154 Louis Agasstz. 



one of the noblest traits of his long life. It may 

 truly be said that toward the close of his career 

 there was hardly one prominent or aspiring scientific 

 man in the world who was not under some obliga- 

 tion to him. 



At this period I was twenty-four, he was sixty- 

 two. I had recently taken my degree as Doctor of 

 Medicine, and was struggling not only for a scientific 

 position but for the means of existence also. I 

 have said that he gave me permission to come as 

 often as I pleased to his room, opening to me freely 

 the inestimable advantages which intercourse with 

 such a man gave to a young investigator like myself. 

 But he did far more than this. Occupied and sur- 

 rounded as he was, he sought me out in my own 

 lodging. The first visit he paid me in my narrow 

 quarters in the Quartier Latin, where I occupied a 

 small room in the Hotel du Jardin des Plantes, was 

 characteristic of the man. After a cordial greeting, 

 he walked straight to what was then my library, — 

 a small book-shelf containing a few classics, the 

 meanest editions bought for a trifle along the quays, 

 some works on philosophy and history, chemistry 

 and physics, his own Views of Nature, Aristotle's 

 Zoology, Linnaeus's Regne Animal, and quite a number 

 of manuscript quartos, copies which, with the assist- 

 ance of my brother, I had made of works I was too 

 poor to buy, though they cost but a few francs a 

 volume. Most conspicuous of all were twelve vol- 

 umes of the new German Cyclopaedia presented to 

 me by the publisher. I shall never forget, after his 

 look of mingled interest and surprise at my little col- 



