268 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



for Mrs. Agassiz and for the college, a correspondence that 

 took place in the autumn, as a sequel to the closer relation 

 between Harvard and Radcliffe, remains to be mentioned. 

 This correspondence has already been printed in the First 

 Annual Report of the President of Radcliffe College and 

 also in a published address by Charles Francis Adams, 

 made at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society 

 held on February 14, 1895, in memory of Judge Ebenezer 

 Hoar of Concord, Massachusetts. It is repeated here, since 

 at the time it attracted a good deal of attention, and since 

 Mrs. Agassiz's part in it is characteristically graceful. 



TO MISTRESS LOUIS AGASSIZ 

 President of Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts 



Quincy, September 12, 1894 



HONORED AND GRACIOUS LADY: This epistle is ad- 

 dressed to you from Quincy, because in the part of 

 Braintree which now bears that name, in the burial 

 place by the meeting house, all that was mortal of me 

 was laid to rest more than two centuries ago, and the 

 gravestone stands which bears my name, and marks 

 the spot where my dust reposes. 



It may cause you surprise to be thus addressed, 

 and that the work which you are pursuing with such 

 constancy and success is of interest to one who so 

 long ago passed from the mortal sight of men. But 

 you may recall that wise philosophers have believed 

 and taught that those who have striven to do their 

 Lord's will here below do not, when transferred to his 

 house on high, thereby become wholly regardless of 



