[Boston—Saturday, 14 December 1872]
Saturday Evening Dec. 14. Mr. Louis came and talked well. He also played a few of Mrs Taylor’s Brittany airs. Mr. Stanley, the Livingstone discoverer, came also and talked of his African life. He said the people among whom Livingstone was sojourning were 5000 feet above the sea. They were noble specimens of physical beauty. Stanley himself is a stalwart creature who has never thought much about being a gentleman but a great deal about being a sincere reporter and an indefatigable investigator. In strange contrast to him was George W. Curtis one of the loveliest of our noblemen. He talked of “Middlemarch” (He alone has seen the last sheets) and of the Nortons.
“Champ” was here also—the young Boston artist fresh from a summer in Europe, new French words, interviews with Couture, Daubigny, Corot and others. Full of fresh excitement and sufficient crudity—but he is such a good fellow that I feel a positive pleasure always in his society.
Mrs Leonowens sent me word she would come but she arrived this (Sunday) morning instead. She suffers deeply from the necessity of making money by speaking in public. As a woman she detests it, as a mother she performs it.
