190 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



and diversions for the evening. I enjoyed a singularly favour- 

 able opportunity of seeing a " Thanksgiving " meeting, being 

 invited to dine with Mrs. G — 's grandfather, an old man of 

 nearly eighty-six, but so hale and active that he might pass 

 for under seventy. We sat down to table, thirty-eight, the 

 greater part of whom were children, grandchildren, and great- 

 grandchildren. I was the only stranger, and the few who were 

 not direct descendants were close collateral ones. Three or 

 four smaller fry came in before the cloth was removed, so we 

 counted over forty. • We sat down to table at 3 p.m., on account 

 of the children, and rose soon after five, when the sports began, 

 and a scene of boisterous mirth ensued. We had blind-man's- 

 buff, hunt-the-slipper, thread-the-needle, and other intellectual 

 sports, for a couple of hours, concluding with a cockfight ; two 

 gentlemen, dressed up in paper painted like cocks, enacting a 

 capital fight. Some of us then started for the house of another 

 old gentleman of similar octogenarian age, where we found a 

 similar lively scene. Having stayed here for another hour or 

 two, we then returned to our former quarters, where we found 

 the little ones gone to bed, and the rest — from ten years of age 

 — still amusing themselves. Some capital charades were acted. 

 Dr. G — and myself then set out for another party, a grown-uv 

 one, at Mr. Ticknor's (the historian of Spanish literature), where 

 we found a brilliant assembly talking and having occasional 

 music. Here we staid till an early supper caused the rooms to 

 thin, and we left before eleven, and walked home, arriving just 

 at midnight. So we had nearly nine hours of Thanksgiving 

 festivity. I walked home with Agassiz, who is about to be 

 married the second time. He has a son, a fine boy of ten or 

 twelve, and a daughter. Some time back, when he put his 

 little boy to school — as he wished to keep up his instruction in 

 Natural History — he offered to give occasional lectures at the 

 school for the benefit of all the other pupils as well. The offer 

 was gladly accepted ; and he has been in the habit all the 

 summer of giving a weekly lecture. A week or two ago, at 

 the close of the lecture, he was requested to stop, and then, to 

 his great amazement as well as pleasure, one of the pupils 

 stepped forward, and, in the name of the rest, presented him 

 with a handsome silver " pitcher," bearing an appropriate in- 

 scription. You should see how his face beams with delight 



