Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, third edition

[496] (the ‘Hollow Tree’), an exquisitely pretty and picturesque country place in the neighborhood of Charleston. Here Agassiz had been received almost as one of the family on his first visit to Charleston, shortly after his arrival in the United States. Dr. Holbrook's name, as the author of the ‘Herpetology of South Carolina,’ had long been familiar to him, and he now found a congenial and affectionate friend in the colleague and fellow-worker, whose personal acquaintance he had been anxious to make. Dr. Holbrook's wife, a direct descendant of John Rutledge of our revolutionary history, not only shared her husband's intellectual life, but had herself rare mental qualities, which had been developed by an unusually complete and efficient education. The wide and various range of her reading, the accuracy of her knowledge in matters of history and literature, and the charm of her conversation, made her a delightful companion. She exercised the most beneficent influence upon her large circle of young people, and without any effort to attract, she drew to herself whatever was most bright and clever in the society about her. The ‘Hollow Tree,’ presided over by its hospitable host and hostess was, therefore,