He said to M. Pasquier, President of the Chamber of Peers, "Behold a very different person to the man of Tuesday—of Saturday. Nevertheless, I had great things still to do. All was ready in my head; after thirty years of labor and research, there remained but to write; and now the hands fail, and carry with them the head."
M. Pasquier tenderly expressed the universal interest felt for M. Cuvier. "I like to think so," said the dying man; "I have long labored to render myself worthy of it." He is to be pitied, indeed, who does not care whether the world loves him.
On May 13, the nomination of Cuvier to the presidency of the whole Council of State was taken to the sovereign for his signature, but it came too late. Cuvier died that day. Four hours before his death he had asked to be taken into the room where he had met and talked with so many of the renowned of earth, and where his Clementine had charmed them by her presence. And there he died.
He was buried in Père la Chaise, by his own request, under the tombstone which covered Clementine, and whose death had virtually caused his own. His coffin was borne by the pupils of the different colleges in which he had taught, thousands following it to the cemetery. His library of nineteen thousand volumes was purchased by the government for the Jardin des Plantes. There was no child left to bear his titles.
Not only do the books of such a man live; his whole life, with its untiring energy, its promptness, its order, its unfaltering purpose, its high aims, as well as its tenderness and nobility of heart, is a constant inspiration.
SIR WILLIAM AND CAROLINE HERSCHEL.
In Hanover, Germany, in the year 1732, Isaac Herschel and a plain, industrious girl, Anna Ilse Moritzen, began their home life together. The young man did not like the calling of his father, the cultivating of the royal gardens, and learned to play the oboe in the royal band.
He became skilled in music, and, as, one after another, ten children were born into the little home, he taught them to play on the violin and oboe, and such other branches of knowledge as he possessed. After a time his health became impaired with exposure in the Seven Years' War, and then he earned his living by lessons in music, given to scholars at his home.
The children attended the garrison school in Hanover, and learned the ordinary rudiments, besides French and German. Though the father sometimes copied music half the night to eke out his scanty living, he spared no pains to teach them all he could of his favorite art.