74 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE 



surely if they still exist somewhere they would not leave me in this 

 uncertainty. But perhaps," she added, " I am not worthy of this 

 privilege, perhaps the pure and innocent souls of these infants " she 

 looked at their cradles as she spoke " enjoy their presence and the 

 happiness which has been refused me." ' [Voyages, 744.] 



De Saussure goes on to moralise as follows : 



' This curious mixture of sense and superstition, expressed forcibly 

 in the energetic local dialect, had something most out of the common, 

 something in the classic style, or rather in that of Shakespeare ; and 

 her situation, her solitude, this frenzy of a soul distracted by grief, 

 made on me an impression which will never be effaced from my 

 memory.' [Voyages, 744.]. 



His holiday over, de Saussure returned to his home at Geneva 

 and his academic career. 



In 1761 he stood for the Chair of Mathematics. With this 

 object he gave up for the moment the study of Physics and 

 Natural Science, and ' crammed ' geometry. He was, however, 

 honourably defeated by a formidable rival, Louis Bertrand, who 

 was to be his future opponent in the educational controversy, and 

 at a later date to serve on the same committee with him in the 

 revolutionary epoch. Bertrand was nine years older and already 

 a member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin. For the next 

 twelve months de Saussure consoled himself by returning to the 

 classics, and in particular to the Greek and Latin poets. Through- 

 out his life, though primarily a man of science, he was a consistent 

 supporter of the claim of the Humanities to a place in education, 

 and we shall discover him reading and quoting Homer, taking 

 Horace up Mont Blanc, and keeping an intimate journal in Greek. 

 He found another congenial occupation in prosecuting his 

 botanical studies. In 1762 he composed a treatise, Sur VEpiderme 

 des Feuilles et des Petales, of which Cuvier afterwards wrote : 

 ' This little work in itself gave him an honourable place among 

 botanists.' He dedicated it to Haller, who contributed an appre- 

 ciative preface. 



De Saussure found time to attend Tronchin's lectures on 

 Physiology. He also (in 1761) put in a second visit to Chamonix, 

 of which we have few particulars. He relates incidentally in the 

 Voyages a narrow escape he and his guide had from a stone 



