176 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
Cambridge, January 9, 1876 
... On, won’t it be nice ever to be where anxiety 
does not come! I wonder how far off it is, for I’ve an 
idea that to leave this earth is not at once to enter 
Heaven. The Catholic idea of purgatory (not in 
a material sense) seems to me to be founded on a 
reasonable idea. There seems no reason why the fact 
of death should absolve you at once from all your 
faults and errors and their consequences. But I 
think somewhere in the far future there must be a 
time when all is made right for us, and the happi- 
ness of which we have such lovely glimpses here 
becomes a safe and permanent possession. 
Cambridge, April 9, 1876 
...1 must tell you about our baby. My delight is 
to go in and take my place in the room adjoining 
[his mother’s], where the baby lies, and watch my 
chances. Sometimes if he is awake I have him for 
a long time, and I think there is nothing like the 
peace that creeps in upon you with a baby in your 
arms. There’s something in the little soft roll of 
warm flannel, something in the quiet shaded room 
from which all the bustle of the world outside is 
excluded, that takes away all the pain and sting 
of life by some subtle power. 
The following letter was written after a visit of the Em- 
peror and Empress of Brazil to Cambridge. 
