Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-06-27
Agassiz's Sympathy With Animals.

Agassiz's Sympathy With Animals.
His sympathies included all kinds OF
animals, as they included all kinds of
men, and he was repaid in kind. There
is not, think, a single instance of his
having been injured By any serpent Or
beast, however poisonous or ferocious,
though much of his life was passed in
the company of animals. It is asserted
that they have no language, but he
found no difficulty in conversing with
them, and they seemed to understand
him very we'll, adapted as his modes OF
communicating with them were to their
different natures. There probably never
was naturalist who combined such q
knowledge of their physical organiza-
ton with such penetrating glance into
what he called their souls. He was,
in the aesthetics of zoology, the dramat.
list of the animal kingdom, as Shake.
speare was the dramatist of the human
race. Whether he had to do with the
jeily-fsh, or q whale, or an elephant,
he knew each Of them as Shakespeare
knew the varieties of human kind, from
the heart outward, and not from the
flesh inward" 1t was curious to notice
his behavior in presence of the domesti-
Gated animals. The ugliest, filthiest,
stupidest, most unreasonable, most OBJ.
stinate creature in the barn-yard is the
pig, yet, with stick in his hand,
Agassiz would go up to the most un-
sociable, cantankerous, misanthropic
grunter, and after few soft words and
q movement of the stick over the
bristles of the creature in the right di-
rection, the pig would lift its head erect,
its small eyes would glisten with a
vague intelligence, it would remain al
most motionless in kind of pleased
surprise, and emit sound indicative
of as much content and comfort as are
indicated by the purring of cat. The
neigh of a horse to him was more
friendly neigh than any ever heard by
q hostler or Jockey. He carried SER
penis in his hat and in his pockets with
a grand unconcern, and dropped them
sometimes even in his bedroom, so that
his wife was frequently troubled by
finding them coiled up in her boots.
Whenever he entered a menagerie he
was eagerly welcomed by lions, tigers,
wolves, hyenas, and other beasts of
prey, which considered even their
keepers as stupid louis, but recognized
in him the one person that they could
have q rational conversation with.
Beauty" says the poet, lis its own
excuse for being" Agassiz went be-
yond this tolerant maxim to the extent
of affirming that Deformity has its own
excuse for being. The fact that any
animal existed was with him o justifi-
cation of its existence and after con-
versing with it, and penetrating to its
interior nature, he treated it as Shake
speare treated Dogberry, or Ancient
Pistol, or Mrs. Quickly, or any of the
other queer blood-relations connected
with him through common descent
from Adam. As there was no form OF
human existence which was too low to
be beneath the humane sympathies OF
Shakespeare, so there was no kind OF
animal existence which was too low to
engage the sympathies of Agassiz. And
the most evil members of the animal
kingdom had no malignant feeling to.
ward him ; indeed, they cheerfully
consented to let him kill them, know
ing that by such a submission to his
will they we're practically elected as
representatives Of their species in the
grand legislative assembly of the Ami.
NAL Kingdom gathered in the great
hall of Museum of Comparative Zoolo.
gy, under the literal "Speakership" OF
Agassiz that is, under the man who
was alone capable of being the interpre.
ter Of their language, 50 that its signs
could be clearly understood by the
human race, from which they were di-
vided by peculiarities of organization
and of soul. One can almost conceive
OF these martyrs of the animal kingdom
as rejoicing while enduring the death
which insured to the species to which
they belonged an intelligent rccogni.
ton of their merits from the members
of the superior race, to whom they were
thus introduced through his friendly
agency. Whenever I look at them,
preserved so carefully in their glass jari
filed with alcohol, for one am de-
lighted to find them in such excellent
spirits !-E. P. Whipple, in Harper's
Magazine.