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

[139] these indispensable excursions, for which, to be within bounds, I allow a month at least, it is as clear as daylight that regular work must be set aside, if, indeed, the time be now wholly lost. Now, for Heaven's sake, what will you do, or rather what shall we do, with your painter, in this interval employed by you elsewhere. Neither is this all. Though the date of Cecile's marriage is not fixed, it is more than likely to take place in January, so that you will be here for the wedding. If you will recollect the overturning of the paternal mansion when your outfit was preparing for Bienne, Zurich, and other places, you can form an idea of the state of our rooms above and below, large and small, when the work of the trousseau begins. Where, in Heaven's name, will you stow away a painter and an assistant in the midst of half a brigade of dress-makers, seamstresses, lace-makers, and milliners, without counting the accompanying train of friends? Where would you, or where could you, put under shelter your possessions (I dare not undertake to enumerate them), among all the taffetas and brocades, linens, muslin, tulles, laces, etc.? But what am I saying? I doubt if these names are still in existence, for quite other appellations are sounding