Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, third edition

[31] whole atmosphere was in harmony with the pursuits of the students. The house was simple in its appointments, but rich in books, music, and in all things stimulating to the thought and imagination. It stood near one of the city gates which opened into an extensive oak forest, in itself an admirable collecting ground for the naturalist. At the back certain rooms, sheltered by the spacious garden from the noise of the street, were devoted to science. In the first of these rooms the father's rich collection of minerals was arranged, and beyond this were the laboratories of his sons and their friends, where specimens of all sorts, dried and living plants, microscopes and books of reference, covered the working tables. Here they brought their treasures; here they drew, studied, dissected, arranged their specimens; here they discussed the theories, with which their young brains were teeming, about the growth, structure, and relations of animals and plants.¹

From this house, which became a second home to Agassiz, he wrote to his father in the Christmas holidays of 1826: . . . ‘My happiness would be perfect were it not for ’