the lecture
to her. I perhaps never felt the influence of that face more powerfully
than to-night. I had spoken for a few minutes, when Madame Modjeska,
accompanied by her husband, arrived and took a seat on the first row of
the orchestra stalls. To be able to entertain the great _tragedienne_
became my sole aim, and as soon as I perceived that I was successful, I
felt perfectly proud and happy. I lectured to her the whole evening. Her
laughter and applause encouraged me, her beautiful, intellectual face
cheered me up, and I was able to introduce a little more acting and
by-play than usual.

I had had the pleasure of making Madame Modjeska's acquaintance two
years ago, during my first visit to the United States, and it was a
great pleasure to be able to renew it after the lecture.

I will go and see her _Ophelia_ to-morrow night.

* * * * *

_January 27._

Spent the whole morning wandering about Boston, and visiting a few
interesting places. Beacon Street, the public gardens, and Commonwealth
Avenue are among the finest thoroughfares I know. What enormous wealth
is contained in those miles of huge mansions!

The more I see Boston, the more it strikes me as a great English city.
It has a character of its own, as no other American city has, excepting
perhaps Washington and Philadelphia. The solidity of the buildings, the
parks, the quietness of the women's dresses, the absence of the twang in
most of the voices, all remind you of England.

After lunch I called on Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. The "Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table" is now over eighty, but he is as young as ever, and
will die with a kind smile on his face and a merry twinkle in his eyes.
I know no more delightful talker than this delightful man. You may say
of him that every time he talks he says something. When he asked me what
it was I had found most interesting in America, I wished I could have
answered: "Why, my dear doctor, to see and to hear such a man as you, to
be sure!" But the doctor is so simple, so unaffected, that I felt an
answer of that kind, though perfectly sincere, would not have been one
calculated to please him. The articles "Over the Tea Cups," which he
writes every month for the _Atlantic Monthly_, and which will soon
appear in book form, are as bright, witty, humorous, and philosophic as
anything he ever wrote. Long may he live to delight his native land!

* * * *