vi PREFACE 
Her heirs kindly placed at the disposal of Radcliffe 
College her material for the biography and thus made 
it possible for the book to be written. The title that 
Miss Cary had expected to give to her part of the 
work — “Memories of Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, by 
One who Looked On” — expresses very well the 
character of the brief portion that she had prepared. 
This consisted largely of a description of the Boston 
of her own and Mrs. Agassiz’s youth, for memories 
crowded so thick and fast upon her as she wrote that 
she was diverted from the account of Mrs. Agassiz’s 
individual girlhood, and had herself concluded that 
probably much of her narrative might prove irrele- 
vant to the memoir. I have, therefore, selected from 
her manuscript the sections that convey an impres- 
sion of Mrs. Agassiz’s immediate environment in her 
earlier years and have published these with very few 
and unimportant verbal changes. Of the material 
dealing with Mrs. Agassiz’s ancestry Miss Cary left 
too incomplete a draft for publication, but her notes 
have served as a basis for the first chapter and have 
been amplified from other family papers. From the 
letters that she had collected for possible use I have 
made a selection and have added to these many from 
other sources. If Miss Cary could have finished her 
part, the book would have had a unique character 
that would have enhanced its interest. As it is, the 
admission must sadly be made that it contains but 
little of her writing. 
The resources for the biography have been ample 
for some chapters, scanty for others. Mrs. Agassiz had 
