676 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



In memory of this occasion the "Humboldt 

 Scholarship ' was founded at the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology. 



It is hardly worth while to consider now 

 whether this effort, added to the pressing work 

 of the year, hastened the attack which oc- 

 curred soon after, with its warning to Agas- 

 siz that his overtasked brain could bear no 

 farther strain. The first seizure, of short 

 duration, but affecting speech and motion 

 while it lasted, was followed by others which 

 became less and less acute until they finally 

 disappeared. For months, however, he was 

 shut up in his room, absolutely withdrawn 

 from every intellectual effort, and forbidden 

 by his physicians even to think. The fight 

 with his own brain was his greatest difficulty, 

 and perhaps he showed as much power in 

 compelling his active intellect to stultify it- 

 self in absolute inactivity for the time, as he 

 had ever shown in giving it free rein. Yet 

 he could not always banish the Museum, the 

 passionate dream of his American life. One 

 day, after dictating some necessary directions 

 concerning it, he exclaimed, with a sort of 

 despairing cry, " Oh, my Museum ! my Mu- 

 seum ! always uppermost, by day and by 

 night, in health and in sickness, always 

 always ! ' 



