18 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



ant, simple supper at somebody's house in Cambridge, 

 the gay gathering would discuss the event of the even- 

 ing. There were private theatricals at Mrs. Charles 

 Lowell's, and German plays in which Alexander acted. 

 Were there a party in Boston, or theatrical entertain- 

 ments at the Cushings' in Belmont, or at the Cabots' 

 in Brookline, the omnibus again came forth, and the 

 fun and expense were shared by the neighbors. 



The winter vacations in those days lasted six weeks. 

 This enabled Louis Agassiz to accept an invitation to 

 deliver a course of lectures at the Medical College at 

 Charleston, South Carolina, during the winters of 1851- 

 52 and 1852-53. Here the family were most hospitably 

 received in the homes of the Rutledges and Holbrooks, 

 where young Agassiz got some experience of plantation 

 life on the Santee River. 



Mrs. Rutledge, " the most stately and hospitable of 

 Southern matrons," had given the Professor, for a labor- 

 atory, the use of her pleasant cottage on Sullivan's Is- 

 land. Here, "within hearing of the wash of the waves, 

 at the head of the beautiful sand beach which fringed 

 the island shore," the boy spent much of his time with 

 his father, studying and collecting. 



During these visits Alexander Agassiz made a num- 

 ber of warm and fast friends, so when civil war swept 

 over the land, sympathy for them was one of the rea- 

 sons that prevented him from joining the Federal army. 



Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, of Charleston, a lifelong 

 friend, in writing, shortly after his death, to his sister 

 Mrs. Higginson, says of those days : "I always think of 

 him, altho' I have seen him often since, as the charming 

 boy who came, fresh from Switzerland, and spent part 

 of a winter here with your father, Count Pourtales, and 



