The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack

by Emily Cheney Neville

  “You are right in believing that one works, or at least that one can work, better in Paris than elsewhere, and I should esteem myself happy if I had my nest there, but who will make it for me? I am myself incapable of making efforts for anything but my work.”

  But Louis was no companion for discontent. His gaiety of spirit achieved its own inflation. It was his own glowing letters home which now brought him release from his depression. The young Count de Pourtalès who had climbed glaciers with him, decided that America with Agassiz might be almost as exciting as the Alps. An unspoiled young man of wealth and breeding, Frank Pourtalès was just the sort of person whom the South would find irresistible. With Agassiz, the two made a pair to whom Charleston delivered over the keys to the city. It was a beautiful and civilized city with white-pillared houses looking over the blue bay. Its ladies were fair, and less bent upon education than living up to their reputation for hospitality. Not often did two such men come their way!

  Their admiration must have been somewhat mixed with chagrin when, after a sufficient amount of homage to them and their ideas of a good time, the two handsome gentlemen withdrew to Sutton’s Island and gave to jellyfish and turtles the kind of enthusiastic attention which the ladies had been led to expect belonged to them. Agassiz delivered a course of lectures to them, but the island discoveries and a few scientists of Swiss-French ancestry kept him in such a state of excitement that the ladies saw little of him.

  When April came in, Louis tore himself away from the flowering plantations back to the east winds of Boston. Two more of his assistants from home joined him, Desor and Girard, and Louis had to go house-hunting. Over in East Boston he found a gem of a house with the whole harbor for its back yard. It would hold him and the assistants which his canny subconscious knew would henceforth be on the increase, it would store his barrels of specimens in its garret and cellar and supply him with plenty more which he could keep in aquariums in the different rooms. He leased the house at a high rate which would probably have been higher if the landlord could have foreseen his house turned into a laboratory; and tied a dory in the flooded garden as his first piece of furniture.

  Young Pourtalès and Girard rigged a sail on the boat and every day dredged the harbor bottom for specimens. Or when the wind was not fair, they all wandered up and down Chelsea beach after animal life which soon filled the barrels in the cellar. It was fun for everybody except Agassiz who was learning all over again that such a household ate enormously, and that for food and rent he must somehow produce cash. He considered an attack of nervous prostration, gave it up, and settled in to have as good a time as anybody. For as always happened with Louis Agassiz, somebody turned up to help him out of the difficulties with which he had involved himself.

  Far back in the years when the eager Swiss lad had longed to get away from the dull days of Concise, and had seen no way to do it, the good pastor Christinat with his conviction of the value of genius, had produced the fare to Paris and sent young Agassiz off with his benediction. There was a boy! he thought, and waited to see him mount the heights. Now though Louis had scaled them higher and still higher, he needed Papa Christinat.

  And now the old man needed him. Exiled from his parish by politics, he was a lonely wanderer in Italy and France when it occurred to him that his boy, Louis, without wife or children now, might find a place for him in his household. Any household of Louis Agassiz he was convinced would need some kind of manager. “If your old friend,” he wrote, “can live with his son Louis, it will be the height of his happiness.”

  Papa Christinat looked his Louis over, and was satisfied. The lad had changed into a sturdy man, to be sure, but the deep glowing eyes were the same, the ready laugh, the strong handclasp, and Christinat must admit it, the utter heedlessness about money matters. Never mind, he would soon remedy all that.

  Louis gave him complete charge of his household, and the old man was perhaps happier than ever before in his life. He knew no English but was unhampered by his lack. As soon as he discovered the favorite haunt of Louis, the Faneuil Hall and Quincy markets, he became as addicted to them, himself, though for quite a different reason. An excellent judge of meat, lobsters, vegetables, he took his great basket from booth to booth. His only two English words were, how much? Then scowling at the price of which he understood not a word, he would lay down on the block as much money as he felt the meat was worth. The market men looked after him, astounded, as he marched off announcing, “C’est assez!” Then since Mr. Agassiz had introduced him, and they felt toward Mr. Agassiz as the fishermen on Lake Morat had felt toward the pastor’s son, they entered the proper sum in their books and at the end of the month sent the bills to him. Louis praised Papa for his shrewd management, and paid the bills. The old man would make it up to him a dozen times, and what a French air the dishes of the Irish kitchen girl took on! An enormous sea turtle which the men were dissecting furnished delectable food for a week.

  Louis now had a combination of his Hôtel des Neuchâtelois and his Little Academy which, while it might seem a little wearing to outsiders, was perfect for him. Into it dropped all the foreign scientists—and stayed: the American naturalists who must at least have dinner, the ladies who could not look enough into microscopes under the supervision of Mr. Agassiz. Louis welcomed them all, and sent them away filled with astonishment and admiration. Boston began to feel much set up at its capture of a great foreign naturalist, because Boston, like the rest of New England was very busy discovering nature. Birds, flowers, sea-life were fast delivering over their secrets to the earnest groups who hunted them down. Louis rode in on this nature wave as well as on the practical interest in geology. He had a way of reaching around behind him at a lecture and drawing out of a tank a very live and active specimen to illustrate his point, which startled his audience but satisfied its desire for nature at first hand.

  With his household safe in the competent hands of his old friend, Louis felt free to go off on research expeditions which perhaps of all his work gave him most satisfaction. Mr. Lowell carried him off to Niagara Falls, and then up to the St. Lawrence River where Louis was so impressed with the glacier markings and rich fauna that he promised himself to spend the rest of his life in the study of the natural history of the New World.

  Professor Bache invited him to join a cruise on the Coast Survey steamer which was surveying Boston Harbor. Through the warm summer days they cruised along the sandy shores of Cape Cod and out to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket with their untouched island life. “I learn more here in a day than in months from books and dried specimens.” And why, he must have thought, if he who had tried so thoroughly all ways of learning found this method superior, why would it not be the true method of teaching science? He began to ponder over an idea out of which would be born the marine biological laboratory. Not many of the experiences of Louis Agassiz went to waste.

  Dr. Bache was wise enough to recognize the usefulness of a trained naturalist to his own survey work. From this first successful cruise to the end of Agassiz’s life, the Coast Survey offered him all of their resources, and from their vessels he finally inched his way all around our coast line from Boston to San Francisco. His youthful dreams of long sea voyages at last came true.

  The fall days were shortening, and so was the time of Louis’ visit to America if he intended to return to Neuchâtel or to any other European post. His first year was over and he had no choice but to think about the future. Little time had he wasted that way all his life which made the present so everlastingly absorbing that the future had to take care of itself. Little time he probably spent on it now, for as ever, it seemed to be shaping itself up with no interference from him.

  What had he to do with a French revolution which was beginning to rumble over Europe? Except that if it came, there would be no place for him or for any other man who believed that there were more important things to do with life than to destroy it. Even little Switzerland was in a turmoil, and with the withdrawal of Neuchâtel fro
m Prussian protection, came the withdrawal of Louis’ small stipend. Paris had other things to think about than the progress of science, and England was warily watching her step. If Louis had hopes across the sea, he now relinquished them and took account of stock at hand. He certainly could not complain of his welcome in America. And he thought without vanity that America could not complain of the use he had made of its hospitality.

  His lectures now—and he could not have helped smiling when he thought of how each one led to an insatiable demand for more—those lectures would support him, though they would probably leave no time for anything else. But there were rumors of a new scientific school at Harvard, and rumors that Harvard was after the best men in science to man it. When he had delivered that fall course at Physicians and Surgeons in New York, they would see that science as well as popularity could be served. Yes, while a man had magic in his speech, he need not lack for funds in America.

  Then consider those collections which now filled the attic of Tremont Temple. Berlin, Neuchâtel, Paris, were each to get a fourth of them, and he would keep the rest as a nucleus for new. With that, his blood quickened for where else could a scientist find such opportunities at his disposal? For teaching, for dissection, for exchange, for new excitements over new discoveries; there was no end to what he could do with his collections if he but had a place to store them. And if he stayed here, and if Harvard needed him, who knew but he might start for Harvard the kind of museum which a college should have? Yes, while there was so much to be collected, he could not bear to leave.

  Nor had he forgotten the burden of proof which his glacial theory still demanded. Here in America the evidences were so clear that a child could read them. And before he got through, many a child did read pages of the development of the earth from the hieroglyphics on its rocks which he translated for them. This great country with its untouched resources was a challenge to an adventurer. Lake Superior, now; who knew what those north shores could produce? And where else could a whole Coast Survey outfit be placed at his service? Yes, certainly a man should not leave a country until he had explored a few of its marvellous resources.

  Then this first year had yielded rich human relationships and Louis Agassiz was a man to whom his fellow men were important. He enjoyed his popularity with the ladies, of course, as what man would not, but he thought with warm comfort of the kindness and affection which he had honestly earned from friends who would now keep him with them. Men of integrity and intelligence who respected his work while they liked him as a human being; and men of arts and letters whom he was beginning to know and to find stimulating. Boston and Cambridge brought them all to his neighborhood, and they widened his horizons and kept him free and happy. Besides, he had a household of his own on his hands which he could not desert. Yes, it would be a pity to leave these people who had made him so warmly welcome for a war-torn Europe where a man was valued by his martial skill.

  So Louis tossed his cap over the mill, and thought no more about it. Life in America was rich and full and enjoyable. It was great with promise. If he was lonely sometimes with no real home, he had not, after all, made a great success of a home when he had one. If his children were growing into tall and fine young people without his ever seeing them, then he must make haste and earn the money to send for them. Perhaps Cily might like it here. He sighed. The reports of his good friend, Alex Braun, about his sister’s health had not been encouraging lately. Poor Cily! He put on his hat, and strolled over to share the good news of his decision with his new friend, John Lowell.

  15. A HOME OUT OF CHAOS

  Now the future was settled. No more disturbing hopes about what France or England or any other country might do for him or offer to him. Let them busy themselves about their wars, and their airtight academies, and their small enclosed spaces. Louis Agassiz had found a home where the whole earth was his to conquer. The sharp golden air of autumn sang in his blood and blew away any doubts about his power to win.

  Last May at the turn of his fortieth year, he had faced an unsettled future with weariness and discouragement. Some of the oppression had drifted away on the long summer cruises, and with his final decision the rest of his uncertainty had vanished. He strode out on a blue October morning for his first lecture at the formidable College of Physicians and Surgeons without a doubt or care in the world. New York doctors they were, and medical students, and their faculty, inclined to take the word of no one unless well furnished with proof. This foreigner would find that he had no audience of ladies to amuse.

  Louis gave them twelve lectures and if they thought to keep those lectures from popular favor, they did not know their lecturer. The New York Tribune printed them in full, and the New York newsboys called on the streets, “Professor Agassiz’s lecture!” and queer work they must have made of his name. But the lectures were so greatly in demand that the Tribune had to issue them in pamphlet form just as it now issues “Ways To Make Housekeeping Easy” and “Good Jam Recipes.” Moreover at the end of the lectures the physicians, surgeons and struggling students all banded together and presented Agassiz with a large box of silver dollars for his Poissons Fossiles. Louis held the heavy box, and thought of the struggle behind his beautiful books, and of the understanding of these generous people, until he found it very hard to speak the gratitude he felt.

  These lectures and another set of Lowell Institute lectures so increased his vocabulary, and his popularity, that perhaps he was not wholly surprised when in January, 1848, he found that America wanted to keep him permanently by attaching him to the faculty of Harvard, their most honorable university. John Lowell brought the news to his friend, and the two men must have talked together with the cheer and warmth which accompany a completely satisfactory arrangement. Not much money in it, to be sure, with its salary of fifteen hundred dollars; but enough freedom of time to earn more with outside lectures. Not a great university in size as yet, but great in the men attached to it: Asa Gray in botany, Longfellow and Lowell in letters, Prescott, Motley, Holmes, all these men whom Agassiz was beginning to know and to like. Abbott Lawrence had established the new Lawrence Scientific School and would guarantee the fifteen hundred dollars to Louis Agassiz if he would but accept the chair of zoology and geology.

  The university student today who goes from one professor to another in one small division of one subject finds it hard to realize a single man in charge of the two great departments of zoology and geology. But Louis was not in the least staggered by the idea. He could not only attend to the two departments, but he had so many other projects in mind that John Lowell stared at him uneasily and wondered what one did about a man like that. He didn’t seem to know anything about the limits to the activity of one human being.

  So Louis Agassiz came to Harvard and he poured into it so much of the richness of his vitality that it has never been the same place since. If he had been better advised as to his own limitations, the University would have been limited by them, too. Now they were both free for the absurd and magnificent and enduring ideas of the new professor of zoology and geology. It was a great day for Agassiz, and it was a great day for Harvard University.

  Agassiz swung into his first lectures with the kind of excitement and delight that left him when college closed in June with the feeling that he would like to go on forever. He certainly did not intend to stop right there. With the whole summer ahead of him, and the north country to explore, he would organize a traveling summer school which would combine everything he liked.

  The group was not unlike the mountain climbers of the old Swiss days, made up of students, doctors, and a few interested laymen. Nor were the experiences so different, except perhaps that there were no mad wrestling and dancing on the heights. Louis carried with him a roll of black canvas and a box of chalk, all the equipment which he needed. The locality furnished the rest. At the end of a day of exploration, the men all gathered in his tent, or outdoors if it still was light; the black canvas was fastened up and the chalk produced; the day’s
specimens piled at his feet; and the lecture began. Here, now, on the very spot of the phenomenon, it was discussed and explained. Then they smoked their pipes in the starlight and speculated about it until sleep drove them to their beds of balsam. “The wonders of Nature” was a phrase which was no idle jest in those days!

  On past Niagara Falls, Lake Erie, Lake Huron, to Lake Superior where beyond the copper mines only the Indians knew the wild and dangerous shore. Did Louis have an inkling that those mines into which he peered so curiously would furnish him and his family with great wealth one day? Quite likely even if he had known it, he would have passed that unimportant fact by for the excitement of finding the live gar pike which years ago as a fossil had shown him the missing link between the fishes of the past and the present.

  It was a summer of rich returns. Agassiz had his proofs now of the work of the glaciers along this great inland sea; he had collections of everything that could creep or crawl on the earth, and of the earth itself; he knew more about the fish of Lake Superior than anyone has known since; and he was able to compare its vegetation with that of his own Alps. It was a profitable summer in ways which only the future could reckon.

  Now when Louis returned, brown and healthy and full of new plans, he found that he could not waste time on the awkward transit from East Boston to Cambridge. He went house-hunting again. On Oxford Street in Cambridge he found a house which had a garden for Papa Christinat, rooms for most of his household (mattresses would be spread on the floor for the rest) and a rent of only four hundred dollars a year. The University knew of an old bathhouse on the Charles River where he could store apparatus, and the specimens which, after all, might be better off in the outside air.

  Small chance Papa Christinat had with the garden after the family moved in. Just a corner for these two most perfect opossums, Louis would beg; the alligator will take up almost no room at all, and of turtles we cannot have too many for observation, and think what good soup they make later; you could not refuse only a dozen gentle rabbits but don’t stop to reckon on the number after a few weeks. And then the man Agassiz touched hands with the boy Louis back in his garden on Lake Morat with the clear mountain peaks dipping down into it.