EUROPE 281 



diaries. Although at this time she was preoccupied by many 

 anxieties, her power of cheerful enjoyment, her incapabiHty 

 of grumbhng, and her habitual self-forgetfulness provided 

 her with the traveller's silver spoon no less at seventy- 

 two years than in the days in Brazil and on the Hassler. 

 In spite of her age she was undaunted by the exigencies 

 of travel and unfoiled by lack of vigor from improving her 

 opportunities for pleasure. When she was in the Dolomites 

 and Tyrol, for instance, sohtary mountain rambles in the 

 early morning were her deHght, nor did they afford her a 

 reason for passing the rest of the day in dolcefar niente. "A 

 heavenly day," she recorded in her diary at Zell-am-See on 

 August 18, 1895. "Breakfasted at 6.30 in my room. A 

 beautiful walk. Packed. Afternoon, ascended the Schmit- 

 tenhohe, Helen [Mrs. Richard Gary] and I each in one of 

 those queer chairs. The path excessively steep and none 

 too safe. I walked down, but Helen who kept to her chair 

 was upset, but not hurt." In her sight- seeing, in general, 

 however, Mrs. Agassiz combined with the zest of one score 

 the good sense of three score and ten years. In Paris and 

 Italy she enjoyed the advantage of having an accompHshed 

 cicerone for the galleries in Mr. Shaw, whose long study 

 and great love of art, as well as his experience and that of 

 Mrs. Shaw in making choice additions to his valuable col- 

 lection, had for many years supplemented her own admit- 

 tedly slight acquaintance with painting and sculpture. "I 

 have to thank Quin," she writes from Rome, " not only for 

 bringing me to see pictures, but for teaching me all these 

 years to enjoy them, for his pictures are really an educa- 

 tion. I enjoy pictures now as I should not have done in my 

 earher days." 



