THE LAST YEARS 391 



would be complete without a mention of the devoted com- 

 panionship given her by her only remaining sisters, Mrs. 

 Curtis and Miss Gary. Mrs. Curtis*s visits were her contin- 

 ual delight both in anticipation and in retrospect, while 

 Miss Gary's music never lost its charm for her. ** I long to 

 see my Emma," she writes from Arlington Heights in Sep- 

 tember, 1906, "to hear her play Ghopin, so full of passion 

 and sweetness as his music is, with a touch all her own. 

 Some one said one day on hearing her for the first time, ' I 

 have heard all the virtuosos who come to Boston, but here 

 is something I do not recognize — a personal note which 

 I hear for the first time.' I know it well and long for it." 

 To the end of her life Mrs. Agassiz's affections remained 

 strong, and in the few following letters, found in draft 

 among her papers and among the latest that she wrote, 

 the note of friendship sounds as clear and sweet as an eve- 

 ning belL 



TO OWEN WISTER 



Arlington Heights, [June, 1906] 

 Dear Owen: You will think I have neither read 

 nor enjoyed your book [Lady Baltimore], and yet I 

 have done both; but an invalid (especially one whose 

 failure makes part of her eighty-three years) has to 

 postpone many things. To tell the truth when the 

 book was brought to me it recalled the time when you 

 were just on the threshold of life, when you used to 

 look in upon me sometimes in the evening, having the 

 kindness to give me a lesson in Wagner — I was, and 

 still am, a very poor scholar on that ground. The 

 older music is to me the dearest. I remember the 



