him.

Agassiz was somewhat above the average in height. His body was well
formed, his shoulders broad and square, his figure powerful, firmly set
upon rather small feet that served him well in walking and climbing. With
a quick, elastic step, he was an excellent pedestrian, 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
essential structure of the object he wished to recall or explain. He was
deft, too, with the dissecting-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 admirable, 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 an air of
sagacity. But it was the magnificent, fascinating eyes, young, kindly,
and searching, that above all gave life to that animated countenance. To
those eyes nothing was commonplace. [Footnote: Compare Clara Conant
Gilson, 'Agassiz at Cambridge,' in _Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly_,
December, 1891: 'He was a man of fine figure and striking appearance,
not too much of the _embonpoint_, not too tall, but just tall enough
to constitute a finely developed physique. His head was grand, of perfect
intellectual shape, and commanded your admiration as you gazed. He was
but slightly bald, his hair was of a beautiful brown, soft and fine, and