PERSONALITY OF AGASSIZ 



quick, elastic step, he was an excellent pedes- 

 trian, and quite at home in the mountains. 

 As a boy he became proficient in swimming and 

 in the management of boats. To bodily fear 

 he was a stranger. His hands were large and 

 shapely, and very skilful. Never a finished 

 draughtsman, he was none the less expert in 

 representing, with swift, sure strokes, the es- 

 sential structure of the object he wished to recall 

 or explain. He was deft, too, with the dissect- 

 ing-knife and the microscope, and with the 

 geologist's hammer. His neck (the weak part, 

 as his fatal illness showed) was rather short; 

 his head was fine and large. In later years his 

 hair, of a chestnut color, deserted his brow, 

 but he wore it full at the sides and back, and 

 this, with the side-whiskers of the day, tended 

 to conceal his ears. The head itself was ad- 

 mirable, the forehead high and broad, the 

 chin shapely, the countenance frank and open. 

 The mouth was wide, the lips full and smiling, 

 the expression as a whole altogether amiable 

 and intelligent. His aquiline nose, with well- 

 developed nostrils, sharply set off by the 

 oblique lines on either side, helped to give him 



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