I must tell you something about our colony at Göttingen before I discuss other subjects, for you probably care little about the University and its host of professors, except as they operate upon us. First as to the Professor (Everett) and Dr. Ticknor, as they are called here; everybody knows them in this part of Germany, and also knows how to value them. For once in my life I am proud to acknowledge myself an American on the European side of the Atlantic: never was a country more fortunate in its representation abroad than ours has been in this instance; they will gain more for us in this respect than even in the treasures of learning they will carry back. Little as I have of patriotism, I delight to listen to the character which is here given of my countrymen; I mean as countrymen, and not as my particular friends: the despondency which it produces in my own mind of ever obtaining a place by their sides is more than counterbalanced by the gratification of my national feelings, to say not a word of my individual attachment. You must not think me extravagant, but I venture to say that the notions which the European literati have entertained of America will be essentially changed by G. and E.’s [Ticknor’s and Everett’s] residence on the Continent; we were known to be a brave, a rich, and an enterprising people, but that a scholar was to be found among us, or any man who had a desire to be a scholar, had scarcely been conceived. It will also be the means of producing new correspondences and connections between the men of the American and European sides of the Atlantic, and spread much more widely among us a knowledge of the present literature and science of this Continent.