386 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



as a most promising young musician. This trio was 

 then played in Berlin, — brought forward by these 

 older musicians and thought by them a remarkable 

 production for so young a man. This was rehearsed 

 — ah, such a delightful afternoon. We seemed behind 

 the scenes, as it were, while the musicians discussed 

 and criticized and analyzed their work. And then 

 came songs of DreseFs; it seemed to us that he must 

 be there. 



In the summer of 1904 the record in the diary is inter- 

 rupted by Mrs. Agassiz's illness, and after this she was 

 never again able to resume the ordinary course of her life. 

 Although she was not constantly confined to her room or 

 even to the house, her days were substantially those of 

 an invalid. "The record for every day is much the same," 

 she writes in her diary on January 21, 1905. "The variety 

 comes from flowers sent in by friends — the visits of dear 

 people who come to see me and brighten up my imprison- 

 ment — many pleasant little incidents." Not the least of 

 these "pleasant incidents" were the visits of children, in 

 whom her joy remained unabated, and who flickered like 

 little flashes of sunshine across the gray hours of her in- 

 validism. It was about this time that she stationed a large 

 woolly lamb of many charms in her window to delight the 

 eyes of a neighbor's baby, it being understood that when 

 he was able to call upon her, walking alone, he was to 

 become its proud possessor. "The dearest children from 

 Hamilton," the note in her diary for January 18, 1905, 

 reads. "I had some paint-boxes for them made up in the 

 form of Httle handbags and containing everything that 

 juvenile artists could need. They were so pleased, and they 



