Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/474

458 him pecuniary aid for his researches, and to Humboldt, after the glacier campaign of 1841 had ended, he addressed a private note, mentioning among other things his having seen the veins. I make no attempt at excusing his omission of the name of Forbes from this note; but, taking every thing into account, the sin of omission does not seem very heinous. Its effect upon Prof. Forbes shall be described by himself.

For nearly a month Prof. Forbes had shared the shelter of Agassiz's roof, and wandered with him among scenes of unsurpassed grandeur. He had found in his host "noble ardor, generous friendship, unvarying good temper, and true hospitality." It is upon the man thus described by himself that Prof. Forbes turns in this fierce way, for the mere omission of his name. It grieves me to say a word which could be interpreted as severe to a dead man; but the comparisons drawn by his panegyrist compel me to state that, among the eminent men whom it is my privilege to call my friends, there is not one to whom such an explosion of resentment for so purely personal—I had almost said paltry—a cause would be even approximately possible. I charge him with nothing consciously unfair; but from a man so hot in the assertion of his "claims," so sensitive to public recognition, and so free in the use of hard words, these interminable discussions run as naturally as rivers from their water-shed.

With more time at my disposal I should probably enter more fully into these matters; but this and my former article, taken in conjunction with the "Forms of Water," in which, even to the ignoring of myself, I desire to do justice both to Agassiz and Forbes, and the pages referred to in the "Glaciers of the Alps," will have so far cleared a dusty atmosphere as to enable any really earnest reader to see the bearings of this question. It now only rests with me to give some samples of those "terrible" and "tremendous" words to which Prof. Tait has referred, and which Prof. George Forbes has thought fit to