64 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



in the life of Mrs. Agassiz there are examples of her de- 

 votion to her step-children and grandchildren, which bring 

 vividly to mind these delightful reminiscences of her father. 



Another event of the year 1859 that should be recorded 

 here is the publication of Mrs. Agassiz's first book, Actaea, 

 a First Lesson in Natural History, prepared under the direc- 

 tion of Agassiz. It appeared in two editions in one year 

 and in a revised edition twenty years later. Here in the 

 form of letters to her niece and nephew, "Lisa and Connie" 

 Felton, written in clear and simple language, she tells of 

 sea-anemones and corals, hydroids and jelly-fishes, star- 

 fishes and sea-urchins, and succeeds as she relates the fun- 

 damental scientific facts concerning them in conveying also 

 the imaginative charm that attends their life. Its modest 

 pages give promise of the flowing style that made her later 

 writings on scientific subjects agreeable and successful. To 

 appreciate any of these books it should be remembered that 

 she had had no technical scientific training whatever, and 

 that practically all the information conveyed in her pub- 

 lished works had been acquired not by study of her own but 

 by association with Agassiz. They are admirable expres- 

 sions of her peculiar ability, which lay in the power of pre- 

 senting second-hand knowledge accurately and with as 

 much animation and authority as if it were the result of 

 her own scientific observations. 



Before the school closed the household in Quincy Street 

 had seen changes, for the children of Agassiz had been mar- 

 ried, Alexander to Miss Anna Russell, Ida to Major Henry 

 L. Higginson and Pauline to Quincy A. Shaw of Boston, 

 and as Mrs. Agassiz, with a pardonable mixture of meta- 

 phor, wrote to one of her sisters, she was already beginning 



