Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/167

Rh glowing for freedom, truth and justice, combating for them in his songs and against their enemies in the social life of the New World; one of those Puritans who will not bend to or endure injustice in any form. He has a good exterior, in figure is slender and tall, a beautiful head with refined features, black eyes full of fire, dark complexion, a fine smile, and lively, but very nervous manner. Both soul and spirit have overstrained the nervous chords and wasted the body. He belongs to those natures who would advance with firmness and joy to martyrdom in a good cause, and yet who are never comfortable in society, and who look as if they would run out of the door every moment. He lives with his mother and sister in a country-house, to which I have promised to go. I feel that I should enjoy myself with Whittier, and could make him feel at ease with me. I know from my own experience what this nervous bashfulness, caused by the over-exertion of the brain, requires, and how persons who suffer therefrom ought to be met and treated.

I have had a little botanic conversation with the distinguished Professor of Botany here, Asa Gray, who came and presented me with a bouquet of fragrant violets. He gave me also out of his herbarium some specimens of the American Linnea borealis, which resembles our Swedish, but is considerably less, and has somewhat different leaves. I thought that I should botanise a great deal in this country, but God knows how it is! The good Downing sent me to-day a large basket, a gigantic basket-full of the most magnificent apples, alike splendid as excellent, and I had the pleasure of being able to treat my young friends with them. The Downings and the S——s are incomparably kind to me.

Among the curiosities of my stay in Cambridge, I set down an invitation I had one evening to go and take a walk in Paradise with Adam and Eve. The gentleman