LOUIS AGASSIZ 83 



audience, while lie sought to translate 

 his thought for them, enlisted their 

 sympathy. Their courtesy never failed 

 him. . . . When his English was at fault, 

 he could nevertheless explain his mean- 

 ing by illustrations so graphic that the 

 spoken word was hardly missed. ... It 

 was always pleasant to watch the eifect 

 of his drawings on the audience. When 

 showing, for instance, the correspond- 

 ence of the articulate type, as a whole, 

 with the metamorphoses of the higher 

 insects, he would lead his listeners along 

 the successive phases of development, 

 talking as he drew and drawing as he 

 talked, till suddenly the winged creat- 

 ure stood declared upon the blackboard, 

 almost as if it had burst then and there 

 from the chrysalis, and the growing in- 

 terest of his hearers culminated in a 

 burst of delighted applause. " 



Boston itself, the most belectured city 

 in the world, had never known a course 

 of lectures so suggestive and interesting. 



