176 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



Cambridge, January 9, 1876 



. . . OH, won't it be nice ever to be where anxiety 

 does not come! I wonder how far off it is, for I've an 

 idea that to leave this earth is not at once to enter 

 Heaven. The Catholic idea of purgatory (not in 

 a material sense) seems to me to be founded on a 

 reasonable idea. There seems no reason why the fact 

 of death should absolve you at once from all your 

 faults and errors and their consequences. But I 

 think somewhere in the far future there must be a 

 time when all is made right for us, and the happi- 

 ness of which we have such lovely glimpses here 

 becomes a safe and permanent possession. 



Cambridge, April 9, 1876 



... I MUST tell you about our baby. My delight is 

 to go in and take my place in the room adjoining 

 [his mother's], where the baby lies, and watch my 

 chances. Sometimes if he is awake I have him for 

 a long time, and I think there is nothing like the 

 peace that creeps in upon you with a baby in your 

 arms. There's something in the little soft roll of 

 warm flannel, something in the quiet shaded room 

 from which all the bustle of the world outside is 

 excluded, that takes away all the pain and sting 

 of life by some subtle power. 



The following letter was written after a visit of the Em- 

 peror and Empress of Brazil to Cambridge. 



