December 23. This week I have been to several dinner
parties--one very excellent at the house of Professor Longfellow and
his handsome, delightful wife. Longfellow is an
agreeable host, and gave us American wines, sherry and champagne. The
latter is especially good; it is made from the Catawba grape at
Cincinnati. Then we dined at the home of a Swedenborgian, a professor;
and further, I have been at a "bee!" And if you would know what this
creature is in society here, then behold! If a family is reduced to
poverty by fire or sickness, and the children are in want of clothes
or anything else, a number of the ladies of the neighborhood who are
in good circumstances immediately get together at some place and sew
for them. Such a sewing assembly is called a bee! And now there
was a bee at the house of Mrs. Sparks, the wife of the president of
the university, to sew for a family who had lost all their clothing
through fire, and I was invited to be present at it. The bee-hive was
fine, busy, and gay, and had, if not honey, remarkably good milk and
cake to offer the working bees, among whom I took my place, but not to
do very much.
The above contents can be inspected in scanned images:
53, 54
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