To-morrow, which is Thanksgiving Day, the old Puritan substitute for Christmas Day, I have promised to go to church with the Nortons. The Congregationalists, Baptists, and Unitarians all unite for the day, in the Unitarian building.
A young lady, the other night, after I was introduced, told me she had had the pleasure of looking at me (the celebrated author!) at a party a few nights before. The force of compliment could no further go. I very much doubt, however, whether the fact of my authorship has reached the serene nostrils of the Boston magnates, though Longfellow fully recognises the high merit of the Pastoral.
November 26.
In some respects this is a barren and shallow soil; but it is an immense thing to feel that you really are in all likelihood wanted, whereas in London one was wasted in occupying a place which some one else wished for. I shall send you an American edition of the poor old ‘Bothie.’ People here put it on their drawing-room tables, and think it innocent enough, which indeed, believe me, it really is: a little boyish, of course, but really childishly innocent. I read it nearly through the other morning, which I had not done since the time of its first appearance; but I had heard it alluded to so much, I thought it my duty to see what it was like.
Longfellow is a very good fellow; he gave us quite an English dinner yesterday. He had just received a present of grouse, pheasants, and milk-punch from some one he had been civil to, and issued immediately his invitations: Norton, Felton, Lowell, and me.
November 28.
Here I am with my first Anglo-American pupil, aged seventeen, at his first day’s work. He is a descendant of the old Governor Winthrop, of Cromwell’s times. He is to come three hours a day till July. But I should not wonder if before that he were across the Rocky Mountains, or filibustering in Cuba, or sowing other wild oats à la jeune Américaine. Here, however, in bodily form, to the extent of six foot one, he is, turning Greek into English, neither better nor worse, before me at the present moment. It is agreeable after a fashion to be at work again; and teaching Greek is a very innocent trade at any rate—as innocent, I should think, as most.
Last night I went to tea at Mrs. ——’s. I like herself very much; not equally so some of her friends; they do the satirical and the sarcastic, and the ill-natured and the fastidious, and the intellectual and all that, for which one had better go back to London.
December 5.
This winter is extraordinarily mild: to-day a little hoar frost, but bright sunshine all the same. The difference here in general is, that there is bright daylight from 6½ A.M. to near 6 P.M., even now just before the shortest day. You know we are in the latitude of Rome.