374 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



mas. [Christmas Eve at Shady Hill, the residence of 

 Professor Charles Eliot Norton, became a Harvard 

 institution after 1886, when Professor Norton inau- 

 gurated the custom of receiving informally all stu- 

 dents from a distance, who were passing the holidays 

 in Cambridge.] 



January i, 1901. — The new century began last 

 night at midnight. I am so sorry that I did not hear 

 and see the celebration at the State House. It seems 

 to have been so beautiful in spirit and so impressive. 

 The trumpets from the State House, the singing 

 joined in by the multitude, the Lord's Prayer in 

 which the crowd joined. It was all serious and the 

 crowds of people quiet and serious. Today I have 

 been at home, and indeed yesterday, for much as I 

 wished to see and hear what went on at the State 

 House I did not dare. 



January 30. — Reading all day — Barrett Wendell; 

 a very readable book, especially for one who has 

 lived as I have through the greater part of the cen- 

 tury. His short sketches of the authors whom he 

 associates with the growth of the history of America 

 amount to brief memoirs. His generalizations go too 

 far, perhaps, in the parallelism of the literary, social 

 and political development of the country, but it is a 

 very thoughtful, suggestive book. 



February 20. - — A rather full day. Dentist. Lunch 

 with the "Queens." French lecture, M. Deschamps 

 — delightful. Sallie Whitman to dine. Evening, meet- 

 ing of the Associates of Radcliffe. 



March 22. — To my dear Lizzie [Cabot] Lee. So 



