TOUR IN THE UNITED STATES. 189 



Sometimes she comes home dreadfully tired, after wandering 

 about all the day. I am going down to see her on Monday. 

 Nothing could surpass her delight when Dr. Gray showed her 

 some of her favourites through the microscope. " Oh, sir, you 

 have opened to me a new world !" She has also been to 

 Agassiz, who has delighted her by showing her the differences 

 between zoophytes and seaweeds, and now she collects both 

 most zealously. I found one rarity among the parcel I have 

 already had from her, and I expect she will make quite a 

 valuable correspondent, as her favourite beach is very good 

 ground. I dined last Wednesday at Mr. Prescott's, to meet the 

 great Daniel Webster. I got rather separated from him at 

 table, so missed much of his discourse. He gave some amusing 

 anecdotes, very well told. He is a large man, with a quiet 

 and rather sad or severe expression, but he lights up pleasantly 

 with the point of his story. He has rather a measured way of 

 speaking, as if laying down the law, but in a very quiet manner. 

 Prescott is a very much younger-looking man than I had 

 anticipated. 



To the Same. 



Cambridge, December 1. 



Wish me joy. I have put the finishing stroke to my 

 Boston engagement to-day, and am a free man again. The 

 last words have been spoken ; and I wound up with a text from 

 the Apocrypha, which will be found in last chapter of 2nd 

 Maccabees, not the last verse, but the one before it. The last 

 week has been a busy one, having four dinner-parties, two of 

 which were on lecture evenings. Last Thursday was " Thanks- 

 giving day," the great New England holiday. You know 

 the Puritans when they landed here on Christmas-day fasted 

 that day for spite, and have ever since disowned it. So, as the 

 years bring it round, they annually appoint another day 

 towards the close of the year for Thanksgiving, that the harvest 

 has all been housed, and the country preserved from misfortune. 

 The Governor issues his proclamation, which is read in all the 

 pulpits, and the appointed day is commenced with church-going 

 and ended with feasting. All the shops are closed, and there 

 is rest from work. It is also the time for family circles to 

 assemble. Old and young meet, and have all sorts of games 



