y to me. He was a Swedish Count, who had passed, it was said, a very
wild life as pirate for several years on the Spanish Main. He was
identified as the Count Bruno of Frederica Bremer's novel, "The
Neighbours." The other was the famous philologist, Dufief, author of
"Nature Displayed," a work of such remarkable ability that I wonder that
it should have passed into oblivion.

My mother had been from her earliest years devoted to literature to a
degree which was unusual at that time in the United States. She had
been, as a girl, a special _protegee_ of Hannah Adams, the author of many
learned works, who was the first person buried in the Mount Auburn
Cemetery of Boston. She directed my mother's reading, and had great
influence over her. My mother had also been very intimate with the
daughters of Jonathan Russell, the well-known diplomatist. My maternal
grandfather was Colonel Godfrey, who had fought in the war of the
Revolution, and who was at one time an aide-de-camp of the Governor of
Massachusetts. He was noted for the remarkable gentleness of his
character. I have heard that when he went forth of a morning, all the
animals on his farm would run to meet and accompany him. He had to a
miraculous degree a certain sympathetic power, so that all beings, men
included, loved him. I have heard my mother say that as a girl she had a
tame crow who was named Tom, and that he could distinctly cry the word
"What?" When Tom was walking about in the garden, if called, he would
reply "What?" in a perfectly human manner.

When I was one month old, General Lafayette visited our city and passed
in a grand procession before the house. It is one of the legends of my
infancy that my nurse said, "Charley shall see the General too!" and held
me up to the window. General Lafayette, seeing this, laughed and bowed
to me. He was the first gentleman who ever saluted me formally. When I
reflect how in later life adventure, the study of languages, and a French
Revolution came into my experiences, it seems to me as if Count Bruno,
Dufief, and Lafayette had all been premonitors of the future.

I was a great sufferer from many forms of ill-health in my infancy.
Before my second birthday, I had a terrible illness with inflammation of
the brain. Dr. Dewees (author of a well-known work on diseases of women
and children), who attended me, said that I was insane for a week, and
that it was a case without parallel. I mention this because