44 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



I forgot to tell you that Agassiz has had little stoves 

 ("second-handed") put into the upper chambers of 

 the house so that his people can work there, and he 

 has everything going on under his own eye while I 

 am not in the least disturbed by his scientific estab- 

 lishment. If he is only well, I think he will be able to 

 accomplish a great deal this winter, but it seems to 

 me impossible he should finish all he has marked out 

 for himself, in three months, especially as he must 

 have so many interruptions. He is obliged to go to 

 town to lecture three times a week, and does not get 

 back till eleven o'clock the next day. 



I hope you will try to write often, though my let- 

 ters will not be a worthy return, for happy as I hope 

 to be here, nothing can be more intensely quiet than 

 the life, and my walk on the beach with an occasional 

 expedition to town, will be the greatest events that 

 I shall have to write about. 



TO MISS SARAH G. CARY 



Washington, March 22 [1852] 



I SUPPOSE, my dear, now that you are mistress of a 

 watch you will stand more in dread of fortune hunters 

 than Charles Curtis did, when his grandmother left 

 him the scissors. Poor Ida has told you, no doubt, how 

 much she took to heart the loss of mine, which was, 

 just now, quite a family misfortune, as, when Agassiz 

 was out of the way, it was our only guide about time. 

 But she was so broken-hearted, poor little soul, that 

 I have tried to seem as if I had been wishing all my 



