[Boston—Sunday, 7 October 1866]
Sunday. J. better, warm beautiful weather. Sent mother and Sarah to church but remained to watch Lissie who had not yet awakened and J.
Mr & Mrs Aldrich came in, Dr Bartol. Went to walk alone, over the bridges of Cambridge and Charleston. What different people can be met in going a few feet this way or that from Beacon St! I enjoy the beauty and refinement of the latter but the working intelligent people on the other side have a kindliness and warmth of exterior on a Sunday afternoon wh. you cannot find on Beacon St; they are beaming with the happiness of having nothing to do for a few hours (even the loneliest feel this) while the more intelligent suppressed their enjoyment of nature and humanity.
I shall not soon forget two German lovers, she in a red dress, fitting her figure closely, he dressed as the phrase is “to within an inch of his life” stepping along the walk in a gingerly fashion as if happiness were eggshells.
When J. was questioning Agassiz about the Dodo the other day, if he were good to eat. “Yes indeed what a peety pity we could not have the Dodo at your Club! A good deener is humanity’s greatest blessing. What a peety! But the Dutchmen carried a ship with rats to Mauritius to sucked the fine eggs, as large as a loaf, and everybody found the bird so good they did eat him, so they have become extinct. We know of but one other bird of recent date who has become extinct, the Northern Hawk. The bishop of Newfoundland did send me his bones—a great treasure.
Agassiz decided to give one hundred dollars for this Dodo and [had] the bones been perfect it could have been worth 5 times that amount.
Aldrich’s account was very facetious of seeing this box of dusty bones opened by two eager men in his presence; they were unconscious of him and he neither knew them nor what the box contained and his horror as they began to pull out skull and vertebrae knew no bounds.
