Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, third edition

[198] but I am too little French by character, and too anxious to live in Switzerland, not to prefer the place you can offer me, however small the appointments, if they do but keep me above actual embarrassment. I say thus much only in order to answer that clause in your letter where you touch upon this question. I would add that I leave the field quite free in this respect, and that I am yours without reserve, if, indeed, within the fortnight, the urgency of the Parisians does not carry the day, or, rather, as soon as I write you that I have been able finally to withdraw. You easily understand that I cannot bluntly decline offers which seem to those who make them so brilliant. But I shall hold out against them to the utmost. My course with reference to my own publications will have shown you that I do not care for a lucrative position from personal interest; that, on the contrary, I should always be ready to use such means as I may have at my disposition for the advancement of the institution confided to my care.

My work will still detain me for four or five months at Paris,—my time being after that completely at my disposal. The period at which I should like to begin my lectures is therefore very near, and I think if your people