STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 135 



devotion, and less of generous self-sacrifice, renders 

 these early days doubly interesting. Let the abate- 

 ment of high hopes come when it may, the exist- 

 ence of an aspiration is itself important. I have 

 been lately reading over again the letters of Cuvier 

 when an obscure youth, and they have given me 

 quite a new feeling with regard to him. 



There is a good reason why novels always end 

 with the marriage of the hero and heroine ; our in- 

 terest is always more excited by the struggles than 

 by the results of victory. So long as the lovers 

 are unhappy or apart, and are eager to vanquish 

 obstacles, our sympathy is active; but no sooner 

 are they happy, than we begin to look elsewhere 

 for other stragglers on whom to bestow our inter- 

 est. It is the same with biography. We follow 

 the hero through the early years of struggle with 

 intense interest, and as long as he remains unsuc- 

 cessful, baffled by rivals or neglected by the world, 

 we stand by him and want him to succeed ; but the 

 day after he is recognized by the world our sym- 

 pathy begins to slacken. 



It is this which gives Cuvier's Letters to Pfaff* 

 their charm. I confess that M. le Baron Cuvier, 

 administrator, politician, academician, professor, dic- 

 tator, has always had but a very tepid interest for 

 me, probably because his career early became a, con- 

 tinuous success, and Europe heaped rewards upon 



* Lettres de Georges Cuvier a C. M. Pfaff, 1788-92. Traduites 

 de 1'Allemand, par Louis Marchant, 1858. 



