560 THE LIFE OF JAMES I). FOR11ES. [APPEND, c. 



a broken heart at the age of fifty-four, stricken to death before 

 one trace of old age could be detected, or one physical or mental 

 power had begun to fail. 



He died here, in my house. In the difficult and wearisome 

 negotiations through which I overcame the prejudices which my 

 proposal to settle here had excited, as well as in the details of 

 the planning and construction of my Alpine home, he was of 

 unspeakable help to me. He refused the most tempting and 

 almost extravagant offers of remuneration and distinction, by 

 which one soi-disant foreign savant tried to induce him to desert 

 me, at a time when it would have gone hard with me had he 

 done so. I had earnestly hoped that I should have been able to 

 offer him a congenial employment and an honourable retirement 

 in his declining years. ' Dis aliter visum' and my hands 

 tended him in UK trial illness, and closed his eyes. In him 

 died the most skilful, brave, and intelligent of mountaineers ; a 

 man whose natural powers of observation and induction were 

 such, that had he enjoyed the blessings of early training and 

 high culture, he could scarcely, 1 think, have failed to achieve 

 eminence among men of science. As it is, a little cross of iron 

 in the churchyard of Sixt marks his humble resting-place, and 

 his memory lives in the affectionate recollection of myself ;m<l 

 of those few friends who knew him well, and can never forget 

 his gentle and self-sacrificing nature. 



