COMMEMORATION ADDRESSES 407 



PROFESSOR NORTON 



IN looking back over the long, happy and beneficent 

 life of Mrs. Agassiz, as a contemporary may do who 

 has known it from beginning to end, the most strik- 

 ing feature in the survey is its sweet and steady con- 

 sistency of excellence; and if one ask in what this 

 chiefly consisted, the answer is plain, that she pos- 

 sessed, in larger measure than most persons, that 

 quality which is the root of all the virtues, simplicity 

 of heart. This kept her free from what is a common 

 hindrance even of those with the best intentions, 

 self-reference, self-consideration. No one, I think, 

 ever met Mrs. Agassiz without being helped into the 

 pleasantest relations with her, through the complete 

 absence on her part of self -consciousness. It was this 

 forgetfulness of self which enabled her to discharge, 

 without the strain of conscious effort, such difficult 

 duties as from time to time it fell to her to perform. 



The whole lesson of her life is a lesson of character; 

 she was not a woman of genius or of specially brilliant 

 intellectual gifts; what she did, what she accom- 

 plished, and she did and accomplished much more 

 than most women for the good of the society in which 

 she lived, was not so much due to exceptional pow- 

 ers as to the possession of certain not uncommon qual- 

 ities in remarkable combination, all perfected by her 

 simplicity of heart. 



She represented indeed a rare and beautiful type 

 of womanhood with singular completeness; for her 

 naturally quick, tender and comprehensive sym- 



