DESCENT AND BOYHOOD 11 



Agassiz was made to study the violin, which he loathed. 

 Perhaps practicing in the Cathedral on early winter 

 mornings, when his hands were so numb that he could 

 scarcely hold the bow, did not tend to lessen his distaste ; 

 especially as, when he was too cold to play properly, his 

 teacher used to rap him over the knuckles for not doing 

 better. At all events, he never touched a violin after 

 coming to America. Although he disliked music, he re- 

 mained an excellent judge of it, and no one could have 

 been more sensitive to a false note ; but he preferred 

 silence to the best of music, and bad music he found 

 insufferable. In the happy days of his married life, how- 

 ever, it was not uncommon to hear him, while busy over 

 his work, unconsciously whistling the latest air in perfect 

 tune. He was said to be a good critic of the technique 

 of the violin : once toward the end of his life, when 

 crossing the Pacific, he went up to the first violin of 

 the orchestra, that now deepens the gloom of a dinner 

 at sea, and asked him where he had learned to bow, as 

 that was the way they taught youngsters in Freiburg 

 when he was a boy. A dislike for music is probably not 

 so uncommon as many people suppose, but it is seldom 

 found in connection with so much knowledge of the art. 

 Some one had given the children of the little family 

 at Freiburg all the volumes of Schubert's "Natural 

 History/ ' full of colored plates of animals drawn to 

 scale, with explanatory text. One of their favorite 

 amusements was to take very large sheets of paper on 

 which they copied these illustrations, increasing them 

 with a pair of compasses to their natural size. When they 

 had made a sufficient number of pictures, they would 

 pin them on the wall of their playroom, learn the text 

 by heart, and hold an exhibition. One groschen was 



