about
anything as freely as if he were my brother.

He took my scolding in good part, and was evidently ashamed of his
conduct, though too proud to say so. He wanted to know, however, what he
had best do about the matter. I advised him to do nothing, but to let
the affair drop, and never make any allusion to it; and I believe he
followed my advice. At all events, he was soon again on good terms with
the gentleman he had challenged.

I spent several hours with Gurowski on this occasion, and, as we both at
that time had ample leisure, we soon grew intimate, and fell into the
habit of passing a large part of the day together. For a long period I
was accustomed to visit him every day at his lodgings, generally in the
morning, while he came almost every afternoon to my house. He had a good
deal of wit, but little humor, and did not relish badinage. His chief
delight was in serious discussions on questions of politics, history, or
theology, on which he would talk all day with immense erudition and a
wonderful flow of "the best broken English that ever was spoken." He was
well read in Egyptology and in mediaeval history, and had a wide general
knowledge of the sciences, without special familiarity with any except
jurisprudence. He disdained the details of the natural sciences, and
despised their professors, whose pursuits seemed to him frivolous. He
was jealous of Agassiz, and of the fame and influence he had attained in
this country, and was in the habit of spitefully asserting that the
Professor spoke bad French, and was a mere icthyologist, who would not
dare in Europe to set up as an authority in so many sciences as he did
here. Even the amiable Professor Guyot, the most unassuming man in the
world, who then lived in Cambridge, was also an object of this paltry
jealousy. "How finely Guyot humbugs you Americans with his slops,"
Gurowski said to me one day. I replied that "slops" was a very unworthy
and offensive word to apply to the productions of a man like Guyot, who
certainly was of very respectable standing in his department of physical
geography. "O bah! bah! you do not understand," exclaimed Gurowski. "I
do not mean the slops of the kitchen, but the slops of the
continent,--the slops and indentations which he talks so much about."
_Slopes_ was, of course, the word he meant to use; and the incident may
serve as a good illustration of the curious infelicities of English with
which his conversation teemed.

But the tr