Lesley.] Kin [November 6, 1868. 



not only the most healthy enjoyment of every object in nature, 

 but that power of a cultivated imagination which transforms 

 objects of sensible perception into s^-mbols of thought and feel- 

 ing. In times of trouble and personal sorrow he drew consola- 

 tion and acquired new fortitude from the mute phantasmagoria 

 of the earth and air ; that pantomimic drama, where every scene 

 infolds some esoteric mysteiy, only to be interpreted by those 

 who have passed through the initiations. 



His remarkable powers of conversation are known to all his 

 acquaintances. He seemed to have read every book, to have 

 known personally every representative man of the da}', to have 

 traveled through all the regions of modern knowledge. He nar- 

 rated, and he argued, with equal perspicacity of view, purity of 

 language, precision of details, and fulness of illustration ; and 

 perhaps no better conclusion to this slight sketch of his life and 

 character can be made than by quoting what one of the most 

 distinguished and one of the most temperately judicious of his 

 fellow members in this Society said of him, after his death : " In 

 all the world I have never met any one having the same extent 

 and variety of knowledge, who had at the same time such accu- 

 racy and precision of knowledge." 



Time enough has elapsed to enable us to estimate and lament 

 his loss to us in this Hall ; for he was preeminently one of those 

 who kept alive the spirit of this Society; relieving our meetings 

 of that stiflhess and barrenness, which it always proves so diffi- 

 cult a task to remedy, where a few onl}^ assemble, periodically, 

 not to relate their personal experimental discoA'cries, but to lis- 

 ten to the more general conclusions of philosophic thought. 

 Nothing but the leading intelligence of a vivacious, enthusi- 

 astic, fearless, general scholar can save such meetings from de- 

 generating into a dry observance of parliamentary forms, op- 

 pressed by the ennui of a constrained, cold silence, or the still 

 less endurable ennui of a pseudo-scientific gossip in which 

 everything is crudely said or timorously hinted at. It is not 

 too much to affirm that the new life which this Societj' has be- 

 gun to exhibit, is greatly due to the cultivated mental activity, 

 the eloquent speech, the administrative ability, and the enthusi- 

 astic interest in everything occurring within these walls, cease- 

 lessly exhibited by William Parker Foulke. 



