_Professor and Mrs. Louis Agassiz.—Prof. Alexander Agassiz.—Papanti’s
Dancing-school.—I Invent Fancy Dances.—We Swim, Skate, and Ride on
Horseback.—Boston’s Purple-glass Windows._
AMONG the pleasant friends who came to “Green Peace” were Professor and
Mrs. Louis Agassiz. Thus it naturally happened that I was sent to the
Agassiz School. The journey from South Boston to Cambridge took so long,
in those days, that I gave it up after three months’ trial. As I was
then only twelve years of age, I did not fully appreciate the advantages
offered by the school—advantages of which girls from distant parts of
the United States were very glad to avail themselves. The special
feature of the school, however, even the youngest pupils were old enough
to enjoy. Who could help enjoying the closing hour of the day when the
scholars assembled in the big class-room to listen to a delightful talk
from the lips of the great naturalist himself? As he stood before the
great blackboard, now drawing figures, now explaining to us the
development of the little animals whose growth forms the coral reefs,
the movement of the glaciers, or the reason of the gradual recession of
Niagara Falls, we sat listening to his words with eager interest. He
adapted himself to our youthful comprehension with the utmost ease—or,
if there was any effort made, it was not an apparent one.
A great charm of these talks was that in them the professor brought us
the fresh fruits of his own experience. He had personally investigated
the glaciers before coming to America. The theory that they had once
covered the earth originated with him, if I remember aright. He had also
visited the coral reefs. I have understood from Prof. Alexander Agassiz
that his father’s views about these were not fully accepted by later
scientists. To the lay mind it would appear that Science is almost as
fickle as Fashion!
Of Darwinism Professor Agassiz was a vigorous opponent. The new doctrine
seemed to him irreconcilable with the idea of a divine Providence, and
would, he feared, destroy the faith of mankind. Professor Agassiz and
Professor Asa Gray found themselves diametrically opposed on this
question. There is a legend of a lively meeting between them in
Cambridge, where words almost led to blows!
An account of the Agassiz School would be incomplete if it did not
mention the Agassiz omnibus, a white, high-stepped vehicle which took
its winding way through the thoroughfares of old-fashioned Boston,
calling for the girls at streets and places which have now vanished into
the past like the old ’bus itself, or, if they exist at all, exist only
as soulless business streets, with great granite blocks of shops
replacing the dear old houses shaded by lofty trees.
The purple-glass windows which they had inherited from an earlier
generation (some are still to be seen on Beacon Hill) furnished
indisputable proof of the wonderful virtue of early Boston boys, or of
the extreme watchfulness of Puritan parents.
While there were some very studious girls, about whose profound learning
wonderful stories were whispered, who patronized the Agassiz omnibus,
there were also fashionable and rather frivolous young ladies among our
number—who danced at balls and parties in the evening and as a natural
consequence came to school very tired in the morning. Human nature in
mid-Victorian days was very much as it is now. One sad memory is
indissolubly connected with the Agassiz omnibus. It relates to the hats
I wore—and to those which, had fate permitted, I should have liked to
wear. The views of my dear mother on the subject of headgear differed
from those of her neighbors. In Boston the sumptuary laws of this period
prescribed that your hat should be as nearly as possible the exact ditto
of that worn by every other woman and girl in the town. During this
particular spring white-straw bonnets, trimmed with green ribbon outside
and pink ribbon inside, were the regulation wear. Now blue was my color,
and my bonnet was garnished with a ribbon of bluish gray tint, more
becoming to me than the universal pink. I was prepared to accept this
variation from type, the bonnet being pretty in itself. But, alas! this
was not the worst. Our mother also had an idea that round hats were more
suitable for school-girls than bonnets. Accordingly, I was provided with
a brown straw shade-hat, the brim of which seemed huge to my excited
imagination. It was expected that I should wear this to school,
reserving the bonnet for best.
I adopted the desperate expedient of wearing my winter bonnet out of the
proper season. Oh, how I scrutinized the girls, as they entered the
omnibus, to see how many still wore their winter bonnets! Several
obligingly did so, but their number became daily less. At last I was
driven from the burrow—or trench—of that velvet bonnet and obliged to
come out into the open. A few times I tremblingly wore the huge round
hat—the only one in the stage. Once or twice I took refuge in the
Cambridge street-cars—but here lurked the danger of Harvard students
with their critical eyes. At last I boldly put on the Sunday blue
bonnet. What if it did fade and wither from too frequent exposure? At
least I should be saved from wearing the despised round hat!
Even then, however, there were exceptions to this sumptuary law,
practised in Cambridge itself, had I only known it.
It was perhaps in this very year, 1858, that Charles Francis Adams, Jr.,
then a student at Harvard, drew upon himself a remonstrance from his
fellows on account of his headgear, to which he made the following
reply:
_“An Adams can wear any sort of hat he wishes.”_
His fellow-student, my brother-in-law, related this story to me many
years afterward, in a grieved spirit. I assured, him that Charles
Francis Adams, Jr., was right. Certain families of the Hub possessed at
that date a prescriptive right to dress as they pleased, every one
knowing who they were.
Young Mr. Adams, far from showing conceit, was simply illumining the way
for us all in the direction of personal independence.
The Agassiz School was held in the professor’s own pleasant house on
Quincy Street, Cambridge, very near Harvard College. Probably the older
girls were conscious of this fact, but I was too young to bear it much
in mind. The students whom I met occasionally in the street seemed to me
great and august beings. Time, however, brings its revenges. In later
life, when my sons were undergraduates, I had occasion to revisit
Cambridge. The students no longer inspired me with awe; whether they
were afraid of me or not I cannot say.
In his charming wife Professor Agassiz had a most efficient helpmeet who
entered into all his plans and followed his work with loving zeal and
intelligence. Mrs. Agassiz, who survived her husband for many years, was
a very charming woman. She had a noble and whole-souled nature, which
one fancied was contagious, for the moment at least. I think it would
have been impossible to do a mean thing while in her company.
In the days of the Agassiz School she was still a young woman, and we
all felt that she was the presiding genius of the establishment as she
flitted from room to room in her pretty, trim morning dress and cap with
its fresh flowing ribbons, which seemed to correspond so well with the
sweetness and freshness of her disposition. She heard the lessons of the
younger pupils, but I am sure that she exercised a sweet and wholesome
influence over all the scholars, old and young.
Prof. Alexander Agassiz taught in his father’s school. I remember him in
those days as a handsome, rather melancholy-looking young man who was
suspected of being afraid of the biggest girls. Not long afterward he
married one of them, Miss Anna Russell, daughter of my father’s old
chum, George Russell. Prof. Alexander Agassiz was much more reserved and
grave than his father, whose genial temperament was full of warmth and
sunshine. Occasionally he also gave us a lecture.
During many years of his life, Louis Agassiz worked through a great part
of the night, sleeping very late in the morning. It is said that one
Sunday morning Mrs. Agassiz, while dressing for church, suddenly called
out, “Agassiz! there is a snake in my boot!” To which the Professor
drowsily replied, “I wonder where the others are!”
I remember a lecture where he showed us an orange to represent a
sea-urchin. With a sudden movement he opened the fruit, which we then
saw had been cut, into the form of a starfish, thus showing the
relationship between the two types of creatures, and the audience burst
into applause.
In 1859 our parents made a visit to the West Indies which our mother
described in _A Trip to Cuba_. We children stayed with various relatives
and friends, Mrs. Charles H. Dorr, at that time living in Jamaica Plain,
hospitably receiving me. I thus came to know the young girls living in
that pleasant suburb, and to attend the school of Miss Lucia M. Peabody.
The double attraction was so strong that I was willing to take the trip
of some six miles daily, for more than three years, walking from South
Boston to the Jamaica Plain horse-car in Boston.
Miss Peabody not only loved study herself, but made it attractive to
others. She was an excellent teacher, to whom I owe much gratitude.
If it had not been for Charlotte Bowditch, I should have been the first
scholar in arithmetic. But Charlotte, who was a granddaughter or
great-niece of the famous navigator, was hopelessly ahead of us all.
This was an excellent thing for my vanity.
Among my school memories is that of a very extraordinary dictionary
belonging to one of my friends. The learned German—he must have been a
German—who compiled it had evidently been imposed upon by some wag. Thus
the synonyms for “to die” were given as “to kick the bucket,” “to hop
the twig,” “to go to Davy Jones’s locker.” I do not think the book was
vicious, but it abounded in slang. Perhaps it was prepared for the use
of sailors in foreign ports!
Our physical culture began early. We learned to swim without especial
instruction, each one of us following out his or her own ideas, brother
Harry keeping his head under water, sister Julia paddling dog-fashion, I
swimming on my back.
We learned to ride very young, beginning with José, a little Spanish
donkey presented to us by Albert Sumner, a brother of Charles. He had
been for some years the mount of Mr. Sumner’s daughter Kate, and was an
animal of high character. In his letter of introduction Mr. Sumner duly
sets forth José’s many excellent traits, mentioning also that as he came
from Barbary he must be a pure Barb! He was a gentle animal, but
possessed of the amiable determination characteristic of his species. He
never bit, kicked, nor scratched, but he was a person of dignity and his
movements were marked by great deliberation. The only way in which we
could coax him out of a walk was to run before him, holding out a piece
of bread. This soon became fatiguing to the advance courier.
When we had a children’s party, he was brought out for the entertainment
of the visitors. José did not like to have strange children on his back,
and could tell at once when the reins were in the hands of an
inexperienced rider. In this case he would turn toward the fence,
putting his head and forefeet under the lowest board. He thus obliged
the child either to dismount or to come in contact with the fence.
Sometimes he would vary the proceedings by running to the barn.
Indeed, running away was one of José’s accomplishments, so inconsistent
is donkey nature. The fences at South Boston were from time to time
adorned with little posters bearing the legend: “Lost—a small brown
donkey. The finder will please return him,” etc.
Once my brother Harry, who was perhaps eight years of age, received an
official letter beginning, “Sir, your ass is in the pound.”
José was from time to time the shrine of a singular pilgrimage. A group
of people, bearing a child sick with whooping-cough, would arrive at
“Green Peace” and ask to interview our donkey. The parents took their
station, one on each side of José, and passed the child to each other
three times over and under the animal. In order to make the cure
complete, a piece of bread was put in the donkey’s mouth and then given
to the child. The superstition rests on the theory that the donkey is a
sacred animal, since Christ once rode on him; witness the cross upon his
back.
We owned for a time another donkey—Billy—who possessed a most unamiable
disposition. He was not our friend and companion like José, and we did
not ride on his back. He formed part of a donkey tandem which we drove
at Newport, our uncle Sam having given us a delightful pony-carriage and
harness. When we went abroad in this little conveyance a dreadful danger
lurked by the wayside, for the Andersons’ donkey lived in a field
bordering on the road over which we were obliged to pass. Like the evil
spirit in the story of the _Three Goats Brausewind_, he accosted us in a
very rude way. José and Billy were evidently moved by the appeal of
their fellow-donkey, and we were greatly troubled in mind. For a tandem,
as every one knows, is a most difficult team to drive, even when
undisturbed by asinine conversation.
My father trained us all to ride first with a leading-rein, afterward
alone. By his side we rode many miles about the country. With Cora, our
pretty but imperfectly broken colt, I had some terrifying moments. We
were in the habit of going out tête-à-tête, she and I, and all would go
well until we met an ice-wagon, or crossed a certain railroad bridge.
Then she would shy and run, but fortunately I did not fall off.
Lorenzo Papanti, his dancing-classes and his hall, were among the
institutions of old Boston. It was said that this accomplished veteran
had instructed three generations of Bostonians in the art of dancing. He
was by no means young when I first remember him, although his dark wig
doubtless made him look older than he really was; his blue-gray eyes
would have appeared less fishlike, his complexion less red and mottled,
had he appeared before us without this adornment. For a man with a bald
head to teach dancing might, it is true, seem incongruous. He was always
in evening dress, dignified and graceful in his movements, as became one
of his profession. Age had no power to wither him. He bore a strong
resemblance to William Warren, the noted actor. When I saw portraits of
the latter on cigar-boxes labeled “Boston’s favorite,” I supposed they
were likenesses of Papanti.
In these days of division of labor it seems wonderful to remember that
he had no assistant. He taught us to dance, playing at the same time on
his fiddle. He kept us in good order, routing the truants out of the
dressing-rooms if we stayed there too long to play and talk. He had the
Italian genius for governing, inherited, doubtless, from the ancient
Romans.
When Mr. Papanti sounded a preliminary flourish on his fiddle and asked
us to take partners for the quadrille or the lancers, the boys did not
rush joyously forward, as might have been expected. Our master was often
obliged to lead them out in a long, reluctant line, dragging back as
much as they dared. With some twenty or thirty boys in tow, he would
approach the girls, who were not very encouraging. It was pleasanter to
dance with your girl friends than with strange boys who had little to
say. A certain Master J—— once ejaculated, “My stars!” in talking to his
partner. We considered this very bad form. There were one or two little
boys of greater conversational powers whom we admired.
Mr. Papanti duly instructed the elect of the class in the gavotte. It
was a proud moment when you were chosen to take part in this. The
“shawl” dance was even more select. The single couple—a brother and
sister—who danced this had reached the height of human ambition at
Papanti’s.
The hall had a delightful spring floor, the like of which I have never
beheld. It yielded beneath your feet like a live thing!
When we were children dancing was one of our home pleasures. Our mother,
who had an endless store of operatic airs in her memory, would sit down
at the grand piano at the children’s hour. As her nimble fingers struck
the keys away we all went, each doing a _pas seul_ of some sort.
To sister Julia belongs the credit of inventing the “frog” minuet. This
is only suitable for very young children. You go down on your hands and
knees, then you lift first the right arm and knee, after that the left,
all in time to the music. The movement is rather slow.
My mother’s passionate fondness for music and love of dancing in her
youth have been mentioned elsewhere. Small wonder that these dramatic
airs, as she played them, stirred the little daughter to whom dancing
was the natural mode of expression. My performances were no doubt
admired by the family much more than they deserved. As we were still
lingering in a certain degree of Puritanism, the invention of fancy
dances was then rare.
Among those which I “originated” were dances for the four seasons, and
the dagger dance—usually performed with a silver fruit-knife—of Lady
Macbeth. Intimate friends of the family were allowed to witness these.
Alas! I once cast the dagger from me with so noble a passion that it
narrowly missed one of the guests. After that greater reserve was
necessary.
Our mother was quick to recognize and to praise any little manifestation
of talent or originality on our part. She did not look with an entirely
favorable eye upon our competitors. Thus neither she nor I wholly
approved of the performance of a little girl who danced the cachucha,
with castanets, at a party in Providence. In the daytime the child was
not as pretty as by gaslight. I suspect that she was freckled. However,
she did not again cross my orbit.
In West Roxbury lived another young girl who danced, Miss Emily Russell,
a daughter of Mr. George Russell. Her performances were more ambitious
than mine, being conducted on the footboard of a bedstead. Friends were
invited to see these, one lady appearing in diamonds and a corn-colored
barège. The costume aroused some criticism. I have already intimated
that in old Boston it was necessary to dress with discretion.
My father taught us to skate first with one foot, thereby avoiding some
tumbles. There was a great revival of skating shortly before the Civil
War. Jamaica Pond was in high favor, the cars going there being jammed
with people. Father revived his skating, as did many older people, a
certain general arousing unfavorable comment by appearing on double
runners—_i.e._, skates with two blades.
To me the exercise was even more delightful than riding on horseback. I
still dream of flying along on skates in the most wonderful manner.
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