[Boston—Saturday, 2 November 1867]
November 2d The funeral of this great good man! I met Horatio Woodman on my way home yesterday who has been the person to arrange everything for the suffering family. He told me he was coming at Mrs Andrew’s request to say we were expected at the house at ten minutes before eleven today. We found the little house very full although there were but a few of us but it has been a tiny place for them to live in. It was a wretched company enough and the dreariness was only made more dark by the rushing about of Mrs Charles Dorr & Mrs S.G. Howe whispering in penetrating sounds of this, that and the other thing which Mrs Andrew ought to have done.
We did not stop to be called but walked round to the church. The sun was shining through a veil of autumnal mist, the air was warm, the trees shaking their last gold leaves pensively in the blue sky. It was a lovely season and tempered like the nature of the friend we had lost. Mr Agassiz joined us in the garden & we proceeded together to the Arlington St. church. We found an immense crowd already assembled and took our places with no little difficulty. The bells tolled & chimed and the church grew fuller & fuller, people being repressed only with the greatest difficulty—at last the service began. I had shuddered at first for poor Mrs Andrew but I felt sadly no longer after hearing Mr Clarke’s service and his tribute; nothing could have been more fitting or beautiful or inspiring.
A young Mr Daniel MacCrea of Scotland dined with us last night, the son of a clergyman and a man of great talent. His enunciation of the English language is beautiful. Talking of books we stumbled curiously enough on one called “Frost & Fire” printed anonymously and when I asked mischievously if he wrote it, never thinking it probable, he blushed and turned away from the subject so uneasily that we felt sure we had fallen either upon the author or his brother.
