ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 133 



"From that time all doors were thrown open to 

 me, I had access to every institution and every 

 laboratory : the great interest you took in me pro- 

 cured the love and intimate friendship of my 

 instructors, Gay-Lussac, Dulong, and Thenard, to 

 all of whom I became deeply attached. The con- 

 fidence which you accorded me was the means of 

 my introduction into a sphere of labor which dur- 

 ing the last sixteen years it has ever been my 

 ambition worthily to occupy." 



When Agassiz was a poor medical student in 

 Paris, Humboldt visited him. Agassiz says : 



" After a cordial greeting, he walked straight to 

 what was then iny library a small book-shelf 

 containing a few classics, the meanest editions, 

 bought for a trifle, along the quays, some works on 

 philosophy and history, chemistry and physics, his 

 own ' Aspects of Nature,' ' Aristotle's Zoology,' 

 'Linnaeus' Systema Naturae,' in several editions, 

 'Cuvier's Kegne Animal,' and quite a number of 

 manuscript quartos, copies which, with the assist- 

 ance of my brother, I had made of works I was too 

 poor to buy, though they cost but a few francs a 

 volume. . . . 



" It was no doubt apparent to him that I was not 

 over-familiar with the good things of this world, 

 for I shortly afterward received an invitation to 

 meet him at six o'clock in the Galerie Vitree of the 

 Palais Royal, whence he led me into one of those 

 restaurants the tempting windows of which I had 

 occasionally passed by. When we were seated, he 



