Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Olde Cambridge

Socially, also, it is to be remembered that Boston as well as Cambridge was then a much smaller community than now; and that the good old habit not merely of dinner parties but of mixed evening entertainments prevailed more fully. The somewhat indolent practice of afternoon teas had not then displaced the larger evening receptions, where older and younger guests met, and those who wished played whist or “Boston,” while others danced. The same was true in a degree of Cambridge society also. Longfellow's marriage in June, 1843, to Miss Frances Appleton, daughter of the Hon. Nathan Appleton of Boston, fixed him in his social relations, aided by the dignity and beauty of a charming woman. Craigie House became his own, and was perhaps more than any other dwelling in Cambridge the centre of a generous hospitality. It is evident from his published diaries that he had many foreign visitors, of whom he sometimes complains that they were more ready to give information about his country than to receive