] till 2 55/.. – Then I out again in 1/4 hour at 3 10/.. Till 6 – at Whiskum Cottage – Pickles and his brother Nathaniel and son John putting 2 large rag covers over the reservoir – Stopt them – Told them I would have a pillar run up in the...

1835 January Wednesday 14 9 25/.. 11 3/4 No kiss ready at 10 8/.. and breakfast at 10 25/.. – Ann had Washington – Had Holt from 11 25/.. to 1 1/4 –  Told him gently he had too much to do to attend properly to my job – I was grieved about the pit having to stand and grieved about the drifts – Feared that at John Bottomley’s, would all fall in – Oh! Dear, no – Never – Then took down in my Rough book what he thought ought to be done as follows – Drift in J.B-’s land – Tail end to be walled 2 feet high with good covers, and 6 inches of puddle at the bottom – for 40 yards length – Then lay a threshold (or stopping) and dam the water back for a reservoir, in the bottom of which lay a pipe 1/2 inch bore, 40 yards long or up to the house – Wall up the drift at the tail end, and cover over (with a good   rag cover that can easily be lifted up if anything wanted to be done at the drift) the vent pit – Soil may put on the top of the vent-pit cover – The walling at the ta...

1835 January Tuesday 13 8 20/.. 4 1/4 a.m. No kiss. Thaw -- F 39° at 9 20/.. – Breakfast at 9 1/2 to 10 10/.. – Ann had Mrs. Draper about child’s frocks.   Greenwood’s man came to look at bookcase doors – Had Hinscliffe from 11 1/4 to 3 1/4 – Politics –  Long talk about the Leeds and Whitehall road – Hipperholme Cum Brighouse including Lightcliffe, and Scholes and Driglington unanimous not to have the road thrown upon them till it is thoroughly made – This not likely to be done soon – May not be thrown upon the towns for some years to come – Then the business Hinscliffe came about – Difficult to get Samuel Holdsworth to join the Keighleys in paying anything for the Spiggs Loose – Would I take £10 a year for it (which Hinscliffe advised) – Yes! Said I, for what remains to be got in Spiggs land – or between £10 per acre for however many beds of coal there may be, for I do not like the plan of so much a year – But I will not include any fresh purchases of coal...

  1835 January Monday 12 8 3/4 11 40/.. No Kiss. F 38° at 9 35/.. a.m.;   rather thawing? fair but hazy – apparently more snow fell during the night –  Breakfast at 9 3/4 in about 3/4 hour – Mr. Bradley came at 10 1/2 and staid till near 1 – Would rather go home at nights; but this matter not quite settled – Will come again this day-week if the weather permit working out of doors – If not, will come the 1st fine enough day afterwards – In the meanwhile, after Thursday, will get on with plan of additions to the house – Much talk about them – Said I had done the North room, blue room, and tent with great taste – But objected to the mahogany furniture in the tent room – Said the North room was very striking and admired the imitation studding of the blue room very much – Advised my not being in a hurry to let Northgate and to turn it into an Inn – I said it was my intention so to do – He said land would be wanted for it – explained about Carr’s having the S...

1835 January Sunday 11 8 10/.. 11 20/.. No kiss. Ground deeply covered with snow – The skylight into my dressing room so covered, it was almost dark – Fahrenheit 39° at 9 1/4 a.m. in my study – Wrote all but the 1st 21 lines of Friday and all but the last 4 lines of yesterday – Then at 12 20/.. Ann and I read prayers to my aunt, Mrs. Oddy, Eugénie, and George – The horses did not come till 2 5/.. – 33 minutes in going, yet Mr. Akroyd, who did all the duty, only beginning, as we entered the gallery – Preached 28 minutes from 2 Corinthians X. 17,   a lesson so tiresome, incoherent, and profitless that after the 1st 10 minutes I had the good fortune to doze – Home in 35 minutes at 4 50/.. – Very few people at church – The road deeply covered with snow, and the trees heavily laden – Sleety, small snow falling all the way as we went and returned , and indeed all the day – Wrote the above of today till 5 40/.. – Wrote copy of note to Miss Berry Dinner at 6 1/4 ...

1835 January Saturday 10 8 1/2 11 1/4 A nice, quiet, good kiss last night. Damp, rainy, cold morning Fahrenheit 35° at 9 20/.. a.m. – Breakfast at 9 40/.. – Had Mr. Samuel Washington – Paid him £100 towards the purchase of his field adjoining Roydelands (Hardcastles farm), as agreed on Wednesday at the rent Audit –when it was also agreed to complete the purchase on the 2nd of next month, I paying £260, which, with the hundred before and the £140 Washington owes Ann for Lidgate hay = £500, the price of the field – Out at 11 1/4 – In the joiner’s shop with Charles Howarth, busy as for the last week past with the wainscot for the North parlor passage – Then went into the pit-drift , to see for myself the width they are driving it – Hinscliffe right – Measured it with my umbrella where the man was working (about 30 yards length done) to 4 feet or very nearly that – 5 minutes in going in and out and staying about a minute with the workman – A very fatiguing journey on...