CHARLESTON 45 
life to have an opportunity of learning to judge of the 
time, by watching the shadows, and to seem really 
gratified at entering upon this new branch of study. 
Shortly after his return to Cambridge from Charleston, 
it became evident as Agassiz’s library grew larger and his 
children older that the quarters on Oxford Street were 
too limited, and in 1854 the family moved into a house built 
for them by the College on the corner of Quincy Street 
and Broadway, which continued to be Mrs. Agassiz’s home 
for the rest of her life. “The house on Quincy Street was 
a most delightful and homelike place,” Miss Cary writes. 
“At the right on entering was Lizzie’s charming parlor. On 
the left was Agassiz’s fascinating, shabby library, full of 
orderly disorder. Common wooden book-cases lined the 
walls, filled with valuable books in shabby bindings. A 
rickety ladder leaned against one side of the room, a fire 
burned brightly in the grate, and brighter and more cheer- 
ful than any fire, Agassiz sat at the long table, happy in his 
studies. Behind the library was a study, and behind Lizzie’s 
parlor was the dining-room. There was in this delightful 
house no luxury, but every comfort. Alex, Ida and Pauline 
were young, handsome creatures, great favorites with every 
one, full of life and gaiety; and their friends came freely 
to the house, which rang with young voices, with laughter 
and with cheerful talk.” Its walls proved elastic and adapt- 
able to the many and varied plans that were made under its 
roof. Of these none demanded more radical changes than 
one which materialized in 1856. By the spring of that year 
the public lecturing by which Agassiz had endeavored 
through the winter to supplement his all too narrow salary 
of fifteen hundred dollars was proving so exhausting for his 
