apable
of; and without impatience, without restlessness, he awaited the future,
consoling himself with the sentiment he expresses so well in the
following sentence:--"What can be said of those beardless poets who dare
to sing at that age, when, if they were true poets, they would not have
too much in their whole being with which to _feel_, and to inhale
silently, those perfumes which later only they may know how to diffuse
in their verse? There are precocious mathematicians; but precocious
poets--_never_."

Toepffer was right. Life is the true poet. Its teachings drop in tears,
and the heart receives them kneeling, and is in no hurry to babble to
the world all their silent beauty.

If Toepffer studied, it was not alone. He had devoted himself to the
serious task of education. His pupils, mostly the sons of wealthy
Englishmen and Russians, together with a few lads from France, Italy,
and America, served only to widen his family circle. His relation to
them was charming. As an authority, he used the most winning persuasion.
He respected the mental individuality even of a child, and would use
his admirable tact in kindly encouraging every indication of talent,
which, from want of a sufficient self-reliance or of a timely care, was
hiding itself. Year after year, in vacation-time, Toepffer left the
city with his thirty or forty young companions, and with them he
travelled on foot through the mountains and around the lakes of
Switzerland,--sometimes pushing in the track of Agassiz over glacier
billows, sometimes wandering far down upon the fertile plains of
Lombardy and Venetia. These were always most delightful excursions, when
the ordinary halt became a common enjoyment, not only from the
fun-loving spirit of the master, but also for the promise of future
illustrations. After the return home, during the long winter evenings,
Toepffer took either his pen or his pencil, and, with his pupils,
re-gathered from their memoranda and drawings their summer impressions
and adventures. Then he made his paper laugh with the spirited and
piquant sketches which all know who have peeped into the "Voyages en
Zig-Zag." Thus his fireside amusements have become those of the world.
The "Voyages en Zig-Zag," before his death, were already classic in
France. The richest luxury of type, paper, and illustration has not been
spared, and edition after edition is scattered in Europe from the Neva
to the Tagus. In the "Voyages" we find the most cor