[256] To his Daughter Mary.
BOSTON, Feb. 10, 1861.
HAPPILY for my peace of mind, I have been over to the post-office this
evening and got your letter. For my one want has been to know how that
tremendous Thursday afternoon and night took you; that is, whether it
took you off the ground, or the roof off the house. Here, it did not
unroof any houses, but it blew over a carryall in Beacon Street; and
when Dr. J. went out, like a good Samaritan, to help the people, it did
not respect his virtue at all, but blew him over. Blew him over the
fence, it was said; at any rate; landed him on his face, which was much
bruised, and dislocated his shoulder. So you see I could not tell what
pranks the same wind might play around the corners of certain houses or
barns afar off.
Was there ever anything like the swing of the weather? Now it is warm
here again, and ready to rain. Agassiz told me that the change in
Cambridge, on Thursday, was 71? in ten hours. In Boston it was Go?,
being 100 or 1? colder in Cambridge.
I see Agassiz often of late at Peirce's Lowell Lectures on "the
Mathematics in the Cosmos." The object is to show that the same
ideas, principles, relations, which the mathematician has wrought out
from his own mind, are found in the system of nature, indicating an
identity of thought. You see of what immense interest the discussion
is. But Peirce's delivery of his thoughts is very lame and imperfect
(extemporaneous). Two lectures ago, as I sat by Agassiz, I said at the
close, "Well, I feel obliged to apologize to myself for being here."
A. Why?
[257] D. Because I don't understand half of it.
A. No? I am surprised. I do.
D. Well, that is because you are learned. (Thinking with myself,
however, why does he? For he knows no more of the mathematics than I
do. But I went on.)
D. Well, my apology is this; Peirce is like nature,-vast, obscure,
mysterious,--great bowlders of thought, of which I can hardly get hold;
dark abysses, into which I cannot see; but, nevertheless, flashes of
light here and there, and for these I come.
A. Why, yes, I understand him. Just now, when he drew that curious
diagram to illustrate a certain principle, I saw it clearly, for I know
the same thing in organic nature.