[Boston—Saturday, 7 January 1871]
Saturday 7. Dined at Mr Longfellow’s with Mr. Fechter. The poet welcomed us with a cordiality perculiar to himself and his children with a simple sweet glad-to-see-you written over their faces which is worth a world of talk. We had a merry table-talk although Fechter was laboring under the unnatural excitement of his position in having lost his season at the Globe, broken with the proprietor Cheney who was his friend, and finding himself without an engagement for the time—also as mischance held the day Miss LeClercq his only fit support, injured herself in the afternoon and their superb audience went away disappointed. However the dinner went off beautifully as it always must with Longfellow at the helm. There was some talk of poetry and the drama and J. amused them too with anecdotes. Then we adjourned to the room of Charles the East-India man where we saw many curiosities and had a very pleasant hour before leaving. Passing through the dressing-room of our dear Longfellow I was struck with seeing how like the house of a German student it was—a Goethean aspect of simplicity and largeness everywhere—books too are put up on all the walls. It is surely a most attractive house.
