[New York—Sunday, 11 February 1872]
Awoke Sunday morning better. Wrote a letter for Mr. Beecher to print in the Christian Union about Coffee Houses at his request. Neither of us went to church in consequence.
Dined out at 2 with Mrs Knox who sang to us. Whitelaw Reid—young editor of Tribune & Misses Cleavelands were the society. Took tea out. Mrs Botta at 6. Found W. Reid again there with other bright persons. Mrs Botta presided with her accustomed grace.
February 1872. New York continued (written in cars on our return). Jamie has just left me in order to speak at Foxboro tonight. He got out at So. Framingham with a prospect of waiting there 3 hours.
After leaving Mrs Botta Sunday Evening which we did with regret, and with a feeling of her peculiar power and of my desire to write a paper a la Sainte-Beuve some day describing her, we went to Parke Godwin’s. The young ladies were in the drawing-room with three or four gentlemen, one a Frenchman who knew not one word of English. Mr. Godwin came at once from his study on hearing of our arrival but Mrs. G was ill in bed. The young ladies looked excessively jaded and weary by a continual round of parties and gayety. The room was French in its aspect, the girls half neat only but fine in their dress and altogether a “fast” air about them. I came off with a bewildered sense of something lovely half spoiled, of lives nearly wasted and yet they are good and pretty girls! I asked them to visit us in Boston and experienced rather a strong feeling of relief when they finally decided they could not get away.
