4 o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



thought and diction rendered his papers profoundly suggestive to 

 other workers." 



" The last years of the master's life," his German eulogist says, 

 " were often troubled by illness, but there were not wanting bright 

 days which the love of his students and colleagues prepared for 

 him." Such a one was the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniver- 

 sary of his professorship at Bonn, June 1, 1892, in which the students 

 and officers participated with cordial unanimity. The ceremony be- 

 gan in the morning with an enthusiastic ovation by the students. 

 The chemical theater was decorated with plants; the benzene hexa- 

 gon was figured on the blackboard with garlands of flowers, in the 

 midst of which the letters A. K. were wrought in a monogram of 

 roses. Alfred Helle, one of the chemical students, delivered a 

 felicitous address, in which he congratulated his fellow-students on 

 being privileged to sit at the feet of the greatest of living chemists, 

 after which three cheers were given to the professor. Kekule re- 

 sponded to the offering in an address giving some of the details of his 

 life, from which we have already quoted. Kekule's personal staff 

 and the officers of the university then presented their congratulations. 



In the evening the students honored him with a torchlight pro- 

 cession, it being the third time he had received this, the most con- 

 spicuous honor which is bestowed by German students. The first 

 occasion was in 1875, when he declined the professorship at Munich; 

 the second was in 1878, when he was rector of the university, and 

 was given in celebration of the restoration of unity among the stu- 

 dents, after a long period of disunion. Among the torchbearers on 

 that occasion was the present Emperor of Germany. 



During the later period of his life Kekule was comparatively 

 sterile. Those who knew him, however, Professor Thorpe says, 

 " would be the first to affirm that this seeming apathy sprang from no 

 natural indifference. There is no doubt that he suffered, even in 

 the early period of middle life, from the intense stress and strain of 

 his mental labors prior to the Ghent period. He too surely exem- 

 plified the sad truth of Liebig's saying that he who would become a 

 great chemist must pay for his pre-eminence by the sacrifice of his 

 health. There is reason to know that it was the consciousness of fail- 

 ing power which prevented him from finishing much to which he 

 had put his hand, and that his fastidiousness and his sense of ' finish,' 

 amounting almost to hypercriticism, restrained him from publishing 

 much which he realized fell short of his ideal." 



The last time Kekule's name was brought before the public was 

 on the occasion of the renewal of the ancient title of nobility of his 

 family, as August Kekule von Stradowitz. 





