CHAPTER VI 



1873-1875 

 LAKE TITICACA 



Louis Agassiz, whose health had caused more than 

 usual anxiety for some months, died on December 14, 

 1873. Eight days later, Alexander Agassiz' s young wife 

 succumbed to an attack of pneumonia, the result of a cold 

 contracted on the distressing night of her father-in-law's 

 death. The innermost chamber of a strong man's nature 

 is sacred ground. This lifelong sorrow increased the nat- 

 ural reserve of his character, which afterwards seldom 

 melted except in the most intimate and congenial sur- 

 roundings ; while far below, behind an almost impene- 

 trable wall, where few indeed ever glimpsed, lay a wealth 

 of affection, a delicacy of feeling, a power of self-sac- 

 rifice, and a capacity for suffering, such as have been 

 given to but few men. 



Two or three extracts from his letters should make it 

 clear that he now faced life as a permanently saddened 

 man. In writing to Huxley some months later he says : 

 " Few young men have reached my age and have at- 

 tained, as it were, all their ambition might desire, and 

 yet the one thing which I crave for, and which I want 

 to keep me interested in what is going on, is wanting. 

 How gladly I would exchange all that I have for what 

 I have lost. But I will not burden you with"my sorrows." 



On the first anniversary of his wife's death his re- 

 serve broke down in a beautiful and pathetic letter which 



