LOUIS AGASSIZ. 487 



since he had intended at some future time to do the same 

 thing ; but that, as I had given it so much attention, and had 

 done my work so well, he had decided to renounce his project, 

 and to place at my disposition all the materials he had col- 

 lected and all the preliminary notes he had taken." 



Within three months Cuvier fell under a stroke of paralysis, 

 and shortly died. The day before the attack he had said to 

 Agassiz, " Be careful, and remember that work kills." We 

 doubt if it often kills naturalists, unless when, like Cuvier, 

 they also become statesmen. 



But to live and work, the naturalist must be fed. It was a 

 perplexing problem how possibly to remain a while longer in 

 Paris, which was essential to the carrying on of his work, and 

 to find the means of supplying his very simple wants. And 

 here the most charming letters in these volumes are, first, the 

 one from his mother, full of tender thoughtfulness, and mak- 

 ing the first suggestion about Neuchatel and its museum, as a 

 place where the aspiring naturalist might secure something 

 more substantial than " brilliant hopes " to live upon ; next, 

 that from Agassiz to his father, who begs to be told as much 

 as he can be supposed to understand of the nature of this 

 work upon fossil fishes, which called for so much time, labor, 

 and expense ; and, almost immediately, Agassiz's letter to his 

 parents, telling them that Humboldt had, quite spontaneously 

 and unexpectedly, relieved his present anxieties by a credit of 

 a thousand francs, to be increased, if necessary. Humboldt 

 had shown a friendly interest in him from the first, and had 

 undertaken to negotiate with Cotta, the publisher, in his be- 

 half ; but, becoming uneasy by the delay, and feeling that " a 

 man so laborious, so gifted, and so deserving of affection . . . 

 should not be left in a position where lack of serenity disturbs 

 his power of work," he delicately pressed the acceptance of 

 this aid as a confidential transaction between two friends of 

 unequal age. 



Indeed, the relations between the " two friends," one at 

 that time sixty-three, and the other twenty-five, were very 

 beautiful, and so continued, as the correspondence shows. 

 Humboldt's letters (we wish there were more of them) are 



