186 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



reached me yesterday. . . . All these short biographies 

 of Louis (especially if they come from any one fa- 

 miliar with the whole field of scientific investigation 

 in his department) help me in my work. They serve 

 to bind together in a compact form the salient points 

 of his life for which the materials in my hands 

 afford such ample and varied illustration. I think 

 I wrote you that I had now completed what I consider 

 as the first period — including boyhood and youth, 

 closing with his return to Switzerland from Munich 

 in 1830-1831. ... On my return to Cambridge in 

 October I hope to begin the critical reading of it 

 with Mr. Longfellow. You know how warmly he was 

 attached to Louis, and I could have no better adviser 

 or guide in the matter of literary criticism or in the 

 final selection and sorting of material. But while I 

 go on very steadily with my work and consider it 

 fairly advanced (since much of the material belonging 

 to later periods is also partially prepared), I hope 

 his friends and especially his nearest family — his 

 sisters — will not feel disappointed if I defer all 

 thought of publication for the present. Were the 

 work completed, I am daily more convinced that 

 some years had better pass before its appearance. It 

 seems to me much better that time should mellow 

 the crude and often prejudiced appreciations of a 

 distinguished man's life and work, before the final 

 word is spoken about it. My feeling about this does 

 not diminish my industry, but I should like when 

 the book is done to put it away and let it ripen in 

 the dark for a while — not without hope that when 



