200 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



conduct of others. He never did this sort of thing, 

 and he carefully discouraged it in those about him, 

 even when embellished with sallies of wit and 

 drollery, and his rebukes to those who indulged in 

 sarcasm were accompanied by a sharpness of 

 expression generally very unusual to him. He 

 bore but little malice, and it is said that the annoy- 

 ances and disappointments of his public career left 

 no trace of bitterness of spirit ; and he was always 

 willing to lay the fault on the ignorance rather 

 than on the bad feeling of the offenders. 



When in the full swing of his career, Cuvier 

 gave very interesting soirees on Saturday evenings, 

 and it is said that they were the most brilliant and 

 interesting meetings of their kind in Paris. They 

 were much frequented by the scientific world of 

 the time, and the rooms were as much open to the 

 prince as to the last young student who had just 

 begun to study natural history. In this society 

 Cuvier was an amusing conversationalist, a great 

 asker of questions ; and as he could talk well on a 

 variety of subjects, he made his guests at home, 

 and gave the meetings a character for freedom of 

 expression of opinion. A light repast concluded 

 the evening, and a select few remained to partake 

 of it. The chat was amusing, curiosities were 

 shown about, and the last anecdotes about 

 nature and the newest ideas were shown and 

 considered, and, reserving himself to |the last, 

 Cuvier would relate something that crowned 

 the whole ; and all around were struck by the 



