BIRTHDAY FETE. 196 



like Neuchatel, whatever may be growing up 

 within me will have a more independent and 

 individual development than in this restless 

 Paris, where obstacles or difficulties may not 

 perhaps divert me from a given purpose, but 

 may disturb or delay its accomplishment. I 

 will therefore so shape my answer to Levrault 

 as to undertake only single portions of the 

 work, the choice of these, on account of my 

 interest in the fossil and the fresh-water fishes, 

 being allowed me, with the understanding, 

 also, that I should be permitted to have these 

 collections in Switzerland and work them up 

 there. From Paris, also, it would not be so 

 easy to transfer myself to Germany, whereas 

 I could consider Neuchatel as a provisional 

 position from which I might be called to a 

 German university. . . . 



In the mean time, while waiting hopefully 

 the result of his negotiations with Neuchatel, 

 Agassiz had organized with his friends, the two 

 Brauns, a bachelor life very like the one he 

 and Alexander had led with their classmates in 

 Munich. The little hotel where they lodged 

 had filled up with young German doctors, who 

 had come to visit the hospitals in Paris and 

 study the cholera. Some of these young men 



