A MEMOIR OF ELIAS LOOMIS. 761 



this was mainly due to a[)pearances only. The tear would at times 

 come unbidden to his eye. His corresi)()ndence with his class-mates in 

 the years immediately following graduation shows warm interest in all 

 that concerned them. From Hudson he wrote often to Mr. Herrick, 

 and complained much of isolation, but more especially of isolation from 

 scientific companions and books. 



In 1840, he married Miss Julia E. Upson, of Talmailge, Ohio, a ladj- 

 about whom those who knew her have spoken to me only in terms of 

 praise, and for whose memory Professor Loomis cherished a tender rev- 

 erence. She died in 1854, leaving two sons. From this time Professor 

 Loomis lived in apartments, surrounded by his books and devoted to 

 his studies. His sons, after passing their school and college days, went 

 to their own fields of work. During many years of his New Haven life 

 he was unable to receive visitors in the evening. He made very few 

 new friends, and one after another of his old ones passed away. To 

 his work he was able to give undivided his time and his strength. His 

 mind did not seem to require the excitementof social intercourse for its 

 full and healthful activity. Isolated though he was there was in him 

 no trace whatever of selfish or morbid feeling. In council his advice 

 was always marked by his clear judgment of what was important, and 

 at the same time what was practicable. Whatever he himself had the 

 right to decide was promptly deci<led by a yes or no, and few persons 

 cared to question the finality of his decision. But when his colleagues, 

 or others, had the right to decide he accepted their decision without 

 questioning or subsequent murmur. Upon being told that his letters to 

 Mr. Herrick had come to the college library, and that he could, if he 

 chose, examine them and see whether there were among them any which 

 he would prefer not to leave in this quasi i)ublic place, he promptly re- 

 plied : " ]Slo, I never wrote a letter which I should be ashamed to see 

 published." 



After coming to New York he had a generous income from his books, 

 besides his salary as professor. The amount he saved from his income 

 was carefully and prudently invested, and before his death the savings 

 with their accumulations were a large estate ; how large only he and 

 his banker knew. 



One of his college classmates told me that Mr. Loomis left college 

 with the definitely expressed |)urpose that the world should be better 

 for his living in it. The central proposition in his inaugural address 

 at Hudson in 1838 was : "That it is essential to the best interests of 

 society that there should be a certain class of men devoted exclusively^ 

 to the cultivation of abstract science without any regard to its practical 

 applications; and consequently that such men instead of being thought 

 a dead weight upon society, are to be ranked among the greatest bene- 

 factors of their race." He chose this for his principal work for man, 

 and he steadily kept to the chosen work. To establish an astronomi- 

 cal observatory had been through life a cherished object. He entered 



