Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/47

Rh This splendid declaration of the inalienable freedom and rights of humanity is now, however, opposed to many things in this country;how long will it be so?

I must now tell you a little about some of my friends and acquaintance here. First, my entertainers, in whose good home I live as a member of the family. Professor Hart and his wife are quiet, god-fearing people, very kind, and of an excellent class for me to be with. They two, and their sweet, little ten years old son, Morgan, constitute the whole family. Hart is an interesting and estimable man; it would certainly be difficult to find any one of a more gentle and mild disposition and manner, combined with greater energy and more capacity for work. To this is added a fine humour, and a mild, but singularly penetrative glance. He is unusually systematic in all that he undertakes, and is distinguished as the teacher and superintendant of a high school in Philadelphia for five hundred boys. He is also the editor of an extensively-read literary magazine, “Sartain's Union Magazine;” he is able to accomplish so much by an exact distribution of his time, and by doing everything at the moment when it should be done; hence he does so much, seems never to be in a hurry, or to have much to do.

My most agreeable acquaintance are the family of the Danish Chargé d'affaires here. The daughters are inexpressibly charming, lively, and full of intellect. It is very delightful to me to converse with them in my native tongue, to talk about Denmark and good friends there. The death of Öhlenschläger was astonishing news to me. He was so strong and well a year ago when I saw him at his country house, and he was more amiable than usual, and drank to the success of my journey to the New World, which was just then decided upon. One of the young ladies read that piece, which he desired to be read aloud to him as a preparation for death, a monologue of Socrates in his hour of death, written by Öhlenschläger