RADCLIFFE COLLEGE 331 



"The day is here," Mrs. Agassiz recorded in her diary, 

 "and the greetings by telegram and note and the lovely 

 gifts make it a day in Paradise. But a fairy gift — a pure 

 surprise, — dropped into my hands, crowned this beauti- 

 ful day in my life — $116,000 for Radcliffe College for a 

 Students' Hall. I cannot believe it; it is too good to be 

 true." It was typical of Mrs. Agassiz's interests that on this 

 day when above all others her thoughts might have been 

 centred on herself, though deeply stirred by the expres- 

 sions of affection that she received, her emotions over- 

 powered her and her composure gave way only when she 

 learned of the gift that was not personal but for Radcliffe. 

 "Mother is none the worse for all this," Mr. Alexander 

 Agassiz wrote to his daughter-in-law, describing the con- 

 cert, " in fact would Hke a second festival, provided it could 

 be as lucrative as the first "; and Mrs. Agassiz's diary testi- 

 fies to the disappearance of all her apprehensions in the 

 happiness of the evening, when she characteristically be- 

 lieved that the applause that followed her as she left the 

 theatre on the arm of her son, was as much a demonstra- 

 tion in his honor as in hers. A few selections from her diary 

 and from letters written at the time complete the record 

 of an occasion, the spirit of which was happily expressed 

 by Mrs. Henry Whitman in a note that she wrote to 

 Mrs. Agassiz a few days later, "Oh, all the beauty of 

 this birthday! It will always hang like a star in my 

 heaven." 



December 6, 1902. — The day I have so feared 

 was one of the most beautiful I have known, not 

 only for its personal happiness, but because it 

 brought such a munificent gift to Radcliffe — more 



