RADCLIFFE COLLEGE 331 
“The day is here,” Mrs. Agassiz recorded in her diary, 
“and the greetings by telegram and note and the lovely 
gifts make it a day in Paradise. But a fairy gift — a pure 
surprise, — dropped into my hands, crowned this beauti- 
ful day in my life — $116,000 for Radcliffe College for a 
Students’ Hall. I cannot believe it; it is too good to be 
true.” It was typical of Mrs. Agassiz’s interests that on this 
day when above all others her thoughts might have been 
centred on herself, though deeply stirred by the expres- 
sions of affection that she received, her emotions over- 
powered her and her composure gave way only when she 
learned of the gift that was not personal but for Radcliffe. 
“Mother is none the worse for all this,’ Mr. Alexander 
Agassiz wrote to his daughter-in-law, describing the con- 
cert, “in fact would like a second festival, provided it could 
be as lucrative as the first ”; and Mrs. Agassiz’s diary testi- 
fies to the disappearance of all her apprehensions in the 
happiness of the evening, when she characteristically be- 
lieved that the applause that followed her as she left the 
theatre on the arm of her son, was as much a demonstra- 
tion in his honor as in hers. A few selections from her diary 
and from letters written at the time complete the record 
of an occasion, the spirit of which was happily expressed 
by Mrs. Henry Whitman in a note that she wrote to 
Mrs. Agassiz a few days later, “Oh, all the beauty of 
this birthday! It will always hang like a star in my 
heaven.” 
December 6, 1902.— The day I have so feared 
was one of the most beautiful I have known, not 
only for its personal happiness, but because it 
brought such a munificent gift to Radcliffe — more 
