EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION 441 



by Agassiz's attachment and affection for Mr. Schuyler. 

 During the latter's frequent visits to Cambridge they 

 would spend days together at the Museum in the most 

 complete sympathy and understanding ; Agassiz at work 

 on whatever he had on hand, and Mr. Schuyler quietly 

 reading. 



In the early summer of 1907, his stepmother died 

 after a trying invalidism of several years. As she was 

 tenderly laid beside the great boulder from the glacier 

 of the Aar that, under the shade of Swiss pines, marks 

 the grave of her husband, one felt that Agassiz had 

 suddenly become an old man ; the last threads binding 

 him to the past had snapped. 



A few words from a letter written that summer may 

 suggest better than anything else the very unusual place 

 which Mrs. Agassiz held in her stepson's life. 



"I can't realize that when I go back to Boston I am 

 not going to see mother again. I do not associate her 

 in any way with Newport, as she always clung to Nahant ; 

 but when Max and I go back to Cambridge, the Quincy 

 Street house will seem very empty. Fortunately I am 

 well and can look forward to work to fill the gap which 

 has been made. But the associations of nearly thirty- 

 five years are not easily changed, and our relations were 

 so peculiar that I don't know what to style them. She 

 was my mother, my sister, my companion and friend, 

 all in one. She carried her unspoken sorrow with a 

 brave front, and was only too glad to be at last released. 

 The like of her we shall not see again. From the time 

 that I first saw her at Mr. Felton's house as Miss Cary, 

 and I only a small boy of thirteen, there never was a 

 word of disagreement ; she belonged to me and I to 



