Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-05-19
NO.. 122.
9Mistellaneous.
AGASSIZS SYMPATHY WITH ANIMALS.

-sympathies included all kinds of ami
mails as they included all kinds of men. and
he was repaid in kind. There is not, Think
a single instance of his having been in
jured by any serpent or beast, however
poisonous or ferocious though much of
his life was passed in the company of AMI
mails. 1t is asserted that they have no
language, but he found no difficulty in
conversing with them. and they seemed to
understand him very well. adapted as his
modes of communicating with them were
to their different natures. There never
was naturalist who combined such a
knowledge of their physical organization
with such penetrating glance into what
he called their souls. He was. in the
aesthetics of zoology, the drama
tist of the animal kingdom, as
Shakespeare was the dramatist of the hui
man race. Whether he had to do with a
ielly-fish, or a whale or an elephant, he
knew each of them as Shakespeare knew
the varieties of human kind from 1.-THE
heart outward, and not from the flesh in
ward 1t was curious to notice his be-
haviour in the presence of the dOmesticat-
ed animals, The ugliest, flthiest, stupid
est, most unreasonable, most obstinate
with stick in his hand, Agassiz would
90 up to the most unsociable, ''cantanker-
Gus" misanthropic grunter, and after a
few soft words and Il movement of the
stick over the bristles of the creature in
the right direction, the pig would lift its
head erect. its small eyes would glisten
with II vague intelligence, it would re-
main almost motionless in kind of pleased
nt
as much content and comfort as are indi-
Gated by the purring of a cat. The neigh
of Il horse to him was Il more friendly
neigh than any ever heard by hostler or
Il Jockey. lie carried serpents in his hat
and in his pockets with grand uncon-
cern and dropped them sometimes even
in his bedroom, SO that his wife was fire.
quently troubled by finding them coiled
up in her boots.
Whenever he entered menagerie he was
eagerly welcomed by lions. tigers, wolves.
hyenas, and other beasts of prev, which
considered their keepers even as stupid
louts, but recognized in him the one per-
son that they could have a rational CONVEX
Sation with. Beauty. SAYS the poet, ''is
its own excuse for being, Agassiz went
beyond this tolerant maxim to the extent
of affirming that deformity has its own ex-
cuse for being. The fact that any animal
existed was with him justification Of its
existence and after conversing with it,
and penetrating to its interior nature, he
treated it a. Shakespeare treated Dogberry,
or Ancient Pistol, or Mrs. Quickly, or any
of the other queer blood-relations connect
ed with him through common descent
from Adam As there was no form of hui
man existence which was too low to be be-
meath the humane sympathes of Shak-
speare, so there was no kind of animal en-
istence which was too low to engage the
sympathies of Agassz. And the most evil
members of the animal kingdom had no
malignant feeling toward him; indeed,
they cheerfully consented to let him kill
them, knowing that by such submission
to his will they were practically elected as
representative ofthe assembly ofthe Animal
Kingdom gathered in the great hall of the
Museum of Comparative Zoology, under
the literal ''Speakershipn Of Agassiz that
is. under the man who was alone capable of
being the interpreter of their language, so
that its signs could be clearly understood
bv the human race, from which they were
divided by peculiarities of organization
and of soul. One can almost conceive of
these martyrs of the animal kindom as re-
iocing while enduring the death which in
sured to the species to which they be-
longed an intelligent recognition of their
merits from the members of the superior
race, to whom they were thus introduced
through his friendly agency. Whenever
look at them. preserved so carefully i'll
their glass jars filled with alcohol, | for
one am delighted to find them in such ex-
cellent spirits .-E. p. Hhipple in Har-
per'S Nogasjne for Juae.