CAMBRIDGE ,4 JOURNEY IN BRAZIL 115 



week to arranging them, rejecting all but the salient 

 points and giving himself wholly up to the memory of 

 Humboldt as a man and a companion. I really never 

 felt the sweetness and power of your father's intellect 

 as I have while he has been renewing with me all his 

 recollections of Humboldt; and I think the result of all 

 his contemplation of him has ended in a higher appreci- 

 ation of his character, so that he comes to the work with 

 a great deal more enthusiasm than he had in the begin- 

 ning. Everything depends upon his mood. You know 

 how impulsive and emotional he is. If he feels right, 

 I have no doubt he will interest and satisfy people. 



Seldom had Agassiz's gifts as a speaker appeared more 

 brilliant than on this occasion. The emotional strain, how- 

 ever, was speedily followed by a more imperative warning 

 than Nature had yet given him that he must make less 

 severe demands upon his strength. An illness followed, 

 and a slow convalescence kept him a prisoner for many 

 months, during which Mrs. Agassiz was his constant attend- 

 ant. In the spring, on the advice of his physician, they 

 went to Deerfield, a pretty village in the Connecticut val- 

 ley, where the quiet surroundings and pure air proved 

 so beneficial to him that by the autumn his recovery 

 was complete. The following letter was written by Mrs. 

 Agassiz toward the end of this stay in Deerfield. 



TO MISS SARAH G. GARY 



Deerfield, September 29 [1870] 



THAT music of Mendelssohn's is certainly wonderful, 

 and your letter was a singular answer to my thought. 



