. 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.

D. Aha! the Mathematics in the Cosmos!

Was it not striking? Here are the Mathematics (Peirce), and Natural
Science (Agassiz), and they easily understand each other, because the
lecturer's principle is true.

The three or four years which Mr. Dewey spent in Boston with his family
were full of enjoyment to him; but in December, 1861, he withdrew
finally to Sheffield, which he never left again for more than a few
weeks or months at a time.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

SHEFFIELD, July 26, 1861.

MY DEAR BELLOWS,--God bless you for what you and your Sanitary
Commission are doing for our people in the camps It goes to my heart to
be sitting here in quiet and comfort, these lovely summer days, while
they [258] are braving and