Her
cottage was a scene of gaiety by day, and revelry at night. Beautiful
girls, charming women, and distinguished men dazzled the beholder.
Singing and laughter as well as instrumental music could often be heard
there at a late hour. There are no people who are so full of good
spirits in vacation as clergymen and college-professors--it is the
reaction from their well-sustained gravity during the remainder of the
year--and there was no lack of either.
Among them all none was so brilliant as John Weiss, though Eichberg the
violinist came pretty close to him. Both were German Jews; Weiss,
however, having been born in America. He belonged to the same type of
men as James Russell Lowell and David A. Wasson. He was the friend of
both and equal to either in genius. He was the most eloquent preacher in
New England at that time, and as a humorist only second to Lowell, if
indeed second to any. His wit and his preaching were not, however, of a
popular character: something more than phlegmatic common-sense was
required to appreciate them. If he was not so popular as Lowell with the
public, he was more so among his friends, in whose list might be counted
almost every man of note and influence in Boston and vicinity. Bright
flashes of his imagination came like the sudden gleam of a diamond, and
would often convulse the company with laughter when one would least have
expected it.
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