Cuvier was so much drawn to the young naturalist that he gave him and his artist a corner in one of his own laboratories, and, more than this, his drawings of fossil fishes and notes which he had taken in the British Museum and elsewhere. Cuvier said, three months later, with regard to some work, "You are young; you have time enough for it, and I have none to spare."
Agassiz now studied fifteen hours daily, sometimes seventeen. Cuvier commended his devotion, but said one evening as he left him, "Be careful, and remember that work kills." The next day he was paralyzed and died soon after, Agassiz never seeing him again.
It became evident that Paris, with her scientific treasures, could not be enjoyed longer. He must go back to Switzerland, and find a place to teach, as his sympathetic mother urged him to do. Just when the sky was darkest, a letter came from Humboldt, enclosing a check for one thousand francs! "Consider it," he said, "an advance which need not be paid for years, and which I will gladly increase when I go away or even earlier. It would pain me deeply should the urgency of my request, made in the closest confidence,—in short, a transaction as between two friends of unequal age,—be disagreeable to you. I should wish to be pleasantly remembered by a young man of your character. Yours, with the most affectionate respect, Alexander Humboldt."
How delicately offered was this charity in the guise of a loan! To give is blessed; to give without wounding the recipient is more blessed still!
The tender heart of Agassiz was deeply moved. He wrote his mother: "Oh! if my mother would forget for one moment that this is the celebrated M. de Humboldt, and find courage to write him only a few lines, how grateful I should be to her. I think it would come better from her than from papa, who would do it more correctly, no doubt, but perhaps not quite as I should like."
She wrote a thankful letter, and the great man replied: "I should scold your son, madame, for having spoken to you of the slight mark of interest I have been able to show him; and yet, how can I complain of a letter so touching, so noble in sentiment, as the one I have just received from your hand? Accept my warmest thanks for it.... One might well despair of the world if a person like your son, with information so substantial and manners so sweet and prepossessing, should fail to make his way."
This money made it possible for Agassiz to work in Paris, until a professorship of Natural History was created for him at Neuchâtel, through the influence of Humboldt and others. Humboldt wrote: "Agassiz is distinguished by his talents, by the variety and substantial character of his attainments, and by that which has a special value in these troubled times, his natural sweetness of disposition."
This "sweetness of disposition" was worth more to Agassiz, all through life, than a fortune. It drew everybody to him. It opened the pockets of the wealthy to carry forward his great projects. It won the hearts of his pupils on two hemispheres. It made his home a delight, and his presence a constant blessing.
He assumed the duties of his professorship at Neuchâtel in the autumn of 1832, giving his first lecture, "Upon the Relations between the different branches of Natural History and the then prevailing tendencies of all the Sciences," November 12, at the Hôtel de Ville. A society for the study of the natural sciences was soon formed, and Agassiz became its secretary. So natural, so enthusiastic, so full of his subject, was he, that everybody became interested. To little companies of his friends and neighbors he lectured on botany, on zoölogy, and the philosophy of nature. Even the children were delighted to gather and be told how lakes, springs, rivers, and valleys are formed.
"When it was impossible to give the lessons out-of-doors, the children were gathered around a large table, where each one had before him or her the specimens of the day, sometimes stones and fossils, sometimes flowers, fruits, or dried plants.... When the talk was of tropical or distant countries, pains were taken to procure characteristic specimens, and the children were introduced to dates, bananas, cocoa-nuts, and other fruits, not to be easily obtained in those days in a small inland town. They, of course, concluded the lesson by eating the specimen, a practical illustration which they greatly enjoyed."