Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence | Page 9

I know these gentlemen better, I will tell you more about them. I have still to describe my home, chamber, garden, people of the house, etc.
The next letter fills in this frame-work.
TO HIS FATHER.
HEIDELBERG, May 24, 1826.
. . .According to your request, I am going to write you all possible details about my host, the employment of my time, etc., etc. Mr.--, my "philister," is a tobacco merchant in easy circumstances, having a pretty house in the faubourg of the city. My windows overlook the town, and my prospect is bounded by a hill situated to the north of Heidelberg. At the back of the house is a large and fine garden, at the foot of which is a very pretty summer-house. There are also several clumps of trees in the garden, and an aviary filled with native birds. . .
Since each day in term time is only the repetition of every other, the account of one will give an idea of all, especially as I follow with regularity the plan of study I have formed. Every morning I rise at six o'clock, dress, and breakfast. At seven I go to my lectures, given during the morning in the Museum building, next to which is the anatomical laboratory. If, in the interval, I have a free hour, as sometimes happens from ten to eleven, I occupy it in making anatomical preparations. I shall tell you more of that and of the Museum another time. From twelve to one I practice fencing. We dine at about one o'clock, after which I walk till two, when I return to the house and to my studies till five o'clock. From five to six we have a lecture from the renowned Tiedemann. After that, I either take a bath in the Neckar or another walk. From eight to nine I resume my special work, and then, according to my inclination, go to the Swiss club, or, if I am tired, to bed. I have my evening service and talk silently with you, believing that at that hour you also do not forget your Louis, who thinks always of you. . .As soon as I know, for I cannot yet make an exact estimate, I will write you as nearly as possible what my expenses are likely to be. Sometimes there may be unlooked-for expenditures, as, for instance, six crowns for a matriculation paper. But be assured that at all events I shall restrict myself to what is absolutely necessary, and do my best to economize. The same of the probable duration of my stay in Heidelberg; I shall certainly not prolong it needlessly. . .
Now for the first time the paths of the two brothers separated, Auguste returning from Zurich to Neuchatel, where he entered into business. It chanced, however, that in one of the first acquaintances made by Louis in Heidelberg he found not only a congenial comrade, but a friend for life, and in after years a brother. Professor Tiedemann, by whom Agassiz had been so kindly received, recommended him to seek the acquaintance of young Alexander Braun, an ardent student, and an especial lover of botany. At Tiedemann's lecture the next day Agassiz's attention was attracted by a young man who sat next him, and who was taking very careful notes and illustrating them. There was something very winning in his calm, gentle face, full of benevolence and intelligence. Convinced by his manner of listening to the lecture and transcribing it that this was the student of whom Tiedemann had spoken, Agassiz turned to his neighbor as they both rose at the close of the hour, and said, "Are you Alex Braun?" "Yes, and you, Louis Agassiz?" It seems that Professor Tiedemann, who must have had a quick eye for affinities in the moral as well as in the physical world, had said to Braun also, that he advised him to make the acquaintance of a young Swiss naturalist who had just come, and who seemed full of enthusiasm for his work. The two young men left the lecture-room together, and from that time their studies, their excursions, their amusements, were undertaken and pursued in each other's company. In their long rambles, while they collected specimens in their different departments of Natural History, Braun learned zoology from Agassiz, and he, in his turn, learned botany from Braun. This was, perhaps, the reason why Alexander Braun, afterward Director of the Botanical Gardens in Berlin, knew more of zoology than other botanists, while Agassiz himself combined an extensive knowledge of botany with his study of the animal kingdom. That the attraction was mutual may be seen by the following extract from a letter of Alexander Braun to his father.
BRAUN To HIS FATHER.
HEIDELBERG, May 12, 1826.
. . .In my leisure hours, between the forenoon