CAMBRIDGE—^ JOURNEY IN BRAZIL 111 



but if we were together it would be so natural to tell 

 them. We heard yesterday from Vogeli who made 

 the French translation and has just returned to Paris 

 with it. Hachette (the Paris publisher) is going to 

 make an edition de luxe with forty illustrations and 

 maps and another cheaper one without illustrations; 

 also to publish extracts with plates in his illustrated 

 journal, the Tour du Monde, which is circulated in 

 several languages. This will be nothing to us in a 

 pecuniary point of view, but will give a wider circu- 

 lation to the book. 



Do you see enough of the papers to know how Presi- 

 dent Johnson is carrying on — as furiously as Mount 

 Vesuvius with all the spit-fire element and none of 

 the grandeur? He really seems insane with passion 

 and does the most unaccountable things, or rather 

 tries to, for he has no power to carry them out; as, 

 for instance, this last act, creating an entirely new 

 and most powerful office for Sherman in order to an- 

 noy Grant apparently and separate two good friends. 

 Fortunately Sherman will take no part in this trick and 

 declines to accept the office even were it confirmed 

 by the Senate. You know Grant has given deadly 

 offence to the President by his course about Stanton. 



Imagine that I'm going to open a series of tea- 

 parties tomorrow evening — that is, it will be a 

 series, if the first turns out to be pleasant; if it's a 

 failure I shall allow it to be the last and consider my- 

 self quenched. I came home from Washington, where 

 people receive in a very easy and informal way, fired 

 with the ambition to set up a simmering teakettle and 



