k to his regiment at Montreal on
Monday, and had agreed to live with us in the mean while) sat down in a
spacious and handsome room to a very handsome dinner, bating
peculiarities of putting on table, and had forgotten the ship entirely.
A Mr. Alexander, to whom I had written from England promising to sit for
a portrait, was on board directly we touched the land, and brought us
here in his carriage. Then, after sending a present of most beautiful
flowers, he left us to ourselves, and we thanked him for it."

What further he had to say of that week's experience finds its first
public utterance here. "How can I tell you," he continues, "what has
happened since that first day? How can I give you the faintest notion of
my reception here; of the crowds that pour in and out the whole day; of
the people that line the streets when I go out; of the cheering when I
went to the theatre; of the copies of verses, letters of congratulation,
welcomes of all kinds, balls, dinners, assemblies without end? There is
to be a public dinner to me here in Boston, next Tuesday, and great
dissatisfaction has been given to the many by the high price (three
pounds sterling each) of the tickets. There is to be a ball next Monday
week at New York, and 150 names appear on the list of the committee.
There is to be a dinner in the same place, in the same week, to which I
have had an invitation with every known name in America appended to it.
But what can I tell you about any of these things which will give you
the slightest notion of the enthusiastic greeting they give me, or the
cry that runs through the whole country? I have had deputations from the
Far West, who have come from more than two thousand miles' distance:
from the lakes, the rivers, the back-woods, the log houses, the cities,
factories, villages, and towns. Authorities from nearly all the States
have written to me. I have heard from the universities, Congress,
Senate, and bodies, public and private, of every sort and kind. 'It is
no-nonsense, and no common feeling,' wrote Dr. Channing to me yesterday.
'It is all heart. There never was, and never will be, such a triumph.'
And it is a good thing, is it not, . . . to find those fancies it has
given me and you the greatest satisfaction to think of, at the core of
it all? It makes my heart quieter, and me a more retiring, sober,
tranquil man, to watch the effect of those thoughts in all this noise
and hurry, even than if I sat, pen in hand, to