1911] Brainerd,— Cyrus Guernsey Pringle 231 
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year of his life he added over 20,000 specimens, and the total number 
is now said to be about 155,000. No nobler monument can be erected 
to his memory than the one he has himself built in ‘The Pringle 
Herbarium.’ 
Aside from his professional career, Mr. Pringle’s personal character 
was unusually striking and attractive. He was so retiring that many 
of his acquaintances failed to understand him. His diffidence and 
shyness seemed to grow upon him till the last, as he became more and 
more absorbed in his work of collecting, and in his ambition to build 
up a great herbarium. To Mr. C. R. Orcutt, who had travelled with 
him in Mexico, and in recent years wrote him for data concerning his 
life, he replied, “I decided that it was hardly possible for me to comply 
with your request. It would be too painful to write my autobiography. 
Shyness has become habitual with me. Besides my aversion to 
publicity, I am too busy to write much.” His great modesty is 
shown in the fact, that though he collected thousands of new species, 
and often confidently recognized them as new, he was never disposed 
to publish a single species on his own authority. 
Mr. Pringle always led the ‘simple life,’ but naturally, without 
affectation. Epicurean pleasures never tempted him; he was as 
innocent of them as a child. He had no use for tea, coffee, or alco- 
holic beverages. After the death of his mother he prepared his own 
meals, whether in Mexico or Vermont, his diet consisting chiefly of 
bread, milk, eggs, cheese, and fruit. His dress he chose with regard 
to comfort and durability, rather than with regard to fashion. But 
he was not lacking in esthetic taste; neatness and cleanliness he 
ranked among the virtues. Nothing gave him more joy than a beau- 
tiful landscape, or a plant in full bloom or in ideal fruitage. In the 
preparation and mounting of a botanical specimen he was as much 
an artist as a scientist. But the fashions and conventionalities of social 
life he did not understand, nor care to understand. 
Mr. Pringle was an extremely conscientious man. His private 
journal during his three months of torture in the army reveals very 
clearly the working of a deeply religious mind, keenly sensitive to the 
claims of duty, and backed up by an indomitable will. In later life 
his religious sentiments were less apparent; but his sense of honor was 
always most delicate, and his conduct towards his fellowmen thor- 
oughly upright and free from all guile. 
But the greatest charm in Mr. Pringle’s character was in his kind- 
