[[1]]
Nahant. nr Boston
Sunday
Dearest Hyacinth *1
This is my last letter to you from America, I am glad to say, for I am wearying
to be home & with you. I have still nearly a week's work with Dr Gray who is
indefatigably helping me with my collections. Yesterday I came here to spend
Sunday at the invitation of a Mr Russell a great friend of Dr Playfair, who sent
me a cordial invitation, & as I thought that it would be only right to relieve the
Grays of my company for a night I accepted it.
Nahant is on a rocky spit of land that projects into Boston Harbor, & is intensely
occupied by houses of wealthy Bostonares, who have spend the summer houses
here. Agassiz, Motley, Emmerson
[[2]] Longfello &c have had or have all houses here in which they spend more or
less of the summer months & I need not say that the Society is highly
intellectual. I return to Dr Grays early tomorrow morning. Mr Russell is a retired
man of business, has a wife & two daughters very good looking girls. &
nothing can exceed their kindness & attention -- but this I may say of all
Americans. I have been driving & walking about with them all day. There is
but one church, now shut up for the season, as the families are all leaving.
Service is held in it every Sunday by different preachers; Episcopalians,
Presbyterians & Unitarians, turn about, are invited to take a Sunday & are well
paid for it. The young ladies of the place make the choir & perform for all the
services, & the people attend all.
[[3]] Playfair calls it "The Church of all the Gods" which rather scandalizes the
good people here, whose liberality in religious matters is above all praise.
You will be glad to hear that Sir David Wedderburn & his mother have taken
passages in the Marathon , I shall have pleasant companions, but I hear that
she is a very slow boat. They have give[n] me a whole state cabin to myself.
Everybody here is so anxious too see you & asks for your photograph, so you
must really get some taken at once. They make you me promise to bring you
out & see the Eastern States, which I think are ten--thousand times better
worth seeing than the Western.
Thanks dear for your long letter of the [gap left in original manuscript] which
sends me such full & good accounts of the children. I hope that the measles
have left no
[[4]] ill affects on Gracie. & that Reggie's health is restored -- also that Brian
takes to Service
Mr Motley, brother of the late Historian dined with us today, a very agreeable
man who has spent much time in Europe & passed last Winter with his family
at Cannes at Hotel Bellevue: yesterday I dined at a small dining club of which
Dr Gray is a member & met Mr Adams who knew as American Minister in
England years ago, Story the sculptor, Emmerson, Mr Eliot President of
Cambridge University & many eminent & agreeable men several of whom had
called on me at Kew.
The leaves are beginning to change color here & I shall see just the beginning
of the autumn [1 word illeg.] before I leave. The weather has been splendid
hitherto.
I am so glad to hear good news of Howell[?] & your cousin in India.
With love to you, parents, & kindest regards to Hereford | ever your devoted
husband | JD Hooker.[signature]
[[5]] [Page 5 comprises a sketch illustration of Hooker, presumed to be a self
portrait.]
ENDNOTES
1. Lady Hyacinth Hooker, née Symonds then Jardine (1842--1921). Joseph
Hooker's second wife, they married in 1876.
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