Your letter, which shows me the countless riches you have to offer at the Museum, puts me in the frame of mind of the child who was offered his choice in a toy-shop. "I choose everything," he said. I could reply in the same way. I choose all you offer me. Still, one must be reasonable, and I will therefore name, as the thing I chiefly desire, the remarkable fauna dredged from the Gulf Stream. Let me add, however, in order to give you entire freedom, that whatever you may send to the Museum will be received with sincere and ardent gratitude.
And so, farewell, my dear friend, with a warm shake of the hand and the most cordial regard.
DESHAYES.
The next is in answer to a letter from Agassiz to the veteran naturalist, Professor Sedgwick, concerning casts of well-known fossil specimens in Cambridge, England. Though the casts were unattainable, the affectionate reply gave Agassiz keen pleasure.
FROM PROFESSOR ADAM SEDGWICK.
THE CLOSE, NORWICH, August 9, 1871.
MY VERY DEAR AND HONORED FRIEND,
. . .I of course showed your letter to my friend Seeley, and after some consultation with men of practical knowledge, it was considered almost impossible to obtain such casts of the reptilian bones as you mention. The specimens of the bones are generally so rugged and broken, that the artists would find it extremely difficult to make casts from them without the risk of damaging them, and the authorities of the university, who are the proprietors of the whole collection in my Museum, would be unwilling to encounter that risk. Mr. Seeley, however, fully intends to send you a gutta-percha cast of the cerebral cavity of one of our important specimens described in "Seeley's Catalogue," but he is full of engagements and may not hitherto have realized his intentions. As for myself, at present I can do nothing except hobble daily on my stick from my house to the Cathedral, for I am afflicted by a painful lameness in my left knee. The load of years begins to press upon me (I am now toiling through my 87th year), and my sight is both dim and irritable, so that, as a matter of necessity, I am generally compelled to employ an amanuensis. That part is now filled by a niece who is to me in the place of a dear daughter.
I need not tell you that the meetings of the British Association are still continued, and the last session (this year at Edinburgh) only ended yesterday. Let me correct a mistake. I met you first at Edinburgh in 1834, the year I became Canon, and again at Dublin in 1835. . .It is a great pleasure to me, my dear friend, to see again by the vision of memory that fine youthful person, that benevolent face, and to hear again, as it were, the cheerful ring of the sweet and powerful voice by which you made the old Scotchmen start and stare, while you were bringing to life again the fishes of their old red sandstone. I must be content with the visions of memory and the feelings they again kindle in my heart, for it will never be my happiness to see your face again in this world. But let me, as a Christian man, hope that we may meet hereafter in heaven, and see such visions of God's glory in the moral and material universe, as shall reduce to a mere germ everything which has been elaborated by the skill of man, or revealed to God's creatures. I send you an old man's blessing, and remain,
Your affectionate friend,