COMMEMORATION ADDRESSES 407 
PROFESSOR NORTON 
In looking back over the long, happy and beneficent 
life of Mrs. Agassiz, as a contemporary may do who 
has known it from beginning to end, the most strik- 
ing feature in the survey is its sweet and steady con- 
sistency of excellence; and if one ask in what this 
chiefly consisted, the answer is plain, that she pos- 
sessed, in larger measure than most persons, that 
quality which is the root of all the virtues, simplicity 
of heart. This kept her free from what is a common 
hindrance even of those with the best intentions, — 
self-reference, self-consideration. No one, I think, 
ever met Mrs. Agassiz without being helped into the 
pleasantest relations with her, through the complete 
absence on her part of self-consciousness. It was this 
forgetfulness of self which enabled her to discharge, 
without the strain of conscious effort, such difficult 
duties as from time to time it fell to her to perform. 
The whole lesson of her life is a lesson of character; 
she was not a woman of genius or of specially brilliant 
intellectual gifts; what she did, what she accom- 
plished, — and she did and accomplished much more 
than most women for the good of the society in which 
she lived, — was not so much due to exceptional pow- 
ers as to the possession of certain not uncommon qual- 
ities in remarkable combination, all perfected by her 
simplicity of heart. 
She represented indeed a rare and beautiful type 
of womanhood with singular completeness; for her 
naturally quick, tender and comprehensive sym- 
