CHAPTER VI 



1873-1875 

 LAKE TITICACA 



Louis Agassiz, whose health had caused more than 

 usual anxiety for some months, died on December 14, 

 1873. Eight days later, Alexander Agassiz's young wife 

 succumbed to an attack of pneumonia, the result of a cold 

 contracted on the distressing ni°ht of her father-in-law's 

 death. The innermost chamber of a strong man's nature 

 is sacred ground. This lifelong sorrow increased the nat- 

 ural reserve of his character, which afterwards seldom 

 melted except in the most intimate and congenial sur- 

 roundings ; while far below, behind an almost impene- 

 trable wall, where few indeed ever gliuiftsed, lay a wealth 

 of affection, a delicacy of feeling, a power of self-sac- 

 rifice, and a capacity for suffering, such as have been 

 given to but few men. 



Two or three extracts from his letters should make it 

 clear that be now faced life as a permanently saddened 

 man. In writing to Huxley some months later he says : 

 "Few young men have reached my age and have at- 

 tained, as it were, all their ambition might desire, and 

 yet the one thing which I crave for, and which I want 

 to keep me interested in wbat is going on, is wanting. 

 How gladly I would exchange all that I have for what 

 I have lost. But I will not burden you with my sorrows." 



On the first anniversary of his wife's death his re- 

 serve broke down in a beautiful and pathetic letter which 



