TEMPLE PLACE 21 
The following letter written by Elizabeth Cary to a 
cousin, Dr. Samuel Cabot, while he was in Paris, to whom 
gossip was reporting that she was engaged, shows her in a 
gayer mood and gives an early glimpse of her life-long 
passion for flowers and music. Little did she dream that 
seventeen years later she would write to her mother the 
letter given below on page 55, telling of her husband’s 
refusal of a professorship at the Jardin des Plantes, of 
which she speaks here with such enthusiasm to her cousin. 
TO DR. SAMUEL CABOT 
Boston, March 21, 1840 
WELL, my dear Sam, and how do you find yourself, 
set down, as you are, in the midst of the great metro- 
polis of Europe? Have you learned to waltz yet? But 
no, I fear that I must not hope that. Your disposition, 
I think, was never quite volatile enough to enjoy the 
whirling dance, thou’, if you had lived in the time of 
minuets, I doubt not you would have made a famous 
dancer, when you could have paced slowly and grace- 
fully across the room and made a low bow at a proper 
distance from your partner, then gently taking the 
tips of her fingers paced back amidst the admiring 
gaze of the multitude. Ay, the minuet would have 
been the dance for your sober legs (excuse me!) to 
have joined in. 
Think of Edward’s being engaged — actually in 
love! Shall I congratulate you or not? I hardly think 
it a subject of congratulation — to lose a brother, for 
certainly it is losing a friend to a certain degree when 
