262 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



get together they have a slashing time of it. The other day while he was 

 examining in company with several others Rolleston's collection of early 

 bronze implements, he (Rolleston) handed a frail but beautiful Roman strigil 

 to a young Englishwoman to look at. Unhappily it slipped from her hands 

 and in striking the floor was almost resolved to dust. It was easy to see the 

 distress on the doctor's face, but he quickly rallied, and gathering up the 

 fragments said to the frightened girl, " Don't worry, my dear, it has, I assure 

 you, been in many a scrape before." 



April 26th. We lunched yesterday with the Master of " All Souls " College. 

 The luncheon was served in the beautiful, high wainscoted combination 

 room. In Professor B.'s own room, into which he took us while showing the 

 college, we noticed his surplice hanging behind the door. Each looked at 

 the other with the same thought in mind. Here was a man of the world 

 much involved in its tortuous ways coming back to his peaceful, secluded 

 college, and once more putting on the robe of his youth and innocence. 



Tuesday. We spent last evening at Dr. Acland 's, a noted physician who 

 accompanied the Prince of Wales to America. While there Mr. Shaler had 

 a long talk with Mark Pattison thought him cold and clammy. The 

 Acklands, doctor, wife, seven sons and one daughter, are charming. 



May 1st. We went to a reception at the vice-chancellor's given in honor 

 of Mr. Emerson. Mrs. Liddell is very handsome. She was dressed in a Paris 

 gown (the wife of the vice-chancellor at Cambridge wore badly cut home- 

 made clothes) and is unusually agreeable. He is a regular old grumpus ; his 

 opinion of himself as lofty as the tower of Christ Church, of which he is dean. 

 I had a long talk with Max Muller. He insisted that Emerson intellectually 

 was utterly un-American that he was Greek in every essential. I main- 

 tained that he was the very epitome of a certain New England cast of mind, 

 but if he was to be transplanted the " antiquity of his soul " should give him 

 place back in the dynasties. Apparently Muller gave no credence to my 

 statement; fortunately, however, Mr. Shaler just then joined us and 

 squelched his argument completely. Muller is good-looking, but neither 

 of us thought his face showed genius. During the evening the much-prized 

 original manuscript of "Alice in Wonderland" was exhibited; it belongs 

 to the elder Miss Liddell. The story, it seems, in the first place was told by 

 Carroll to her and her sisters when he took them for strolls on the banks 

 of the Isis. Supper frugal, the English apparently know but one meal 

 dinner. 



May Uh. Dined last night at the vice-chancellor's. He gave me a 

 charming little pen-and-ink drawing that he had made on blotting-paper, 

 one of his many accomplishments. Nat is greatly impressed by the accom- 

 plishments of the university men and often wonders, industrious as he is 



