LAKE TITICACA 125 



cannot be published here, written from a remote corner 

 of South America to Mrs. Louis Agassiz. It was the cry 

 of a broken-hearted man who, under a restless energy, 

 was struggling with the burden of a grief that was al- 

 most more than he could bear. — "I feel as if I were 

 acting a constant lie, but it is a harmless one which I must 

 make up my mind to keep up for many a weary year." 



In writing of a visit that Agassiz made to Sir Wy- 

 ville Thomson in the fall of 1876, Sir John Murray says: 

 " When he arrived in Edinburgh I referred to the death 

 of his wife, but he held up his hands and said, ' I can- 

 not bear it.' His expression was such that the subject 

 was never again mentioned, although he frequently 

 spoke of his boys." After this visit Agassiz writes, " I 

 can't tell you what a pleasant time I have had in Edin- 

 burgh, thanks to you and Lady Thomson. It is really 

 the first time since the death of father and my wife that 

 I have felt in the least as if there were anything to live 

 for, and I hope you have put me on the track to get 

 into harness again and do my share of the work I have 

 to do — if not with pleasure at least cheerfully." 



Although he was never again the same man, he took 

 up the burden of life so bravely that few realized the 

 depth of the shadows under which he worked. But his 

 intellectual activities were undimmed, and in the un- 

 failing interest with which he pursued the secrets of 

 nature, in the steadfast endeavor to increase the sum of 

 human knowledge, he found his " Everlasting Yea." 



A few words of his show the beacons that guided him 

 henceforth : " To live our lives as they have been made 

 for us, and live in hope, do the best we can, work hard, 

 and have as many interests as we can in what is going 

 on around us." 



