and then one or another grew mutinous, he was, during most of the time,
on the best of terms. His own early schooling in the classics gave him
a relish for scholars, and he was pleased with the company of
historians and lawyers. For military men he did not care, but he liked
naval officers and sea-captains. He paid little attention to matters of
dress, certainly as regards his own person. He was gratified by the
marks of distinction conferred upon him at home and abroad, but took
little subsequent thought of the ribbons, badges, and diplomas, keeping
them, but not very carefully, and never making a parade of them.

Eloquent as a lecturer, he was also brilliant and persuasive in
conversation, being, in appearance at least, quite unreserved, and open
in his attempt to capture the good will of his auditor. However, if
there was no covert artifice, there was at all events the native
shrewdness of the Swiss peasant to reckon with, and doubtless the
subtlety of genius--which will not, or cannot, always reveal itself in
full. In his later years, accordingly, though his winning manners and
his desire that you should completely display your thought to him might
lead you to suppose him utterly open with you, you might in the end
discover that you had not fathomed his soul, that there was that in him
which could not be taken captive, and that there might be a silent
invincible rejection on his part of something within you which was
foreign to him.

In Agassiz the theoretical and the practical life were well balanced.
He was both a visionary and a man capable of bringing his visions to
pass. No philosophical conception was too general for him, and no
detail of observation or inference too small. No fact could appear too
slight for his intense and comprehensive scrutiny, and his memory for
minute resemblances and differences was vast; yet the enduring quality