[Boston—Saturday, 24 November 1866]
Saturday. Lissie has been gone since Thursday morning; we miss her sadly. Jamie dines with Club today. Think I have a good little maid and am busy getting her in training. The weather grows cold. Have written almost nothing—and read little except scraps of Virgil which seems more beautiful than ever.
Spoke with Mary Quincy Gould coming from the concert last night. She says her husband has discovered the difference in the longitude between Europe and America—a disputed point never before settled. Prof. Airey was on the eve of the same result but Dr Gould stepped in before him. Airey has behaved most kindly and like a true gentleman.
Walked in the moonlight with J. to the Post-office evening resplendent and cold.
J. told us at night there were but 2 strangers at the Club. Gov. Pendleton of Ohio and Captain Shannon (french) at the last. Lowell, Holmes, Norton, Agassiz, Dr Estes Howe, Shannon & he walked home together. Lowell drank two bottles of claret and smoked a large number of cigars (7 or 8) and when Norton urged his going home with him for a while he said “no I won’t I am only a mass of ’baccy”—I wonder if he reflected that the same “mass” must go to his own home.
The subject of capital punishment in schools came up for discussion. Dr Holmes said, “just forty years ago I was whipped at school for a slight offense, whipped with a ferule right across the hands so that I went home with a blue mark where the blood had settled and for a fortnight the hands were stiff from the blows and swollen. The other day an old man called at my home and inquired for me, he was bent and could just creep along. When he came in he said, how do you do, Sir, do you recollect your old teacher Mr Senter—I did, perfectly,—He sat and talked a while about indifferent subjects but I saw something rising in his throat and I knew it was that whipping. After a while he said, I came to ask your forgiveness for whipping you once when I was in anger—perhaps you have forgotten it, but I have not. It had weighed upon his mind all these years, he must be rid of it before lying down to sleep peacefully.
Lowell said that reminded him of experiments the boys at his school used to make on flies, to see how much weight they could carry. One day he attached a thread which he picked out of his silk handkerchief to a fly’s leg and to the other end a bit of paper with “the master is a fool” written on it in small distinct letters. The fly flew away and lighted on the master’s nose but he regardless of all but to lessons brushed him off and the fly rose with his burden to the ceiling.
Agassiz told queer tales of Brazilian ants, how they swarmed into the houses and would remain 3 days until they had devoured everything; in the meantime the family had to move away.
