LOUIS AGASSIZ. 487 
since he had intended at some future time to do the same 
thing; but that, as I had given it so much attention, and had 
done my work so well, he had decided to renounce his project, 
and to place at my disposition all the materials he had col- 
lected and all the preliminary notes he had taken.” 
Within three months Cuvier fell under‘a stroke of paralysis, 
and shortly died. The day before the attack he had said to 
Agassiz, “ Be careful, and remember that work kills.” We 
doubt if it often kills naturalists, unless when, like Cuvier, 
they also become statesmen. 
But to live and work, the naturalist must be fed. It was a 
perplexing problem how possibly to remain a while longer in 
Paris, which was essential to the carrying on of his work, and 
to find the means of supplying his very simple wants. And 
here the most charming letters in these volumes are, first, the 
one from his mother, full of tender thoughtfulness, and mak- 
ing the first suggestion about Neuchatel and its museum, as a 
place where the aspiring naturalist might secure something 
more substantial than “brilliant hopes” to live upon; next, 
that from Agassiz to his father, who begs to be told as much 
as he can be supposed to understand of the nature of this 
work upon fossil fishes, which called for so much time, labor, 
and expense; and, almost immediately, Agassiz’s letter to his 
parents, telling them that Humboldt had, quite spontaneously 
and unexpectedly, relieved his present anxieties by a credit of 
a thousand frances, to be increased, if necessary. Humboldt 
had shown a friendly interest in him from the first, and had 
undertaken to negotiate with Cotta, the publisher, in his be- 
half; but, becoming uneasy by the delay, and feeling that “a 
man so laborious, so gifted, and so deserving of affection .. . 
should not be left in a position where lack of serenity disturbs 
his power of work,” he delicately pressed the acceptance of 
this aid as a confidential transaction between two friends of 
unequal age. 
Indeed, the relations between the “two friends,” one at 
that time sixty-three, and the other twenty-five, were very 
beautiful, and so continued, as the correspondence shows. 
Humboldt’s letters (we wish there were more of them) are 
