Il6 MY LIFE [Chap. 



philosopher ; Dr. Asa Gray ; Rev. James Freeman Clarke ; 

 Dr. William James ; General Francis Walker, President 

 of the Technological Institute ; Sir William Dawson, the 

 Canadian geologist, who was lecturing at the Lowell Insti- 

 tute ; and two others less known. The dinner was luxurious 

 in the extreme, the table covered over with delicate ferns, 

 and roses with bouquets of violets and daffodils before each 

 guest. I sat next to Lowell, and was rather awed, as I did 

 not know much of his writings, and I think he had never 

 heard of me. The condition of things was not improved by his 

 quoting some Latin author to illustrate some remark addressed 

 to me, evidently to see if I was a scholar. I was so taken 

 aback that instead of saying I had forgotten the little Latin I 

 ever knew, and that my special interests were in nature, I 

 merely replied vaguely to his observation. However, the 

 conversation soon became more general, and such subjects 

 as politics, travel, Sir James Brooke, and even spiritualism, 

 afforded some pleasant interchange of ideas. Fortunately 

 there were no speeches, but I was not so much impressed by 

 the Boston celebrities as I ought to have been. 



A good deal of time during my last three weeks in Boston 

 was spent in the society either of the professed men of 

 science or the spiritualists, with both of whom I felt myself 

 at ease ; while for general intelligence the latter were quite 

 equal to the former. I also attended some very remarkable 

 stances, an account of which will be given in a future chapter. 

 I had one good example of the sudden changes of tempera- 

 ture to which Boston is liable. On December 24 it was a 

 very mild day, so much so that walking was quite oppres- 

 sive, and in the evening I sat in my room with the window 

 open to keep cool. At night it rained tremendously till 2 or 

 3 a.m., but Christmas Day was a hard frost, and the next day 

 the greatest cold I felt in America. I was told that during 

 the winter and spring the thermometer often falls 6o° in two 

 hours, and a Bostonian never goes out for a few hours, how- 

 ever mild it may be, without being provided with warm 

 clothing against such sudden changes, which often produce 

 serious effects. 



