30 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. n. 



and now, taking an excellent artist, Joseph Dinkel, into 

 his service, he had him draw all the fossil fishes he 

 could find in the different museums ; and, full of hope 

 and never thinking of the morrow, he began his " Pois- 

 sons fossiles," trusting to good luck and his power of 

 persuasion. He was not patient enough to wait for the 

 proper moment. With him time was money, and he 

 pushed forward without regard to consequences. He 

 had such self-confidence that it is almost amusing to 

 see him writing to his father from Munich, Feb. 14, 

 1829 : " I wish it may be said of Louis Agassiz that he 

 was the first naturalist of his time, a good citizen, and 

 a good son, beloved by those who knew him. I feel 

 within myself the strength of a whole generation to 

 work toward this end, and I will reach it if the means 

 are not wanting." Strange to say, he attained his aim ; 

 if not the first, he was certainly one of the first natu- 

 ralists of the nineteenth century ; he was a good citizen 

 of Switzerland and afterward of the United States, a 

 devoted son to his father and mother, and beloved, if 

 not by all, certainly by a great many of those who 

 knew him in Europe and in America. This intuition 

 of his capacity and strength, this thought that he had 

 concentrated in him the powers of all his ancestors to 

 observe and work on natural history, is something 

 almost wonderful in its naivete. It is not strange 

 that his father was often frightened for the future of 

 such a prodigy, for such certainly Louis Agassiz was. 



During his stay in Munich, he went home only once, 

 spending there the two months of October and Novem- 

 ber, 1829. His time was passed mainly at the parson- 



