CAMBRIDGE—A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL 115 
week to arranging them, rejecting all but the salient 
points and giving himself wholly up to the memory of 
Humboldt as a man and a companion. I really never 
felt the sweetness and power of your father’s intellect 
as I have while he has been renewing with me all his 
recollections of Humboldt; and I think the result of all 
his contemplation of him has ended in a higher appreci- 
ation of his character, so that he comes to thework with 
a great deal more enthusiasm than he had in the begin- 
ning. Everything depends upon his mood. You know 
how impulsive and emotional he is. If he feels right, 
Thave no doubt he will interest and satisfy people. 
Seldom had Agassiz’s gifts as a speaker appeared more 
brilliant than on this occasion. The emotional strain, how- 
ever, was speedily followed by a more imperative warning 
than Nature had yet given him that he must make less 
severe demands upon his strength. An illness followed, 
and a slow convalescence kept him a prisoner for many 
months, during which Mrs. Agassiz was his constant attend- 
ant. In the spring, on the advice of his physician, they 
went to Deerfield, a pretty village in the Connecticut val- 
ley, where the quiet surroundings and pure air proved 
so beneficial to him that by the autumn his recovery 
was complete. The following letter was written by Mrs. 
Agassiz toward the end of this stay in Deerfield. 
TO MISS SARAH G. CARY 
Deerfield, September 29 [1870] 
Tuat music of Mendelssohn’s is certainly wonderful, 
and your letter was a singular answer to my thought. 
