November 19.
I am to settle at Cambridge next Tuesday. I suppose I shall by degrees find out the defects of the Yankee at home, but certainly they are very kind.
Here, in Boston, I am ‘the celebrated author of “The Bothie,”’ a whole edition of which was printed and sold, they say, here.
Houses are sadly dear, one is told, both in Cambridge and Boston; and things in general are said to be expensive, meat and drink excepted. Drink, however, in the shape of wine and spirits, is actually forbidden. Temperance is established by law. Only those who have stocks on hand of their own can drink; a few sellers, whose licenses have not expired, can sell. But after that there will be no selling at all. This is called Maine Law, and is said to be of great benefit in the country places, crime being greatly reduced. Dr. Howe gives no wine; at Mr. Dwight’s there was sherry and Madeira, but hardly any was drunk: three very small glasses apiece by the gentlemen—by the ladies none. Wine and spirits are certainly not required where there is so much stimulant in the air; even tea and coffee may be well dispensed with. The best drink for the climate, I think, is cocoa.
November 21.
Yesterday Emerson gave a grand dinner, in honour of my poor self apparently, at the Tremont House, where were Longfellow, Hawthorne, Greenough the sculptor, Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, Ellery Channing, Lowell, and five others—a very swell dinner, I assure you.
November 22.
I have been up and have called on Mr. Prescott and Mr. Winthrop. Cambridge is three miles from Boston, with omnibuses every quarter of an hour, and also a railway. The cold increases; snow is announced, but has not come yet here, though it has in most parts.
Cambridge: November 24.
Here I am settled at Cambridge in my own apartments, with all but my books about me: indoors and out-of-doors, north-west wind and hard frost.