SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY. 531 



One would naturally suppose that what has gone before at least 

 fully described a single man; indeed, it relates enough to fill the life- 

 time of two or three men; yet it by no means adequately goes to make 

 the full picture. I have alluded above to his having been an omniv- 

 orous reader, but this is too general an expression to give any idea of 

 the extent of his literary cultivation. He knew the German classics, 

 but had, like many men of his generation, an especial fondness for 

 Heinrich Heine. It is not too much to say that he knew everything 

 good in English, though he had some special interests and had become 

 an ardent Borrovian. He personally owned a considerable selection 

 of the original manuscript of George Borrow^, and aided in the prep- 

 aration of the Life of Borrow, by Knapp, visiting him at Oxford and 

 furnishing suggestions and information for this interesting work. 

 The history of England and, even more, the history of France en- 

 gaged his attention. He was at one period of his life an ardent 

 admirer of Thomas Carlyle, whose personal acquaintance he enjoyed, 

 and it is not impossible that from him he acquired a sort of method 

 of historical reading, for he looked to men rather than to documents 

 of the periods as furnishing the keynotes for the progress of nations. 

 Leonardo da Vinci, and Cromwell, and Frederick the Great, and 

 Louis XIV, and Xapoleon, and Lincoln were some of the men about 

 whom he had read everything available to the student, and he had 

 gone deepl}^ into the memoirs of their resjjective periods, more espe- 

 cially, however, the French memoirs, with which he had an acquaint- 

 ance that might have been envied by a professional historical student. 

 He was especially interested in the problems of the soul, and studied 

 the metaphysicians and the modern psychologists, and was himself 

 associated with societies for psychical research, and personally en- 

 gaged in the examination of spirit mediums, though never with satis- 

 faction to this keen observer. He knocked hard and loud at the door 

 which leads to knowledge of the soul, for it seemed to have been one 

 of the necessities of this great mind that it should attempt all the 

 difficult problems which were offered to human observation or curi- 

 osity. He loved to talk with men possessed of positive religious 

 views upon their own beliefs, and had a deep interest in a Jesuit, or 

 a Jew, or a Buddhist, or a Mohammedan, or, indeed, any man who 

 thought he had secured the truth and knew the way of life in this 

 world and the world to come. His paper on " The laws of nature " 

 is a very significant contribution from this point of view. 



He was probabl}^ less understood upon his personal side than any 

 other. When I came here to live in 1892 I remember that Mr, 

 Goode said to me once that Mr. Langley was a very reserved man 

 and a very lonely one, and that though it might be difficult to gain 

 his friendship the effort was Avell worth the making. I do not know 

 that I did make a conscious effort. In my then position as librarian 



