FRANCIS HUBER. 197 



an uneducated peasant, yet his faithful friend and constant 

 and efficient assistant ; next his wife ; and last, not least, his 

 son, P. Huber, afterwards celebrated for his own researches 

 into the history of ants. 



In the circumstances attendant on Huber's marriage we 

 meet with one of those pleasant romances of reality which 

 occasionally vary the monotony of every-day life. At an early 

 age, the sight of our persevering naturalist fell a sacrifice to 

 minute and intense observation exercised in his darling 

 study. As with our prince of poets, "a drop serene"* had 

 u quenched" his "orbs" of vision; nor would he for their 

 recovery undergo the usual operation. Previous to this afflic- 

 tion he had formed an attachment to Mademoiselle Aimee 

 Pullein ; daughter of a Swiss magistrate, who opposed the mar- 

 riage of the lovers on the ground of the young man's blind- 

 ness. No sooner, however, did the lady arrive at an age which 

 gave her (at least in her own opinion) a right of judging for 

 herself, than (after refusing offers of greater promise) she united 

 her lot with that of the blind yet loving Huber, with whom 

 forty years of subsequent happiness, wherein she was his sec- 

 retary, his observer, and the sharer, not only of his researches, 

 but of the enthusiasm with which he followed them, gave her 

 no cause to repent her choice. Even when deprived by death 

 of his affectionate helpmate, the blind and then aged Huber 

 was not left destitute of woman's supporting tenderness, 



* Gutta serena. 



