280 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



TO MISS GRACE NORTON 



Nahant, September 25, 1894 



. . . Do you know that I am going to Europe for the 

 winter with my dear Shaws? I have known it myself 

 for less than a week, and as I only returned from New- 

 port last Tuesday, I have been rather busy and very 

 bewildered in a sort of waking dream. My plans 

 were all laid for a winter in Cambridge and I was 

 hardly prepared for this change of front. But the fam- 

 ily chorus is in one strain, "You must go," and you 

 can imagine that I could not go more delightfully. 



Remember that my European experience consists of 

 one week in England, one in Paris and four in Switzer- 

 land, that I know nothing of France, Germany or Italy 

 and to see the beautiful things that have been a 

 dream to me all my life with Quin and Pauline! . . . 



Mrs. Agassiz sailed for Havre in October with Mr. and 

 Mrs. Shaw, and two of their children. A month in Paris 

 was followed by a winter in Italy; in the spring she went 

 with her niece, Miss Mary Felton, and a friend, Miss Isa 

 Gray, for a short visit to London, Cambridge, and Oxford, 

 before joining Mrs. Richard Cary and Miss Cary, her 

 sister-in-law and niece, in Venice for a few months of 

 travel on the continent until October, when they sailed for 

 home. Mrs. Agassiz's itinerary, it will be seen, led her along 

 well-trodden paths and into the usual experience of the 

 American traveller who makes the "grand tour" with ease 

 of material conditions, meeting old and new friends on the 

 road. It is her own spirit that gives individuality to the 

 account of her travels that she has left in her letters and 



