Chapter IV · CURIOUS WILLS (continued 4)

“It would be idle to multiply instances of the thorough humanity and geniality of Agassiz. Everybody who knew him can tell hundreds of anecdotes illustrative of his sympathy with all forms of life, whether in the jelly-fish, the human infant, the developing boy or girl, the mature man or woman. Still his conviction of the immateriality and personality of mind was something wonderful in so austere a naturalist. We happened once to please him by defining a jelly-fish as organized water. ‘Now look at it through the microscope,’ he said. ‘But, Agassiz, the play of the organization is so wonderful that it seems to me that nothing but mind can account for it.’ ‘You are right,’ was his answer; ‘in some incomprehensible way, God Almighty has created these beings, and I cannot doubt of their immortality any more than I doubt of my own.’ His fealty to the rights of animals exceeded that of any great naturalist who ever preceded him. Incompetent as we are to give him his due rank among the great naturalists of the world, we think he excelled every naturalist who has gone before him in striking at the soul and individuality of all animals below man. It is impossible to convey in words the peculiar feeling which Agassiz had on this matter. Doubtless this large and genial genius is now satisfied. We cannot penetrate beyond the veil.

“What we can do, however, is to celebrate Agassiz as a teacher, and try to send a new glow into the heart of every person engaged in the difficult art of teaching. How hard is their work! The present generation is brought up, as far as education is concerned, on the most economical principles. No consideration whatever is given to the point of the will of Agassiz. When he proudly calls himself ‘a teacher,’ he means that he is a radiator of heat as well as of light. A poet has well described the method of instruction adopted by Agassiz:

Pipe, Tobacco and Matches in his Coffin

Mr. Klaës, who was known among his acquaintances by the name of the “King of Smokers,” died some years ago near Rotterdam. According to the Belgian papers he had amassed a large fortune in the linen trade, and had erected near Rotterdam a mansion, one portion of which was devoted to the arrangement of a collection of pipes according to their nationality and chronological order. A few days before his death he summoned his lawyer, and made his will, in which he directed that all the smokers of the country should be invited to his funeral, that each should be presented with 10 lb. of tobacco and two Dutch pipes of the newest fashion, on which should be engraved the name, arms and date of the decease of the testator. He requested all his relatives, friends and funeral guests to be careful to keep their pipes alight during the funeral ceremonies, after which they should empty the ashes from their pipes on the coffin. The poor of the neighborhood who attended to his last wishes were to receive annually, on the anniversary of his death, 10 lb. of tobacco and a small cask of good beer. He desired that his oak coffin should be lined with the cedar of his old Havana cigar boxes, and that a box of French caporal and a packet of old Dutch tobacco should be placed at the foot of his coffin. His favorite pipe was to be placed by his side, along with a box of matches, a flint and steel, and some tinder, as he said there was no knowing what might happen. A clever calculator has made out that Mr. Klaës had, during his eighty years of life, smoked more than four tons of tobacco, and had drunk about 500,000 quarts of beer.

Thankfulness to God

In the codicil annexed to the last will of Robert North, Esq., of Scarborough, England, proved in October, 1705, the following occurs:

“I give to Mrs. R. G. my English walnut bureau, made large to contain clothes, but hope she will not forget when she makes use of it that graces and virtues are a lady’s most ornamental dress; and that that dress has this peculiar excellence, that it will last for ever and improve by wearing.

“I give to Lieutenant W. M., my godson, my sword, and hope he will (if ever occasion should require it) convince a rash world he has learnt to obey his God as well as his general, and that he entertains too true a sense of honour to admit anything into the character of a good soldier which is inconsistent with the duty of a good Christian.

“And now having, I hope, made a proper disposition of my lands and money, those pearls of great price in the present esteem of men, let me take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the grand original proprietor; and here I must direct my praises to that benign Being who through all the stages of my life hath encompassed me with a profusion of favours, and who by a wonderful and gracious Providence hath converted my very misfortunes and disappointments into blessings; nor let me omit, what the business just finished seems more particularly to require of me, to return Him my unfeigned thanks, who, to all the comforts and conveniences of life, hath superadded this also of being useful even in death, by thus enabling me to dispose of a double portion, namely, out of love to the poor, and another of gratitude to my friends.

“All my faults and follies, almost infinite as they have been, I leave behind me with wishes, that as here they had their birth and origin, they may here be buried in everlasting oblivion. My infant graces and little embryo virtues are, I trust, gone before me into heaven, and will, I hope, prove successful messengers to prepare my way. Thither, O Lord, let them mount up with unremitting constancy, while my soul in the meantime feasts itself with ecstatic reflections on that ravishing change when, from the nonsense and folly of an impertinent, vain, and wicked world, it shall be summoned to meet its kindred spirits, and admitted into the blissful society of angels and men made perfect; when, instead of sickness, gloominess, and sorrow (the melancholy retinue of sin and house of clay), glory and immortal youth shall be its attendants, and its habitation the palace of the King of Kings: this will be a life worth dying for indeed! thus to exist, tho’ but in prospect, is at present joy, gladness, transport, ecstacy! Fired with the view of this transcendent happiness and triumphant in hope, these noble privileges of a Christian, how is it possible to forbear crying out O Death, why art thou so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of thy chariot?

“To that Supreme Being, whose treasures and goodness are thus infinite and inexhaustible, be all honour and glory for ever. Amen.”