CHANGED CONDITIONS 179 



had a kindly star for him, because everything had 

 fallen out just as he wished. Just the last day Whittier 

 arrived in town; when I told him of it, he said that 

 was the crowning pleasure, for he had had a special 

 desire to see him and did not know how to manage 

 it, asked me where he was staying, and said he should 

 go and call, which he did the next day, though he 

 was to leave in the afternoon, and one would have 

 said you could not get a thread paper in between 

 his engagements. You may remember that one of 

 Whittier's early poems is called Ama Perdita, a 

 bird of the Amazonian woods, so called because 

 it goes through the forest with a sad, wailing note, 

 that has given it the name and connected with it 

 the superstition that some ama perdita really goes 

 wandering and lost in that wilderness of trees and 

 water. It seems the Emperor translated this poem 

 and sent the translation to Whittier with the veritable 

 bird. So you see there was an old relation between 

 them which made it very pleasant for them to meet. 

 Well, I have just given you the skeleton; the many 

 lovely things this good friend said to me of the 

 past, of the memories and regrets, I have not told 

 you they are so difficult to tell. Now it is over 

 I am glad it has been, and feel that it was a satis- 

 faction though so full of sad associations. Parting 

 from me he said, "I shall write to you, and you will 

 answer me." There is always a kind of simple force 

 in his language. When we left him in Brazil, and I 

 spoke of Agassiz's never seeing him again (as indeed 

 he never did), he answered quietly, "My affections 



