To her sisters
Boston (1842), Friday, that's all I know about to-day.
My Dearest Chicks,
Though I have a right to be tired, having talked and danced for the two last nights, yet my enjoyment is most imperfect until I have shared it with you, so I must needs write to you, and tell you what a very nice time I am having.
Last night I went to a party at
Miss Shaw's, given to
Boz and me, at least, I was invited before he came here, so think that I will only give him an equal share of the honor.
I danced a good deal, with some very agreeable partners, and talked as usual with
Sumner,
Hillard,
1 Longo,
2 etc. I was quite pleased that Boz recognized
Fanny Appleton and myself, and gave us a smile and bow
en passant. He could do no more, being almost torn to pieces by the crowd which throngs his footsteps, wherever he goes.
I like to look at him, he has a bright and most speaking countenance, and his face is all wrinkled with the lines, not of care, but of laughter.
His manners are very free and cordial, and he seems to be as capital a fellow as one would suppose from his writings.
He circulates as universally as small change, and understands the art of gratifying others without troubling himself, of letting himself be seen without displaying himself — now this speaks for his real good taste, and shows that if not a gentleman born and bred, he is at least a man, every inch of him.
... I have had hardly the least dash of Transcendentalism,
