THE LAST YEARS 381 
versity Museum, after the southwest corner of the facade, 
which had been given by the children of Agassiz in the 
preceding year, had been finished. The event was impor- 
tant, for it marked the completion, except for a part of 
the south wing, of the building that had been the aim of 
Agassiz, whose plan for the Museum had had a far wider 
scope than its original name, the Museum of Comparative 
Zodlogy, implied. 
June 12. — Meeting; Museum, speeches, etc. All 
went off successfully. — As I looked at the building 
of such magnitude as to be really impressive — and 
picturesque too with its drapery of vines, — and as I 
saw the crowds flocking towards us, I thought of 
[Agassiz’s] shanty built of rough boards — not large 
enough to hold half a dozen people, its only furni- 
ture a kitchen table and a few pine shelves against 
the wall — and compared it with the huge building 
containing one of the finest collections of Natural 
History in the world; it seemed to me impossible that 
theoneshould have been the beginning and, as it were, 
the foundation of the other. 
July 16, Nahant. — Reading French at sight. It 
seems a little absurd to be pursuing modern languages 
when you are face to face with your eightieth birth- 
day. I wonder why I do it. 
August 16.—I have heard such good music at 
Emma’s this morning. They sang things which carried 
me back to the old days irresistibly. What a strange 
thing it is to live things over, to find them as real and 
true as ever in your memory, and yet not be sure that 
you shall have them again. 
