50 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



of him with respect and affection as a man, fully confirms this 

 opinion of him as an author. He writes: 'Arrived at Geneva, I 

 made acquaintance with M. Senebier, who encouraged me in the 

 wish to study the philosophy of plants, and gave me useful advice. 

 He was a man of varied but superficial learning who had written 

 a great many diffuse and ill-arranged books wanting in clearness 

 of expression, without close argument, and in a wearisome style.' 

 After describing Sene bier's merits as a botanist and chemist, 

 de Candolle goes on to bear testimony to his inexhaustible kindness, 

 and concludes : ' I became sincerely attached to him. I kept up 

 intimate relations with this worthy man until his death. I have 

 had his bust placed in the Botanical Garden at Geneva, and I have 

 always preserved for his memory a most tender recollection and 

 sincere gratitude.' 1 



The worthy Librarian's effusiveness frequently palls on the 

 modern reader, but we do not doubt him when he assures us that de 

 Saussure's invalid mother was the centre of his home and the 

 main formative influence in his character. She was, he writes, 

 ' his best friend ; she taught him to endure hardships and privations, 

 to sacrifice cheerfully pleasure to duty, and to possess the philo- 

 sophic mind.' She is described as a woman of intellectual tastes 

 who lived a more or less retired life hi her quiet home at Frontenex, 

 surrounded by flowers and animals. From the time of the 

 birth of her first child she never enjoyed good health and was 

 constantly confined to her sofa, and both her children seem to 

 have inherited her constitution and tastes rather than those of 

 the robust country gentleman who was their father. 



Though by birth a citizen of Geneva, Horace Benedict was 

 in no sense a town boy. Up to the age of twenty-five, until his 

 marriage, his home was in the country, among fields and hedge- 

 rows and poplar avenues, with a wonderful landscape of lake 

 and mountain always within reach. At the age of ten, on his 

 grandfather's death, his parents moved to the family property 

 at Frontenex, near the Thonon road. They had no home in 

 the city. 



To what extent his hero's career has been influenced by the 

 surroundings of his childhood and early years must always be an 

 interesting matter of inquiry to a biographer. De Saussure on 

 1 Memoires et Souvenirs de A. P. de Candolle, p. 47, Geneve, Cherbuliez, 1862. 



