232 



Louis Agassiz. 



step, his excellent health. He was not of that type 

 of scholars whose shrivelled faces and whose withered 

 forms declare the neglect of exercise, and the misuse 

 of food ; nor was he one who gained by stimulants 

 extraordinary force. He possessed what might be 

 called a commanding presence, a favourable personal 

 equation, a magnetic influence, a manly beauty, or 

 an easy dignity — a quality not to be defined, but 

 everywhere appreciated, which may be in-bred, yet 

 must be first in-born. He came of good descent, 

 having a mother of rare intellectual qualities, and 

 on his father's side an ancestry of six generations of 

 Protestant ministers, going back to the Huguenot 

 refugees. But his was not the parentage of wealth 

 or fashion, and the narrow circumstances of his early 

 life quickened his industry, his patience, and fitted 

 him forever after to sympathise with and encourage 

 those who have high aims and shallow purses. 



His early culture was most liberal. In many 

 countries, and though many years, his studies were 

 prolonged. Four years, the record runs, in the 

 gymnasium at Bienne, two years in college at 

 Lausanne, two years in the medical school at Zurich, 

 five years in the universities of Heidelberg, Munich, 

 and Erlangen, that is, thirteen years, at least, of prep- 

 aration in the period of youth. 



Thus he came in contact with some of the most 

 renowned naturalists in Europe — Cuvier, Humboldt, 

 Martins, Spix, and a host besides — and received that 

 intellectual impress from superior minds which is far 

 more influential than a library full of books, or a city 

 full of museums. 



