282 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



There were two visits that Mrs. Agassiz definitely 

 planned to make for her own gratification in the course of 

 her travels, one to Montagny where the Swiss relatives of 

 Agassiz were still living, and the other to the colleges for 

 women in Cambridge and Oxford. It is significant of her 

 interests that her only two personal desires for her year 

 abroad were connected, one with the great affection of her 

 life, the other with her faithfully accepted public responsi- 

 bility. For the rest of her travels she expressed no individ- 

 ual plans or preferences, in spite of the fact that she had 

 previously seen almost nothing of Europe. **I do not in- 

 cline to make plans," she wrote, "rather to confine my out- 

 look to shorter intervals — as Sydney Smith has said, * not 

 farther than from dinner to tea.' " 



A few extracts from letters written during this year 

 abroad are given here, which reflect in one way or another 

 traits and interests which were an inherent part of Mrs. 

 Agassiz's true self — her delight in music, her pleasure in 

 friends connected with her past, as, for example, in meet- 

 ing Francesca Alexander and her mother in Florence, and 

 in London Lady Harcourt, who as Miss Lily Motley had 

 been a pupil at the Agassiz school, her love for Nahant 

 that called as loudly in Venice as in Cambridge, and her 

 devotion to Agassiz that made every scene connected with 

 his early years sacred. 



TO MISS SARAH G. GARY 



Hotel Meurice, Paris, October 29, 1894 



Our days are arranged somewhat after this fashion. 



Breakfast independent, or we each order it, as we 



come out of our rooms — of course the French break- 



