THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGASSIZ 189 



rightly that it is sometimes a mistake to hide what 

 pains and troubles us from those we love — they 

 have a right to share it, — except, of course, in cer- 

 tain circumstances where it may be necessary and 

 right. 



The biography appeared in 1885, in two volumes, under 

 the title, Louis Agassiz. His Life and Correspondence. 

 "Just now I am so anxious about my work that I find it 

 best not to speak of it. I hardly have the courage," Mrs. 

 Agassiz reports to Frau Mettenius in March of that year, 

 when it was almost completed. Upon it, however, perhaps, 

 her most permanent individual reputation rests. It is es- 

 sentially the history of Agassiz's career as a naturalist — a 

 history that she was peculiarly fitted to write by her tech- 

 nical acquaintance with his scientific investigations and 

 their relative importance. More notable, however, than 

 this familiarity is the discrimination with which she em- 

 phasized essentials and disregarded non-essentials for a 

 just comprehension of Agassiz's contributions to science. 

 Such an episode, for example, as the well-known contro- 

 versy between Agassiz and Darwin which loomed large in 

 the lives of both, although it never disturbed their friendly 

 personal relations, she passed by in silence evidently recog- 

 nizing that it was merely secondary to Agassiz's impor- 

 tant aims. But more fundamental for the understanding 

 of Mrs. Agassiz*s own nature than these characteristics of 

 the book is the degree to which she excluded herself from 

 the narrative. It is literally as if we saw the brilliant life 

 and personality of Agassiz reflected in a mirror held by an 

 invisible hand without a suspicion that the same hand had 

 ministered to him constantly for twenty-three years. 



