182 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
land, I have determined to publish the material here col- 
lected.” In the earlier stages of the work Mrs. Agassiz 
was assisted by her stepson, but eventually, owing to the 
pressure of his other pursuits he was obliged to leave 
it entirely in her hands, except for the final revision, 
which he undertook. A greater amount of labor was en- 
tailed than might be inferred even from the two volumes 
that were the outcome. The larger part of the correspond- 
ence was in French or in German script and often very 
illegible. Therefore the normal difficulties of the selection, 
arrangement and presentation of a mass of material were 
vastly increased by the necessity of deciphering the origi- 
nals and then of preparing satisfactory translations as pre- 
liminaries to the composition of the whole. To this labor it 
was impossible for Mrs. Agassiz to give uninterrupted time. 
The nursery perpetually called her. Mere oversight of the 
grandchildren did not satisfy her; she nursed them in their 
illnesses and shared in their amusements. For example, her 
diaries tell us on one day that she had herself taken Ro- 
dolphe to school “to try his new sled’’; on another, that she 
was “practising” with Max on his new stereopticon; again, 
during an absence of the boys’ father, when the woes of 
Rodolphe first with a diphtheritic throat and then with 
earache were making complications, “Max accidentally 
fired off his father’s pistol. No harm done, but rather start- 
ling.” To complete the story it should be added that the 
next day a friend by request discharged the remaining 
cartridges in the pistol amid the violent protests of George 
that his rights as eldest son and natural guardian of the 
household were being invaded. It is no wonder that Mrs. 
Agassiz’s days were, as she said, “broken to inch bits.” 
